SOCIALIZATION THROUGH VALUES: GOAL VALUES AND PERFORMANCE VALUES

SOCIALIZATION THROUGH VALUES:GOAL VALUES AND PERFORMANCE VALUES

Dumitru Borţun, PhD

1. The concept of ‘socialization’: mechanisms and forms of socialization

1.1. The concept of ‘socialization’. In thesociological and socio-psychologicalliterature, this concept has a double meaning:a hard and a soft one. In the hard meaning,‘socialization’ means the transformation of anindividual from an asocial being into a social being byinstilling certain ways of thinking, feeling and behaving (cf.Chelcea 2003, 332). This definition applies tochildren and to adults in limit cases(nowadays, almost extinct).

In the soft meaning, ‘socialization’ can bedefined as re-socialization, hence as aprocess of inculcating certain ways ofthinking, feeling and behaving different fromthose interiorized by an individual up to now.This is the case of individuals thattransgress into a different culture bychanging the affiliation group or of suddensocial transformations that trigger themodification of norms and values that theindividual must internalize so as to be able

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to evince a professional behavior. In theformer situation, socialization may define agroup phenomenon while in the latter it is amass phenomenon.

The fact that the process of socializationtackles both the psychic particularities ofthe individual and the psycho-social mechanismof the group or the mass phenomena explainswhy the concept of ‘socialization’ belongs tothe personal psychology, to the socialpsychology and to sociology. It is a trans-disciplinary concept. Moreover, socializationaims at integrating the individual into asystem of norms and values, of social rules(which by definition are peripheral to theindividual)1 and at reinforcing the solidaritybetween the group members. Classical studies dealing with the concept ofsocialization initiated by Émile Durkheim(Durkheim [1922] 1973, [1925] 2009) havehighlighted the processes through which anindividual internalizes concepts andstructures and have analyzed the effects ofthis interiorisation (internalization) on thebehavior. One of the main objectives of thesestudies has been to offer a solution to theproblem of permanence, throughout thegenerations, of the cultures and sub-culturesproper to certain groups as well as theproblem of the behavior of individuals that

Socialization through Values: Goal Values andPerformance Values

have to abide by the same types of linguistic,cognitive, political or moral habits.

Although these studies have laid stress ona powerful dimension of continuity – forinstance a great resemblance of politicalbehavior between children and their parents(Campbell [1960] 1980), they have neglected toaccount for the change of such behaviors.

In addition to that, the most renownedstudies have tried to understand the way in1 As social regulation instrument, socializationallows the decrease of exterior sanctions. Thegroup doesn’t have to remind the individualanymore, each and every time, its rules and toexercise a continuous surveillance over him. Thebreach of rules gives raise to a powerful sense ofguilt. This mechanism works wonderfully in theNorth-American society where the psychic discomfortof the individual reluctant to the norms of the‘American lifestyle’ is triggered not only by thesense of guilt stemmed from the human need of afavorable response from the others, but also by thefear that the breach of the rules would make him asymbolic outcast from the definition of the ‘trueAmerican’, would project him in the category of the‘new-comers’, ‘fresh immigrants’ which would affectthe satisfaction of the need for integration andemotional safety. Lately, this set of restrictivesocial norms has been codified in the phrase:‘political correctness’ whose social impact is extremelyrelevant as regards the socializing force of theneed for recognition.

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which the value system held by the socialclass triggers the fate of the individual thatinternalizes this value system (for instance,the meaning of collective solidarity portraysthe working class while individualaccomplishment is more representative for themiddle class).

These studies were based on a definition of‘socialization’ that implies:

(1) the priority of society over theindividual;

(2) the practice of constraint through anallegedly legitimate authority;

(3) an objective defined at social scale.Furthermore, this definition substantiated a

rudimentary theory of learning – understood assimple conditioning. The individual is thoughtto be a passive being whose behavior isnarrowed to the reproduction of alreadyacquired schemes. A more supple concept mightmake a stand against this super-deterministvision, which takes into account the relativeautonomy of the individual, its capacity ofadapting its acquired dispositions to the lifesituations and even of modifying, if necessary,the internalized norms and values depending onthe problems that he is compelled to solve. Thedialecticized vision on socialization isrepresented in more recent theoreticalapproaches and even in empirical researches –some of which are expressly dealing with the


political socialization. The cleavage from thecoarse sociologist determinism is increasinglyobvious in the approach of socializationmechanisms.

