Introduction
Modern science interprets socialization in different ways, but its content clearly shows two interrelated, although different in nature and manifestations, sides. On the one hand, socialization means the entire flow of external influences on a person that promote their sociality — natural, social, and psychological. From this point of view, the natural socializer is the whole of human social life (OpenStax 53). However, the phenomena of life are ambiguous; among them, there are many undeniably negative ones.
These are the stratification of society, the impoverishment of a part of the population, including young people, dissatisfaction with educational policy, inflation and corruption (Umaña-Taylor and Hill 265). Negative phenomena such as drug addiction and crime, certain fashion trends and obscene language, aggressiveness and cruelty are often attractive to some young people. The question that worries scientists is how society influences a person and the choice of the most profitable strategy of life in society: adaptation or isolation. Although the influence of society cannot be avoided and adaptation is necessary, isolation is an extremely important process, and the balance of relationships with the community must change at different stages of life.
Adaptation vs Isolation
As a result of this process, a person develops a value, emotional and behavioral anatomy. They stem from a person’s need to have their own views and the presence of such and to have their own attachments (Umaña-Taylor and Hill 253). Scientists propose to establish the boundaries of the influence of these factors depending on the intensity of their impact, the age of a person, their satisfaction with their own life, or according to the principles of cultural or natural conformity.
Possible Balance Factors
Age
The socialization of a person in the modern world, having more or less obvious features in a particular society, in each of them has a number of common or similar characteristics. Childhood is of tremendous meaning for social development, which provides the major building blocks for the construction of a person’s personality (Umaña-Taylor and Hill 263). Discrepancies of socialization formation during this stage can be irreversible a person’s personality, as it is at this stage that person’s own self is built. Adolescence can also be attributed to a primary role since important physiological changes occur during this time.
After the age of 23, the stage of youth begins, flowing into early adulthood, late adulthood, old age, old age and longevity (Umaña-Taylor and Hill 262). Within this timeframe, people are able to adequately set the framework due to the acquired experience. Due to the stages of mental development characteristic of each age, the susceptibility to public opinion and susceptibility to it changes. Therefore, it is necessary to change both the level of isolation and the level of adaptation. Each age period of one’s life contributes to the formation of personality; therefore, it requires a different balance of adaptation and isolation.
The Intensity of The Impact of Socialization Factors
Many components of the person’s environment affect their behavior and perception of the surrounding world. These conditions acting on a person are commonly called factors. In fact, not all of them have been identified, and not all of the known ones have been studied (Saleem and Byrd 1107). By scale, the factors are divided into mega, macro, meso and micro factors. Megafactors are global factors that affect any person: space, Earth, and humanity. In this regard, humanity exercises a global influence on its internal processes, although this influence today is mostly unsystematic. The impact of this group of factors is too large, so it is impossible to regulate it.
Macro factors are a state, a country and a society in the sense of a specific culturally and economically determined community. The country as a concept is mainly geographical defined, in the first approximation, the territory that a person considers as “one’s own”. The state is a political concept; a person acts as an object and subject of civil rights, masters’ forms of legal interaction with other people. Society is a direct participant in human socialization as a source of norms, rules, and attitudes (Saleem and Byrd 1108). The impact of these factors should cause the greatest degree of adaptation.
Among mesofactors are ethnicity, region, kind of settlement, and means of communication, including mass ones. An ethnos as a national-cultural community is a carrier of traditional values, a genetically determined appearance accepted as the norm. The region of residence contributes to the formation of human interaction with specific phenomena of living and inanimate nature. The type of settlement mainly influences the formation of the nature of interaction with living and inanimate nature, the technosphere (Wang et al. 20). Microfactors of socialization include school, family, peer circle, and so on. According to sociologists, the greatest degree of isolation can be applied to the factors of this group.
