Normal Versus Abnormal Socialization
Many psychology majors are eager to study abnormal psychology; and not surprisingly, the sociology courses on deviance, drugs and crime are often popular with sociology students. The abnormal is fascinating. "Why are some people so strange?" "Am I a little bit weird and strange, too?" Many of us want to know about the abnormal and unusual.
There is a long history of scientific study of the abnormal. Some of the first research on sex was done due to a fascination with perversions of sexuality. This is the case with Richard von Krafft-Ebing's (1882) book called Psychopathia Sexualis, which documents all sorts of abnormal aspects of sexuality. (This book is amazing to read from our modern perspective.)
Sigmund Freud dealt with both sex and socialization by studying people with problems, such as psychoses, neuroses and hysteria. Today, the scientific study of abnormal personalities and behavior are far more advanced that Krafft-Ebing or Freud could have imagined, with greater emphasis on abnormalities in the brain, hormonal systems, and socialization. Soc 142 has one section dedicated to abnormal socialization: This is the topic called "disadvantaged socialization," in the section of the course about "American Socialization."
Although abnormal processes are interesting, John joins those scientists who are more interested in "wellness psychology," which focuses on happiness, creativity and healthy social processes. Far less research has been focused on healthy socializations than on abnormal ones; yet we could learn so much more from studying the best examples of lives well lived than from lives that have earned the label, "abnormal."
One of the first social psychologists to study normal and happy socializations was George Herbert Mead. Mead was one of the more important founders of American Sociology, and he did considerable work on normal socialization. You will see this if you take John's Soc 185P course on "Pragmatism." (John teaches his Pragmatism course in winter quarter, and it flows very naturally from Soc 142. In addition, it counts for your theory requirement if you are a sociology major.
More recently, Abraham Maslow had studied creative and well adjusted people who had developed a great deal of their human potential and become happy and prosocial individuals. These are persons who showed a great deal of self-actualization; and Maslow wanted to know what socialization processes help these people develop so well.
In the 1990s, Martin Seligman switched from studying learned helplessness and other forms of psychological paralysis to focus on the opposite processes -- which lead to learned happiness. Seligman has advanced these studies a great deal, and you might want to read his book, titled Learned Happiness. It has three chapters that are designed to help people get on track for leading happy lives and actualizing a great deal of their human potential.
John Gottman has studied happy and dysfunctional marriages, discovering many of the things that make marriages work out well. His book, The Marriage Clinic, is filled with information that helps anyone who is in an intimate relationship (be it hanging out, dating, developing a "serious relationship" or getting married) to learn the key skills for making a beautiful relationship.
John Baldwin is working in this same vein, trying to understand happy and healthy socialization processes. Soc 142 (Socialization) focuses on the role of social learning, showing how positive socialization can keep the Great Upward Force alive all across the life span. Soc 185P (Pragmatism) provides a philosophy of life that fits perfectly with Soc 142. In spring quarter, you might want to take Soc 168E and see how a nation's economic system either helps or hinders the attempts of its citizens to have positive, creative lives.
In the 1800s and early 1900s, there was such an overemphasis on abnormal and "sick" behavior that psychological wellness and healthy relationships were not well studied. It is time for academics to correct this overemphasis on the negative. Of course, that does not preclude your finding a good book on abnormal behavior and spending hours reading amazing things about serial killers, rapists, sadists, and other abnormal individuals.July '01BACK TO HOME