raise questions that challenge existing beliefs. Referred to as “epigenetic inheritance,” new studies go against the idea that genetic inheritance comes only from the DNA code of the parent to offspring. The findings suggest that the effects of traumatic parental experiences can be passed on from generation to generation (Thomson 2015).
Researchers in England studied Jews who were traumatized in World War II in concentration camps, by torture or by having to live in hiding from Nazis. They also studied their children, controlling for any traumas the children may have had or the parents may have discussed. They compared this data with Jewish families living outside of Europe during the Holocaust (to see their methodology, go to the article cited nearby). The results show effects of trauma from environmental factors such as torture and confinement in the genes of children of the people who had experienced trauma (Yehuda et al. 2015).
Studies like the one just described show the interconnections between human environment and biology. Most importantly, for sociologists, they show that the impact of environment on people can be passed down to future generations. This makes the need to understand and learn how to positively shape our environment all the more relevant (Sample 2015).
Importance of Socialization
If you have lived on a farm, watched animals in the wild, or seen television nature shows, you probably have noticed that many animal young become independent shortly after birth. Horses are on their feet in a matter of hours, and by the time turtles hatch from eggs, their parents are long gone. Many species in the animal kingdom do not require contact with adults to survive because their behaviors are inborn and instinctual. Generally speaking, the more intelligent the species, the longer the period of gestation and of nutritional and social dependence on the mother and family. Humans clearly take the longest time to socialize their young and to teach them how to survive. Even among primates, human infants have the longest gestation and dependency period, generally 6 to 8 years. Chimpanzees, very similar to humans in their DNA, take only 12 to 28 months (see Table 4.1). This extended dependency period for humans—what some have referred to as the long childhood—allows each human being time to learn the complexities of culture. This suggests that biology and social processes work together.
▼ Table 4.1
Note: Lemurs and monkeys, among the less complex members of the primate order, depend on adults for food for a much shorter time than do apes and humans. The period of dependence affords human infants time to absorb the extensive knowledge important to the survival of the species.
Normal human development involves learning to sit, crawl, stand, walk, think, talk, and participate in social interactions. Ideally, the long period of dependence allows children the opportunity to learn necessary skills, knowledge, and social roles through affectionate and tolerant interaction with people who care about them. Yet what happens if children are deprived of adequate care or even human contact? The following section illustrates the importance of socialization by showing the effects of deprivation and isolation on normal socialization.
▲ This family shares a playful moment together as they interact with one another. Even in such carefree moments, parents act as socializing agents for their children.
© Anthony ASAEL/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images
Isolated and Abused Children
What would children be like if they grew up without human contact or only negative interactions? Among the most striking examples are the few cases we know of severely abused and neglected children whose parents kept them isolated in cellars or attics for years without providing even minimal attention and nurturing. When these isolated children were discovered, typically they suffered from profound developmental disorders that endured throughout their lives (Curtiss 1977; K. Davis 1947). Most experienced great difficulty in adjusting to their social world’s complex rules of interaction, which people normally start to learn from infancy onward. Recent medical studies also show how social isolation and deprivation in early life harm brain development and can result in mental health problems (C. Y. Johnson 2012).
In case studies comparing two girls, Anna and Isabelle, who experienced extreme isolation in early childhood, Kingsley Davis (1947) found that even minimal human contact made some difference in their socialization. Both “illegitimate” girls were kept locked up by relatives who wanted to keep their existence a secret. Both were discovered at about age 6 and moved to institutions where they received intensive training. Yet the cases were different in one significant respect: Prior to her discovery by those outside her immediate family, Anna experienced virtually no human contact, was fed only milk, and when found was barely alive. She saw other individuals only when they left food for her. Anna could not sit, walk, or talk and learned little in the special country school in which she was placed. When she died from jaundice at age 10, she had learned the language and skills of a 2- or 3-year-old.
When found, Isabelle was physically ill from an inadequate diet and lack of sunshine. She made only croaking sounds and gestures. During her first 6 years she lived in a darkened room with her deaf-mute mother, who provided some human contact. Isabelle, unlike Anna, did progress. She learned to talk and played with her peers. After 2 years, she reached an intellectual level approaching normal for her age but remained about 2 years behind her classmates in skill and competency levels. By age 14, she was attending regular school, participating in social activities, and was near normal for her age (K. Davis 1940, 1947; Foley and Harris 2014).
Contemporary cases of children neglected or abused in their family settings, forced into slavery or prostitution, or fighting wars reinforce the importance of early social interaction. Although not totally isolated, these children experience problems and disruptions in the socialization process. They have to deal with socially toxic abusive, violent, and dead-end environments with harmful developmental consequences for these children (War Child 2014). Consider the case of the Chibok schoolgirls from northern Nigeria’s Borno State. On April 14, 2014, 276 students were kidnapped by Boko Haram, an extremist Islamic terrorist organization, with more girls kidnapped from Dapchi, Nigeria, in February 2018. Although a few escaped, most of the girls were forced into sexual relationships and made to marry Boko Haram fighters. Some girls were forced to fight alongside their captors or to become suicide bombers. The socialization process for these girls became very negative, something they will live with for life (The Guardian 2018).
Other young children have been forced into armies as soldiers or to work on plantations as slaves. A recent video, Invisible Children, went viral on YouTube, showing the plight of children kidnapped by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army into a world of drugs, sex, and violence (Terra Networks 2013). Most will have a difficult time integrating back into society after their traumatic experiences, even if they have a chance to do so. Some organizations are trying to help the released children readjust to their societies.
These cases illustrate the devastating effects of isolation, neglect, and abuse early in life on the socialization process. To develop into social beings, humans need more from their environments than food and shelter. They need positive contact; a sense of belonging; affection; safety; and someone to teach them language, knowledge, and skills. Through this socialization experience into the world, every person develops a self. Before we examine the development of the self in depth, however, we consider the complexity of socialization in the multilevel (micro, meso, and macro) social world.
Socialization and the Social World
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