Social Identity and Personality

Unlike other animals, we cannot raise

ourselves; we must be raised by other people
who can teach us language, manners, beliefs
and much more.

Feral Child
Feral children,
also known
as wild
children or wolf
children, are
children whove
grown up with
minimal human
contact, or even
none at all.
Wild Child- The
Story of Feral
Children.mp4

Feral Child

They may have been raised by animals (often wolves) or

somehow survived on their own.
In some cases, children are confined and denied normal
social interaction with other people.

Review
Enculturation
all societies must somehow ensure that culture
is adequately transmitted from one
generation to the

Enculturation
Human infants are born without any
culture. They must be transformed by
their parents, teachers, and others
into cultural and socially acceptable
animals.

During socialization, we learn the language

of the culture we are born into as well as
the roles we are to play in life. For
instance, girls learn how to be daughters,
sisters, friends, wives, and mothers.

Children learn about

the occupational
roles that their
society has in store
for them.

 Why do you think Ms Ann

was disappointed that her
students dreams are to
become fishermen?

If our students have

simple ambitions, should
we be disappointed? Why
or why not?
EDB

Enculturation
The first agents of enculturation in all societies are
the members of the infants household, especially
the childs mother.

cultural factors are at work even

before birth through what a pregnant
mother eats, drinks, and inhales, as
well as the sounds, rhythms, and
activity patterns of her daily life.
Who the other members are depends
on how households are structured in
each particular society.

The Self and Social Identity

Self-Awareness
Enculturation begins with the development
ability to identify oneself as an individual
creature,
to reflect on oneself,
to evaluate oneself.

The Self and Social Identity

Self-Awareness
It is self-awareness that permits one to take
social responsibility for ones conduct, to learn
how to react to others, and to assume a
variety of roles in society.

The Self and Social Identity

Self-Awareness

An important aspect of selfawareness is the

attachment of positive
value to ones self. Without
this, individuals cannot be
motivated to act to their
advantage.

The Self and Social Identity

Social Identity: Naming
Personal names are
important devices for
self-definition in all
cultures.
they individualize a
person
identify one as a group
member.

The Self and Social Identity

Social Identity: Naming
Names often express and represent multiple
aspects of ones group identity
ethnic, gender, religious,
political, or even rank,
class, or caste. Without a
name, an individual is
anonymous, has no social
identity.

The Self and Social Identity

Social Identity: Naming
Naming Ceremony
Many cultures consider name selection to be an
important issue and mark the naming of a
child with a special event or ritual

The Self and Social Identity

Social Identity: Naming
1. Naming Practices Across Cultures
Aymara Indians (Laymi village only)
do not consider an infant truly human until
they have given the child a name
and naming does not happen until the child
begins to speak the Aymara language, typically
around the age of 2.

The Self and Social Identity

Social Identity: Naming
1. Naming Practices Across Cultures
Icelanders name babies at birth.

The Self and Social Identity

Social Identity: Naming
1. Naming Practices Across Cultures
Netsilik Inuit in Arctic Canada, a mother experiencing a difficult
delivery would call out the names of deceased people of
admirable character.

The Self and Social Identity

Social Identity: Naming
1. Naming Practices Across Cultures
The name being called at the moment of birth is thought to enter
the infants body and help the delivery, and the child would bear
that name thereafter.

The Self and Social Identity

Social Identity: Naming
1. Naming Practices Across Cultures
It is common in numerous cultures for a person
to receive a name soon after birth and then
acquire new names during subsequent life
phases.

The Self and Social Identity

Social Identity: Naming
1. Naming Practices Across Cultures
Teknonymy
a firstborn childs naming
ceremony also marks a
change in the parents
social status.

The Self and Social Identity

Social Identity: Naming
2. Naming and Identity Politics
Names also symbolically express and represent
an individuals cultural self, personal and
collective identity politics.

The Self and Social Identity

Social Identity: Naming
2. Naming and Identity Politics
The anglicisation of personal names is the change of
non-English-language personal names to spellings
nearer English sounds,
substitution of equivalent or similar English personal
names in the place of non-English personal names
common among immigrants hoping to avoid racial
discrimination or ethnic stigmatization.

Mller= Miller
Bing: Boeing
Huber: Hoove
Fr James T.G. Hayes= Santiago Hayes

The Self and Social Identity

Culture and Personality
In the process of enculturation, each individual is
introduced to a societys natural and humanmade environment along with a collective body
of ideas about the self and others.
The result is a kind of internalized cultural master
plan of the cosmos in which the individual will
feel, think, and act as a social being. It is each
persons particular guide of how to run the maze
of life.

Personality
A persons fairly
consistent
patterns of
thinking, feeling,
and acting

personality traits
optimistic or pessimistic,
independent or dependent,
emotional or unemotional,
adventurous or cautious,
leader or follower,
aggressive or passive
competent or inferior

Enculturation
We build a personality by internalizingtaking
inour surroundings.

But without social

experience,
personality hardly
develops at all.

The Self and Social Identity

Personality Development
1. Dependence training
socializes people to think of themselves in terms
of the larger whole.
Why Are Little Kids in
Japan So
Independent? group
reliance

The Self and Social Identity

Parents in Japan regularly send their kids out into
the world at a very young age.
A popular television show called Hajimete no
Otsukai, or My First Errand, features children as
young as two or three being sent out to do a task
for their family.
As they tentatively make their way to the
greengrocer or bakery, their progress is secretly
filmed by a camera crew.
The show has been running for more than 25 years.

The Self and Social Identity

Personality Development
1. Dependence training
Its effect is to create community members
whose idea of selfhood transcends
individualism, promoting compliance in the
performance of assigned tasks and keeping
individuals within the group.
Mga Agta ng Peablanca.mp4

The Self and Social Identity

Personality Development
2. Independence Training
fosters individual self-reliance and personal
achievement.
It is typically associated with societies in which a
basic social unit consisting of parent(s) and
offspring fends for itself.

The Self and Social Identity

Personality Development
2. Independence Training
Particular in trading, industrial,
and postindustrial societies
where self-sufficiency and
personal achievement are
important traits for survival and
success

The Self and Social Identity

Personality Development
1. Dependence training