Personality in Society: Social Psychology’s Contribution to Sociology
Author(s)
Turner, Ralph H.
Abstract
A model of socialization process beginning and ending with society is proposed, featuring individual personalities as intervening variables in the maintenance, disruption, and modification of culture and social structure. Four integrative approaches to socialization are compared and assessed in relation to the model. Dominant values or themes, basic personality structure, generalization from interpersonal experience, and structure functionalist approaches all assume some pattern of integration in society and in personality, and all specify relationships between the two. However none is clear about all stages in the cycle from societal influence on socializing situations to personality and to the eventual return influence of personality on society. A modified functionalism emphasizing mutual accommodation rather than functional integration is proposed, incorporating the generalization from interpersonal experience approach to describe part of the socialization cycle.