1.2. Mechanisms and forms of socialization. One ofthe important approaches from the socialcommunication perspective is the socio-linguistic approach of socializationundertaken by the British sociologist BazilBernstein (1; 2). Bernstein states that one ofthe most important events in the 20th centuryscientific research is the convergence ofnatural sciences and the social sciences inthe study of linguistic aspects ofcommunication. He observes, however, thatsociology felt astern due to the fact thatfew were the sociologists who studied thelanguage as social institution (according tothe family, religion model). Except for somepapers written by the American George Mead(1863-1931), leading representative of theSchool of Chicago, in the studies onsocialization we find no empirical researchexamining the role of speech as a processthrough which the child acquires a specificsocial identity.

Such considerations have been developed inthe American anthropology (Franz Boas andEdward Sapir) which reached the conclusionthat for the individual ‘language is just a

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guide to social reality’ (Sapir [1921] 2000).But the tradition of American anthropologyimposes the thesis that the fashions ofspeaking are determiners of social relations(Whorf), in other words: the link between language-culture-habitual thought is not mediated through the socialstructure. Bernstein pleads that, on thecontrary, the fashions of speaking (the codes)depend on the form social relations take. Thesocial structure generates codes whichtransmit the culture and so constrainbehavior. Inherently, the changes in thesocial structure determine the formation andtransformation of a culture through theireffect on the fashions of speaking. Tested byits author in the research of the trainingprocesses (education), this hypothesis is verypromising for the understanding of thesocialization process (re-socialization) inRomania. Mainly since it can account for theso diverse forms of socialization and identityconstruction: according to Bernstein, withinthe same language (as a general code) appearspecific codes (fashions of speaking) that induceto speakers different types of reporting toreality (to objects and other individuals).

How does the form of social relationdetermine these fashions of speaking? Thespeakers may choose: what I say, the moment I say it,the way I say it. The form of social relationregulates the speaker’s options both at


syntactic and lexical level (for example anadult that speaks to a child). As the childlearns to speak (so when he learns the codesof speaking), he learns the requirements of hissocial structure which become, through theconsequences of the linguistic process, thesubstratum of its experience. Every time thechild speaks or listens the social structurethat he is part of is reinforced within him,his social identity is modeled. By shapinghis acts of speech, the social structurebecomes the child’s psychological reality.Stabilized through time, the fashions ofspeaking will eventually come to play animportant role in the adjustment of theintellectual, social and affectiveorientations. Thus, the social structurebecomes a referential that the future adult shallcarry along and perceive as ‘reality’.

Depending upon the probability ofpredicting the organizing elements of thefashions of speaking, Bernstein divides thefashions of speaking in elaborate codes (when thespeaker selects from a vast range ofalternatives and the probability is limited)and restricted codes (when the speaker selects froma small range of versions and the probabilityis increased); the codes included in thelatter category appear in prisons, operative

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military units, children and teenagers groups,etc. (see Bernstein 1978, 53-105).

The great asset of Bernstein’s theoreticalprogram is the separation from the sociologistreductionism as well as the avoidance of the‘linguistic reduction’. He discovers the truthformulated by Helmut Von Humboldt in 1848: “Inlife, man understands the world following theimage that the language offers him’. Thus,Bernstein explains the fact that certainindividuals (groups) select certain values,internalize certain norms, rejecting others orjust withstanding them. The great drawback ofBernstein‘s theory is that it fails toconvincingly account for the CHANGE2.

2. Socialization through values

The value crisis after 1989 develops as well:the systematic ambiguity of value orientation whichdenotes the weak cognitive dimension of theattitudinal vector (for instance informationregarding the market economy). Thus, in 1994,the dominant opinion trend was in favor ofprivatization (67% - according to an IMASstudy / March and 58% - IRSOP study/June). Buta large majority of the subjects thatencouraged privatizations rejected the2 As in the expressive theory (Rembell) orinstrumental theory (competition) that stranded ina rationalist idealism.


consequences thereof (unemployment, socialinequality, etc.). This ‘schizophrenia’ ofvalues has antecedents in the period prior to1989 (characterized by a super-dimensionedsensitivity towards authority, propaganda). Toperceive the world through clichés andstereotypes or received ideas and especiallyto verbalize it by using verbal clichésborrowed from others means, for that matter,‘pseudo-thinking’ (Erich Fromm)3, but from apsycho-social point of view we are dealingwith a mass phenomenon that we must identify,explain and, eventually, remodel.

The gap between the material practice andthe educational practice of a collectivityleads to a peculiar configuration of valuesand affective emotions and inherently ofmotivations and behaviors. This gap generatesthe mass formation of an ‘agglutinatedpersonality’ and, consequently, of someincoherent social behavior, more often thannot antagonistic.

