Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

Sociology 147
riage is bound to be an important step of adult socialization. Spouses must learn
to adjust to their partners. Most of the evidence of change in life patterns is indirect.
Thus, VincentZ23 shows that young married couples change their scores on
tests of dominance and self-acceptance as a consequence of marriage. The shift
is greatest with those who marry at an early age. A control group of single individuals
did not exhibit such changes over a comparable time period.
Childbearing is another important stage in adult socialization, as new parents
must learn to act as teachers and models of behaviour. Little concrete literature
exists on this point. Perhaps this is the place to refer to an unusual book by
Tornanzz4 who developed a kind of family calculus, by classifyingpeople according
to birth position within their families. From this he attempted to predict
the success of their marriages: e.g., the man who grew up with a younger sister
did best with a younger wife who grew up with an older brother. Goode has
pointed out that divorce raises especially complex socialization problems for
women; few norms are established for their social and sexual conduct.ZZ5
The next life phase, which is well documented is the phase of retirement.
Because of the continuous lengthening of physical life beyond the age of accepted
occupational employment, this topic has received extensive attention. It is
impossible to review this vast literature and the controversies around the problem
of how to utilize older people and how to make retirement productive.
Fortunately, an Austrian scholar has provided a good review of the pertinent
studies.zz6 To add a somewhat macabre note, the last stage of adult socialization,
death, has also been the subject of at least one study done jointly by a
sociologist and a social psychologist.zz7
Some final comments refer to the efforts to provide a.theoretica1 foundation
for the activities of adult socialization. The oldest and purely psychological
approach stems from Charlotte Buhler, who in 1932, wrote a book on human
life as a psychological problem.zz8 She had studied the stages by which children
learnt to cope with their physical environment and the social beings surrounding
them. Her intention was to project these findings to their lives as adults. How
long was an individual solely concerned with expanding his sphere of activity?
When did he begin to review his life in terms of its meaning for him? When did
he reach the point of retrenchment and ha1 accounting? Her raw materials
were published biographies, but many of her students moved into such interesting
byways as interviews with inmates of old-age homes or the correspondence
of public figures at the peak of their careers.
An approach closely related to sociology views adult socialization as the
changes that take place in people as they move through various institutional
settings. In new situations we meet new people who have different expectations
about us; we are confronted with new requirements to which we must adjust.
The task of research is to study in detail how any social organization, of whatever
size or complexity, has effects on the selves of those who work in it.ZZQ
Examples especially enlightening for Western readers are likely to come from
countries with unusual social combinations or where rapid social change occurs.
In Japan, according to de Vos, the need for achievement is not related to a
striving for personal success but rather to a strong feeling of solidarity with the