Socialisation: Concept, Types and Stage

It is the process of adaptation. It is the process by which new employees attempt to learn and inculcate the norms and values of work roles in an organization. Learning and inculcating the norms and values of work group are necessary for proper adjustment and job performance.

Socialisation is a comprehensive process. According to Horton and Hunt, Socialisation is the process whereby one internalises the norms of his groups, so that a distinct ‘self emerges, unique to this individual.

Through the process of socialisation, the individual becomes a social person and attains his personality. Green defined socialisation “as the process by which the child acquires a cultural content, along with selfhood and personality”.

According to Lundberg, socialisation consists of the “complex processes of interaction through which the individual learns the habits, skills, beliefs and standard of judgement that are necessary for his effective participation in social groups and communities”.

Peter Worsley explains socialisation “as the process of “transmission of culture, the process whereby men learn the rules and practices of social groups”.

H.M. Johnson defines socialisation as “learning that enables the learner to perform social roles”. He further says that it is a “process by which individuals acquire the already existing culture of groups they come into”.

The heart of socialisation”, to quote kingsley Davis.” is the emergence and gradual development of the self or ego. It is in terms of the self that personality takes shape and the mind comes to function”. It is the process by which the newborn individual, as he grows up, acquires the values of the group and is moulded into a social being.

Socialisation takes place at different stages such as primary, secondary and adult. The primary stage involves the socialisation of the young child in the family. The secondary stage involves the school and the third stage is adult socialisation.

Socialisation is, thus, a process of cultural learning whereby a new person acquires necessary skills and education to play a regular part in a social system. The process is essentially the same in all societies, though institutional arrangements vary. The process continues throughout life as each new situation arises. Socialization is the process of fitting individuals into particular forms of group life, transforming human organism into social being sand transmitting established cultural traditions.

• Socialization is based on several assumptions
• New employee suffer from anxiety and require adjustment.
• Socialization strongly affects employee programme and stability of organization.

Types of Socialisation

Although socialisation occurs during childhood and adolescence, it also continues in middle and adult age. Orville F. Brim (Jr) described socialisation as a life-long process. He maintains that socialisation of adults differ from childhood socialisation. In this context it can be said that there are various types of socilisation.

1. Primary Socialisation

Primary socialisation refers to socialisation of the infant in the primary or earliest years of his life. It is a process by which the infant learns language and cognitive skills, internalises norms and values. The infant learns the ways of a given grouping and is moulded into an effective social participant of that group.

The norms of society become part of the personality of the individual. The child does not have a sense of wrong and right. By direct and indirect observation and experience, he gradually learns the norms relating to wrong and right things. The primary socialisation takes place in the family.

2. Secondary Socialisation

The process can be seen at work outside the immediate family, in the ‘peer group’. The growing child learns very important lessons in social conduct from his peers. He also learns lessons in the school. Hence, socialisation continues beyond and outside the family environment. Secondary socialisation generally refers to the social training received by the child in institutional or formal settings and continues throughout the rest of his life.

3. Adult Socialisation

In the adult socialisation, actors enter roles (for example, becoming an employee, a husband or wife) for which primary and secondary socialisation may not have prepared them fully. Adult socialisation teaches people to take on new duties. The aim of adult socialisation is to bring change in the views of the individual. Adult socialisation is more likely to change overt behaviour, whereas child socialisation moulds basic values.

4. Anticipatory Socialisation

Anticipatory socialisation refers to a process by which men learn the culture of a group with the anticipation of joining that group. As a person learns the proper beliefs, values and norms of a status or group to which he aspires, he is learning how to act in his new role.

5. Re-socialisation

Re-Socialisation refers to the process of discarding former behaviour patterns and accepting new ones as part of a transition in one’s life. Such re-socialisation takes place mostly when a social role is radically changed. It involves abandonment of one way of life for another which is not only different from the former but incompatible with it. For example, when a criminal is rehabilitated, he has to change his role radically.

