For some questions, you are asked to apply the perspectives and concepts discussed in class to your own experiences, and in doing so to show that you have mastered the course material. If you are uncomfortable revealing personal information, you may create a hypothetical example.
1. Humanness and Socialization
a) Discuss the connection between synaptic over-production and human social experience.
b) Identify at least three agents of socialization in your early life, and discuss specific differences between their techniques/strategies.
c) Identify a peer subculture (including the component beliefs, values, and norms) to which you most closely align yourself.
2. Behavioral Perspectives on Socialization
a) As a college student, your behavior has been shaped through both operant conditioning and observational learning. Discuss a specific example of each.
b) Pretend you are a college professor and you want to encourage your students to do the reading - choose from among the potential schedules of reinforcement, explain why you picked the schedule, and provide a summary of how it would work to improve the reading habits of your students.
c) How does the behavioral perspective account for the development of conscience?
3. Cognitive Perspectives on Socialization
a) Why do cognitive theories tend toward developmental stage models?
b) Briefly outline Erikson's crises in the development of a healthy personality - focusing on the impact of the social environment (about one sentence each); explain your current developmental stage(s).
c) Contrast Piaget's stages of cognitive development with Vygotsky's ideas on the development of language and thought, including their views on the relationships between the social environment and the individual.
d) Explain why students situated at each level of Kohlberg's model of moral development would decide not to cheat on an exam.