Socialization mechanisms help socialize a person in the process of interacting with different agents and factors. The opinions of scientists on how to consider the mechanisms of socialization are ambiguous and often diverge, but if we summarize them, we can still call the general socio-psychological and psychological mechanisms of personality socialization.
Psychological mechanisms of socialization:
- Imprinting - a person capturing at the level of the subconscious and receptors of images, objects, sensations, which are of vital importance for him. More often imprinting occurs in infancy, although not necessarily, imprinting is possible at a later age.
- Existential pressure - the impact on the acquisition of languages ​​(native and non-native) of a person’s living conditions, as well as a person’s subconscious assimilation of social norms of life.
- Imitation - examples from real life or those offered by the media.
- Identification - in interaction with influential persons or groups, a person identifies their model of behavior, norms, values ​​with his model.
- Reflection - a person conducts an internal dialogue in which he analyzes something, denies or agrees. Dialogue can be conducted with other persons, real or imagined, or with different "I" of the person.
Socio-psychological mechanisms of socialization are as follows:
- The traditional mechanism of socialization is the assimilation by a person of patterns of behavior, norms, and views that are traditional for his closest environment (family, neighbors, friends). Customs, traditions, stereotypes of behavior adopted in this environment can be both social and asocial. They are assimilated at the subconscious level, when the basic stereotypes are perceived without the slightest criticism, a person remembers them using all of the above psychological mechanisms of socialization, except reflection.
- The institutional mechanism of socialization is activated when a person interacts with various institutions of society and organizations, accumulating, as a result, the necessary knowledge and experience that helps him to either behave in such a way that his social behavior has approval, or to avoid observing the norms of society without any problems and consequences for yourself. Television, radio, print, cinema, as a social institution, also affect the socialization of a person, and not only through the transmission of information, but also through the presentation of norms of behavior through the images of bright positive and negative characters in films and books. As a result, people identify themselves with certain characters, trying on themselves their lifestyle, their pattern of behavior.
- The stylized socialization mechanism works only within the framework of the subculture to which the person belongs and only as much as this subculture and its members are significant for the person. Under the subculture refers to the combination of psychological, moral signs, specific behavior characteristic of people of a particular profession, culture, age. As a result of this connection, a special lifestyle arises, a way of thinking in a group (age, social, religious, professional, ethnographic, etc.).
- The interpersonal mechanism of socialization works in the process of a person’s relationship with persons who are of great importance to him (parents, friend, just an adult respected person). It goes without saying that these influential people belong to some organization, group, subculture, but they do not necessarily have the same impact on a person as the group itself, organization or subculture.
The ratio of the impact on a person’s socialization of certain mechanisms depends on his gender, age, and belonging to one or another culture. Each of the mechanisms of socialization plays a role in a specific area of ​​socialization.