Stages of Socialisation

1. Pre arrival stage

It recognizes that all the new recruits arrive in the organization with a set of values, norms, expectations and learning. This includes both the work to be done and the organization. For example in a business schools, student acquire certain idea’s regarding the nature of their future jobs, pay packages, and carrier progress. At the recruitment stage many organizations give job preview which helps the prospective employees to learn more about the job and the organization.

2. Encounter stage

When the new employees join the organization, he encounter the realities of the situation in term of his job, work culture, subordinates and peer’s. if the expectations of the individual are in the tune with the organizational realities, he adapt organization quickly. On the other hand, if there is a marked difference between expectations and realities, socialization is essential to replace his previous assumptions with realities. At the other extreme, the individual cannot recognize with the values and norms of the organization and quits the job.

3. Metamorphosis stage

In this stage, the new employee acquire the skills require to adjust with the values and norms of the organization. He brings necessary change in his attitude and role behaviour to suit the organization’s culture. Such changes make the employee self confident and he feels accepted by other member’s of the organization. The completion of socialization process is characterized by fellings.

Theories of Socialisation

1. Development of Self and Personality

Personality takes shape with the emergence and development of the ‘self’. The emergence of self takes place in the process of socialisation whenever the individual takes group values.

The self, the core of personality, develops out of the child’s interaction with others. A person’s ‘self is what he consciously and unconsciously conceives himself to be. It is the sum total of his perceptions of himself and especially, his attitudes towards himself. The self may be defined as one’s awareness of and ideas and attitudes about his own personal and social identity. But the child has no self. The self arises in the interplay of social experience, as a result of social influences to which the child, as he grows, becomes subject.

In the beginning of the life of the child there is no self. He is not conscious of himself or others. Soon the infant feels out the limits of the body, learning where its body ends and other things begin. The child begins to recognise people and tell them apart. At about the age of two it begins to use ‘I’ which is a clear sign of definite self-consciousness that he or she is becoming aware of itself as a distinct human being.

Primary groups play crucial role in the formation of the self of the newborn and in the formation of the personality of the newborn as well. It can be stated here that the development of self is rooted in social behaviour and not in biological or hereditary factors.

In the past century sociologists and psychologists proposed a number of theories to explain the concept of self.

There are two main approaches to explain the concept of self – Sociological approach and: Psychological approach.

2. Charles Horton Cooley

Charles Horton Cooley believed, personality arises out of people’s interactions with the world. Cooley used the phrase “Looking Glass Self’ to emphasise that the self is the product of our social interactions with other people.

To quote Cooley, “As we see our face, figure and dress in the glass and are interested in them because they are ours and pleased or otherwise with according as they do or do not answer to what we should like them to be; so in imagination we perceive in another’s mind some thought of our appearance, manners, aims, deeds, character, friends and so on and variously affected by it”.

Features of Socialisation

Socialisation not only helps in the maintenance and preservation of social values and norms but it is the process through which values and norms are transmitted from one generation to another generation.

Features of socialisation may be discussed as under:

1. Inculcates basic discipline

Socialisation inculcates basic discipline. A person learns to control his impulses. He may show a disciplined behaviour to gain social approval.

2. Helps to control human behaviour

It helps to control human behaviour. An individual from birth to death undergoes training and his, behaviour is controlled by numerous ways. In order to maintain the social order, there are definite procedures or mechanism in society. These procedures become part of the man’s/life and man gets adjusted to the society. Through socialisation, society intends to control the behaviour of its-members unconsciously.

3. Socialisation is rapid if there is more humanity among the- agencies of socialisation

Socialisation takes place rapidly if the agencies’ of socialisation are more unanimous in their ideas and skills. When there is conflict between the ideas, examples and skills transmitted in home and those transmitted by school or peer, socialisation of the individual tends to be slower and ineffective.

4. Socialisation takes place formally and informally

Formal socialisation takes through direct instruction and education in schools and colleges. Family is, however, the primary and the most influential source of education. Children learn their language, customs, norms and values in the family.

5. Socialisation is continuous process

Socialisation is a life-long process. It does not cease when a child becomes an adult. As socialisation does not cease when a child becomes an adult, internalisation of culture continues from generation to generation. Society perpetuates itself through the internalisation of culture. Its members transmit culture to the next generation and society continues to exist.