In this challenging context variousessential questions are raised for thesocialization instances: Which values shall beconveyed through education?; Is its transmission enough toestablish the expected, anticipated social behaviors? Which isthe optimum ratio between the educational ideal of a societyand the current status its development?

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To answer these questions it is worthwhileto mention the theoretical distinction made bypsychologist Pierre Janet and furtherdeveloped by Jean Piaget (Piaget 1967, 44 andfoll.) between values of finality – values ofaccomplishment.

-The goal (end) values are shared by theindividual depending upon its conception aboutthe world, being acquired through education

3 Fromm draws our attention that, in case of‘pseudo-thinking’, the problem is not whether thesubject’s assertions are logic or not, but ratherwhether the though is the result of its ownthrough-process, that is its ‘own activity’:‘Pseudo-thinking’ may be perfectly logical andrational. Its pseudo character does not necessarilyappear in its illogical elements. This can bestudied in rationalizations which tend to explainan action or a feeling on rational or realisticgrounds, although it is actually determined byirrational or subjective factors. (5, p. 297). Fora better understanding of the difference betweenthe authentic thinking and pseudo-thinking – asproposed by Erich Fromm – we recommend the readingof the entire 3rd paragraph, entitled ‘Automatecompliance’ in Chapter V of the work ‘Escape fromFreedom’ (idem, pp. 290-307). Special attention mustbe drawn to the heuristic episode invented by Frommwith the fisherman and the tourists (idem, p. 294-296), as well as the description of the politicalthinking in the American society (idem, p.296).


(culture); they dictate ‘disinterested’behaviors;

- The performance values are shared by the individual interms of costs/gains criteria, are enforced by coherent lifeconditions and dictate ‘’interested’ behaviors”4.

The duality commented by Piaget becomesprolific in explaining a lot of socialphenomena which are difficult to grasp – fromthe day-to-day behavior of the commonindividual to the behaviors of large socialgroups:

- participation to revolutionary fights(from the French Revolution in 1879 to theRomanian Revolution in 1989) of some‘danglers’ guided by no sacred beliefs;

- performance of the consensus andexceptional solidarity in warfare or acts ofGod situations (performance values such as‘comfort’, ‘health’, ‘our own life’ arereplaced by goal values such as ‘country’,

4 The term interest bears two meanings: i – thegeneral qualitative meaning: any conduct isinterested, ‘to the extent that it pursuits apurpose which has value because it is desired’ (6,idem); ii – the strict meaning: ‘energeticregulation that discharges the available forces …,and so aims at the performance and, from thisperspective, a behavior is interested if it isintended to increase the performances from thesubject’s point of view’ (idem).

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‘people’, ‘native land’, ‘future of thenation’, ‘freedom’, ‘independence’, ‘justice’,‘dignity’, etc.)

The replacement of performance values bygoal (end) values eases the mobilization of alarge number of people under a singlecommandment, encouraging collaboration andcompassion, tolerance and mutual comprehension– inherently socialization and humanization ofbehaviors to the highest possible level at agiven historical moment. At present, thesituations in which performance values give upthe leading place in favor of the goal valuesas well as the psychic mechanisms throughwhich an individual passes from a state intoanother made the object of very few studies.In ‘normal’ conditions, the hegemony is heldby performance values and the life situationsin which the conflict between the two sets ofvalues explicitly gains ground are tragicsituations5.

For the majority of individuals, the goalvalues indwell somewhere in the ‘sky oftradition’ (quoting Habermas) or shimmer in5 The tragic condition of the ‘moral hero’ putforward by all versions of humanism has beenconveyed since Antiquity (Socrates from Plato’sApology’ of or Antigone of Sophocles) untilModernity (in the Romanian popular literature –Manole in the “Mesterul Manole’ ballade or GeluRuscanu in ‘Jocul ielelor’ by Camil Petrescu).


the ‘horizon of aspirations’. When theyunderpin the social organization they onlytacitly participate to the daily life, not beingverbalized by all members of society in alllife situations. Explicitly, they are invokedonly in atypical situations: the ‘discussionsin principle’, the debates organized byinstitutional entities, interpersonalconflicts (when we appeal to ‘humaneness’,‘justice’, ‘honor’, ‘truth’). If an individualwould set his mind to permanently pursue goalvalues that he tacitly shares, he would eitherwreck in a chronic wastefulness of his actionsor he would collide with the social psychologyof his affiliation group6.