The parental family is crucial in the formation of the emotional world, self-awareness and moral foundations of the individual in the first years of life. If it is not done or done poorly, it is extremely difficult to make up for the loss (Wang et al. 22). Later, especially in adolescence, parental attention noticeably weakens, giving way to other factors such as school and peers. Then the higher degree of autonomization can be acquired.
Life Satisfaction
Environmental influences may be realized or not, leave a more or less deep trace, cover wide or narrow spheres of life, etc., but they exist. It is impossible to foresee the entire complex range of such effects, but it is impossible not to know the nature of those phenomena that are most important for a particular person. At the same time, a person may experience frustration not so much from the conditions in which they live, but from the thought that they can achieve more. Sometimes mental stress is relieved by abandoning competing values and, as a consequence, by a violation of the balance in the direction of adaptation (Umaña-Taylor and Hill 257). For example, in modern society, young people can focus on material achievements, sacrificing education.
The other side of socialization is the internal processes taking place in a person: perception, mastering the influences of the environment, and not passive, but active (Saleem and Byrd 1118). It is included in the foundations of consciousness and feelings, values and relationships, behavior and communication style. According to some sociologists, it is this factor – a person’s own comfort – that is leading in establishing «a balance between adaptation and isolation» (Saleem and Byrd 1118). They change in one direction or another under the influence of what a person not only perceives, but also learns.
Naturalness
In contrast to socialization, which has a predominantly spontaneous character, the establishment of a balance between isolation and adaptation is characterized by purposefulness. The process of establishing a balance is to include a person in the system of relations of educational institutions (Saleem and Byrd 1120). There they receive and accumulate knowledge, skills and other elements of social experience necessary for the further implementation of these processes. The principle of conformity to nature is that what is connected with nature cannot be bad or distorted. The main criterion of this principle, according to scientists, is that it should be done on time and on the right development level (OpenStax 54). There should be nothing contrary to human nature in establishing a balance.
Cultural Conformity
The principle of cultural conformity is to establish a balance in the dialogue with the culture accumulated by humanity and above all, with the national culture. There are many (more than 300) very different definitions of culture, but it is important for sociologists to emphasize in the concept of culture its activity character: cultivation means nurturing (Saleem and Byrd 1125). The necessity of this principle is due to the fact that a person is born tabula rasa (from Latin – a blank sheet), they do not inherit the code of social behavior (Umaña-Taylor and Hill 252). Human formation occurs during the dialogue of an individual with the values of material and spiritual culture. In this way, people carry out the continuity of social and spiritual experience.
One of the tasks of establishing a balance between adaptation and isolation is to create or at least contribute to the creation of a socio-cultural environment. The principle of cultural conformity is also realized in overcoming the inhumane tendencies manifested in anti-culture. It means reactionary misanthropic ideas of racial, national, and religious superiority, denying moral norms, vulgarity, legalization of criminal jargon, etc. (OpenStax 53). The implementation of the principle of cultural conformity requires the establishment of a balance in dialogue with national culture.
Conclusion
The degree of readiness of a person to change their behavior and attitudes under the pressure of the majority is always individual. Due to the presence of a large number of different criteria, sociologists still have not reached the amount of consensus regarding the decisive factors. Since an individual is not only an object but also a subject of socialization, the responsibility for setting their own boundaries of adaptation and isolation lies with a particular person.
Works Cited
OpenStax. Introduction to Sociology. XanEdu Publishing Inc, 2021.
Saleem, Farzana, and Christy Byrd. “Unpacking School Ethnic-racial Socialization: A New Conceptual Model.” Journal of Social Issues, vol. 77, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1106-1125.
Umaña-Taylor, Adriana, and Nancy Hill. “Ethnic–Racial Socialization in the Family: A Decade’s Advance on Precursors and Outcomes.” Journal of Marriage and Family, vol. 82, no. 1, 2020, pp. 244-271.
Wang, Ming-Te, et al. “Parental Ethnic-Racial Socialization Practices and Children of Color’s Psychosocial and Behavioral Adjustment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” American Psychologist, vol. 75, no. 1, 2020, pp. 1-22.