A newborn human being has all the biological prerequisites to become a capable participant of social life. Whether these prerequisites are realized and what social qualities they will translate into depends on the environment with which the organism will interact. Outside the social environment, infants do not turn into human beings. Unlike lower mammals, which have innate survival skills, they need the care of others. To develop properly, babies must have stable, loving relationships with adults, especially in the first few years of life. Science has accumulated a wealth of evidence on the fate of children who, for one reason or another, have been excluded from social ties or deprived of parental care, which leads to a clear conclusion about the impact of these circumstances on children’s social skills and their ability to learn. A person is always a socially developed individual.
The process of integrating an individual into society through assimilation of cultural elements, social norms and values, acquisition of knowledge, skills, behavioral skills, formation of social qualities and properties required to perform social roles is called socialization.
Socialization plays a huge role both in the life of society and in the life of an individual. Its success depends on the extent to which the individual will be able to realize his abilities, talents, comfortable and prosperous life in social terms. For society, the success of the socialization process becomes a kind of guarantee that each new generation will be able to take the place of its predecessors in the system of social interactions, to adopt their experience and skills. Thus, socialization, firstly, ensures the self-renewal of social life and, secondly, facilitates the interaction of people with each other through the social roles performed.
There are two phases in socialization: social adaptation and interiorization. Social adaptation is the adaptation of an individual to socio-economic conditions, role functions, social norms, social groups, institutions, organizations that act as a sphere of his life activity.
Interiorization is the process of incorporating social norms and values into the inner world of a person.
Socialization is a continuous process. The foundation for the spiritual development of a person is undoubtedly laid in the early years. This, in particular, explains the special role of the family in the formation of personality, where life teaches the individual the first and most impressive lessons, where the foundations of his spiritual world are laid. If in childhood and adolescence is formed mainly sensual-emotional component of the spiritual world of the individual, purely personal qualities – conscientiousness, honesty, courage, etc. – then, entering adulthood, the individual actively creates a system of its value orientations, political views, trying to realize the meaning of his life.
In modern society, the process of socialization is greatly influenced by mass media, especially television, which largely determine value orientations and patterns of behavior.
To ensure greater reliability and guarantee of the process of socialization of the individual, society resorts to purposeful forms of influence, primarily education. Today, education has acquired the character of an obligatory element of life in a civilized society, implemented in the course of activities of a number of social institutions: family, education, religion, mass media.
Socialization of personality is a very complex process, it involves many driving forces, factors and conditions. To examine this process more clearly, let us turn to an experiment conducted by the famous American psychologist Philip Zimbardo. He persuaded several students to take part in a laboratory experiment that was to be conducted around the clock for two weeks. The students were placed in a prison-like building and divided equally into two groups: “prisoners” and “wardens.” The “wardens” were to maintain order and enforce obedience on the “prisoners,” while the latter were warned that they would indeed be punished if they broke the rules.
On the sixth day the experiment had to be stopped: the “wardens” were treating the “prisoners” more and more cruelly every day, who, in their turn, had established a hierarchy, and those on the lowest rung of the hierarchy were treated so badly by their cellmates that it caused fears for their physical health (mental health was obviously in danger for all members of the experimental group). This experiment allows us to draw the following conclusions. Firstly, a person is “socially responsive”, i.e. responds to the requirements, standards accepted in society.
Secondly, a person develops awareness of his/her “I”, in other words, the ability to perceive himself/herself as an acting person. Thus, a person becomes a person in the process of social interaction with other people. And the interactions (interactions) themselves are influenced by a number of factors. Among them we can name physical features (age, weight, gender) and biological factors (genetically determined properties of a person: instincts, abilities, temperament, etc.). The environment also affects personality: a child raised in hunger and poverty often lags behind in physical or mental development. In many ways, personality is shaped by individual experience. The early death of a parent can plant in the soul of a person afraid to love someone again for fear of losing a loved one.
Another important aspect of personality formation is culture, first of all values and norms, patterns of behavior in various situations.