Man is thought to be a social creature. There are many factors that come into play as man develops this social nature right from childhood to adulthood. There are various stages and agents that lead to this development. The essay below discusses some of the issues related to development of the social nature in an individual.
Social Development
Question 1:
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is significant to the social development of an individual. This is because the hypothesis has it that the language that an individual learns has great effect on the way an individual shapes the reality of culture. As such, the language affects the perception that an individual has on reality, thereby influencing his thoughts and actions (Anon, 2012). As such, it can be seen that this hypothesis is important to the social development of an individual. An important factor to note in this case is that language is determined by culture and has a great effect on the way an individual understands or pays attention to some aspects of life.
Question2:
Ethnocentrism is a situation where an individual feels that his culture is superior to all the other cultures. This leads to a kind of pride where an individual looks down upon others simply because they do not share a culture. It leads to discrimination and lack of equality. For instance, there can be a form of discrimination in instances where the whites look at the Hindu culture as more primitive as compared to theirs. Cultural relativism, on the other hand, refers to the situation where an individual views others’ behavior from the perspective of his culture. As such, it can lead to peaceful co-existence as it advocates for understanding the cultures of others rather than dismissing them as exotic.
Question 3:
Mead’s theory of social development looks at the individual development in various stages. From the theory, it can be assumed that the self develops through various stages such as the imitation or preparatory stage where the individual tends to copy what he sees from others. Then comes the play stage where the individual learns how to take roles. The third stage is the game stage where the individual can multi-task and handles several issues at a go. The final stage is the generalized other where the individual can fully identify with the issues in the society. The self becomes multi-faceted and can therefore handle various social issues (Keel, 2011).
As an individual goes through all these development processes, his social skills continue increasing. As such, the higher an individual is in these stages, the more advanced he is in his social development.
Question 4:
There are various agents of development which play a very significant role in the development of an individual. One of these agents is the peer group. As an individual develops, most interactions occur around the people that the individual interacts with. As such, the values, behaviors and aspects of culture that an individual adopts are greatly influenced by the peer group. The peer values tend to be transferred into the individual, hence define who an individual becomes.
There is also the family unit. Right from the beginning, an individual belongs to a family unit. As such, there are various issues that an individual picks from the family. For instance, there is the language, formative social interactions, relationships, rules, role models, behavior, and the morals (ednet.ns.ca, 2012). All these are shaped at the family level and they greatly influence what the individual becomes and how he interacts with those around him. As such, it can be said that the family is the first stage where an individual encounters socialization aspects.
References
Anonymous. (2012). Chapter 3: Culture. (pdf)
Ednet.ns.ca. (2012). Agents of Socialization. Retrieved on 28th March 2012 from http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/mskinner/Sociology/Socialization/agents_of_socialization.htm
Keel, R.O. (2011). George Herbert Mead: Social Behaviorism. Retrieved on 28th March 2012 from http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/3210/3210_lectures/mead.html
