Chapter 3
-Human nature
-Feral children
-could not speak, bit, scratched, growled, and walked on all fours, ate grass, were
insensitive to pain and cold
-1789: Scientist in France took feral child to lab
-Isolated children
-able to conclude that humans have no natural language
-Institutionalized children
-had low IQs and difficulty forming close bonds with others
-began to suspect a social cause for mental retardation, did experiment, but those who
were cared for improved their IQ and control group worsened, therefore, high
intelligence is based on close relations with other humans
-early interaction with others is necessary to establish intelligence and the ability to
form close bonds later on
-Deprived Animals
-in experiment, when scared, monkeys went to terry-cloth mother not feeding wire
mother
-intimate physical contact results in mother-child bonding
-the longer the period of isolation, the more difficult its effects are to overcome
-society makes us human
-babies do not develop naturally into human adults
-it’s through human contact that people learn to be member of the human community.
-socialization: process in which society makes us human
-Socialization into the Self and Mind
-Charles Cooley (looking glass self)
-our sense of self develops from interaction with others
Each to each a looking-glass
Reflects the other that doth pass
-The looking glass contains three elements:
-We imagine how we appear to those around us
-We interpret others’ reactions
-We develop a self concept
-we continually modify the self
-Mead (role taking)
-children attain the ability to take the role of another gradually
-at first, only able to take the role of significant others (parents, siblings)
-as self develops, children internalize the expectations of more and more people
-Three stages
-Imitation: under three, mimic others—gestures and words
-Play: three to six, pretend to take the roles of specific people
-Games: organized play or team games begin, able to take multiple roles
