How Far and in What Ways Is Human Behaviour Influenced by Socialisation?
Socialisation is the ways in which people learn how to act in accordance with current social norms and values. Human behaviour is influenced by socialisation in as much as we are taught from a very early age that certain actions are acceptable in society and certain actions are not. For example young children are taught to use the potty instead of excreting faecal matter onto the floor. Socialisation is all around us, from our peers to our parents, but just how far is human behaviour actually influenced by these agents of socialisation?
The best way to find out whether humans are affected by socialisation at all and to what extent, is to find a control for this test. However, no human being can be totally void of any socialisation. The closest case to this control is feral children. This uncommon phenomenon is when a child, for whatever reason, has been abandoned by their parents and has been left in the care of animals. Such cases include “The Portuguese Chicken Girl”, “The German Dog-Boy” and two Indian sisters that were raised by wolves. In the latter, two sisters were abandoned by their mother at birth and left to fend for themselves in the jungle. They were picked up and cared for by wolves. These girls had no idea of how to smile, cry, communicate in speech or even recognise humans. This shows quite clearly that even the basics of what we humans perceived to be present at birth is actually learnt through socialisation. However, new evidence shows that babies do smile and even cry in the womb, meaning that these feral children may be born with these innate behavioural patterns pre-programmed into them, but after living alongside the animals for a period of time they are socialised to ignore these emotions.
The case study above is part of a wider debate known as the ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate. This discussion has two opposing views, with sociologists on one hand and socio-biologists and biologists on the other. Genetics plays a large part in this
The best way to find out whether humans are affected by socialisation at all and to what extent, is to find a control for this test. However, no human being can be totally void of any socialisation. The closest case to this control is feral children. This uncommon phenomenon is when a child, for whatever reason, has been abandoned by their parents and has been left in the care of animals. Such cases include “The Portuguese Chicken Girl”, “The German Dog-Boy” and two Indian sisters that were raised by wolves. In the latter, two sisters were abandoned by their mother at birth and left to fend for themselves in the jungle. They were picked up and cared for by wolves. These girls had no idea of how to smile, cry, communicate in speech or even recognise humans. This shows quite clearly that even the basics of what we humans perceived to be present at birth is actually learnt through socialisation. However, new evidence shows that babies do smile and even cry in the womb, meaning that these feral children may be born with these innate behavioural patterns pre-programmed into them, but after living alongside the animals for a period of time they are socialised to ignore these emotions.
The case study above is part of a wider debate known as the ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate. This discussion has two opposing views, with sociologists on one hand and socio-biologists and biologists on the other. Genetics plays a large part in this