Principles of sociology - University of London International ...

21 Principles of sociology
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In short, even the ideas we have about ourselves as individual people
– such as whether we think we are intelligent or stupid, attractive or
unattractive, fat or thin, outgoing or shy – arise from social relationships
and socially accepted norms and standards. When we think about what we
are, we compare ourselves with these social norms. How do we match up?
We also monitor other people’s reactions to us in daily life. How do others
see us? This in turn may influence our behaviour in all sorts of ways. For
example, we may try to make ourselves more clever, more assertive, or
more sociable and outgoing. Or we may go the other way and accept that
we can never be any of these things and adjust our behaviour accordingly,
perhaps by not working in class, or not trying to make friends.
Activity 1.9 Personal identity
Look at your list. Did you put in any of these more personal characteristics?
• If so, ask yourself why you think you have developed this view of yourself.
• What do you think have been some of the most important influences on the way
you see yourself?
• Are there any particular incidents that stand out as being particularly important?
• Also ask yourself how much the social expectations and the reactions of other
people influence your behaviour.
Summary
Here we have asked you to describe yourself as a person and illustrated
just how much of ‘yourself’, your ethnicity, gender, occupation and
personal qualities are influenced by the society in which you live. For
sociologists, individuals and societies are inseparable. You cannot
understand one without the other.
Further reading
Berger (1963) Chapter 5.
1.7 Socialisation and identity
The previous section illustrated just how much your life as an individual
is bound up with the social contexts in which you live. In this section we
shall introduce some sociological concepts, and theories that help describe
and explain this process further.
Socialisation
We observed in the last section that a key sociological problem is the
relation between the individual and society. But how does this arise?
In very general terms, we are all born into societies where there are
already established patterns of organised behaviour that we referred to
earlier as social institutions, such as speaking a particular language
or organising ourselves into small groups called families. Sociologists use
the term institutionalisation to describe the processes whereby these
social practices become accepted ways of doing things in a society or social
group. These social practices, and the values and beliefs surrounding
them, make up the culture of a society, or sub-culture of a social group
and, as we saw in the previous section, these cultural practices and values
place expectations on how people should behave.