Learning Theory and Socialization

FREQUENTLY it is stated that, since culture is learned, the behavior of people studied by the social scientist must follow the laws of learning of experimental psychology. A number of studies of socialization, or individual behavior within a culture, have contained this assumption. Their chief inspiration has been Social Learning and Imitation, by Neal Miller and John Dollard.' Our first objective will be to examine the reasoning which says that culture must be comparable to a maze and personality or individual behavior to an organism moving in the maze. Our second objective will be an examination of studies which have applied learning theory to individual behavior in a culture in order that we may see what they have contributed to our knowledge. Describing culture as learned is a way of emphasizing that it is nonbiological or superorganic,2 Gillin, for example, says that . . we sometimes have difficulty in convincing ourselves that the customs which we practice are actually acquired or learned. They seem so much a part of our nature that we are sometimes inclined to regard them as inherited, in the biological sense.3 Kroeber states: In short, culture is superorganic or superindividual in that, although carried, participated in, and produced by organic individuals, it is acquired, and it is acquired

Socialization · Sociology · Chaos, Complexity, and Education · Complex Systems and Decision Making · Innovative Teaching and Learning Methods · Psychology · Social Psychology

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