The use of the distinction betweenperformance values – goal values is compulsoryfor the ones who want to set up a theory ofeducational communication, of educativepractice, of socialization in general. Such atheory would be useful for a possible re-shaping policy of mentalities, as a mandatorydimension of transition. No policies –economic, social, educational – can elude thisduality without risking to bring aboutinadvertences. A decision, a norm or a lawbecomes inoperative if it breaches theperformance values recognized by a certainsegment of the civil society7, as it would be

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equally inoperative if it breaches the goalvalues inherited by the collectivity8.

In the re-socialization logistics of alarger community (such as a nation), the typesof decision must adapt:

- the short-term decisions – to theperformance values;

- the long term decisions – to the goalvalues.

If the two prerequisites are not compliedwith, we reach the paradox of ‘forced welfare’(which means doing bad, not good)9.

The divergence angle between the goalvalues and the performance values may bereduced either a) by changing the moral idealof the collectivity, or b) through practicalactivities, of humanizing real life. In post-communist Romania, we have been trying toadapt the goal values (with unimaginableconsequences) through (a) while (b) isunachievable in this phase.

The first questions we should answer to asanalysts of Romanian transition are: In which ofthe two registers are we falling astern? How large is thedivergence angle? How can this angle be reduced (bychanging mentalities or by economic development)?

Within a research carried out in arepresentative sample group of students inBrasov within the period 1983-1985 (cf. Madar1985), the subjects have chosen the followingpreference criteria for their future job: more


free time, likelihood of promotion tomanagement positions, opportunity of businesstrips abroad; possibility of obtainingconsiderable incomes and so on.

The students fail to list among the firstcriteria a series of other criteria suggestedby the questionnaire: ‘high degree of

6 The value crisis peculiar to teenage years is dueto the fact that the young man discovers that lifecannot be lived par excellence at the highestlevel of the goal values assimilated by him througheducation (through the moralizing discoursesoffered by the parents or teachers or by readingbooks). Subsequently, as teenagers are deemedmature enough to ‘come to grips with life’, manyeducation providers (usually parents witheducational interests) assault them with‘rectifying’ discourses trying to ‘bring them toreason’ in fact to re-direct them from the goalvalues to performance values. In Romania before 1989, a cause of the ‘generationconflict’ manifested in almost all normal familieswas the resistance of the teenagers toward theadults’ attempts to inculcate performance valuesmeant to facilitate the adaptation to the actualsocial environment (the most usual phrases being:“Life is not as you imagine it to be”, You live inthe cloudland’. “You’ll come to your senseseventually, ‘You will give us right later on but itwill be too late’, etc.). After 1989 a mutationtook place that few would have been able toanticipate: more and more education providers are

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responsibility at work’, ‘spiritual andbehavioral discipline’, ‘creative nature ofthe work’, etc. even if they displayed thebelief that ‘work generates human andpersonality development’.

When did they spoke the truth? In bothcases! The rupture from this ‘contradiction’

struggling to offer teenagers landmarks from thegoal values range since more and more teenagers areoverwhelmed by performance values. [A style of liferesearch performed in 1998 by the company DATAMEDIA ltd. on a representative group sample ofteenagers living in Bucharest shows, however, thatthey still display loyalty towards the family butit is difficult to say whether in the new socialcontext this still represents a goal value orrather it grew into a performance value]. 7 For instance, the decisions of the Romaniancommunist regime through which, by virtue of somegoal values, the most elementary performance valuehave been infringed upon: the so-calledemancipation of women meant, given the socialismand forced industrialization, the transformation ofmillions of women in true ‘slaves’ of thesocialist society, the assault against theirphysical and psychical health being a massphenomenon whose aftermath continues up to thisday; the so-called social homogenization meant apromiscuous intertwining between the social-professional categories – from the socialrecognition of labor to the dwelling conditions –which also lead to the infringement of some


(visible in many other studies) happened atthe expense of the discovery of a realcontradiction: between the performance values andthe goal (end) values. The education providers haddone their job: the real social system, thework relations, the form of organizationwithin Romania society were jeopardized. And

elementary performance values such as waging andthe peace necessary for intellectual work at home.8 Examples: the unique (soviet) pattern of‘socialism construction’ imposed upon the peoplesin the ‘satellites; under the hegemony of theSoviet Union; the attempts to impose modernizationmodels invented in other historical areas; morerecently, the attempt to amend the legislationregarding the homosexual relationships in post-communist Romania. In all these cases, we aredealing with the endeavor to introduce new goal(end) values that come against the goal valuesinherited from a community through culturalinheritance or to introduce performance values thatare in breach of the goal values shared by themembers of a community. Similarly to the ‘classical’ modernization process,the current globalization trend shall violentlycome across an obstacle difficult to overcomethroughout a single generation: the conflictbetween the goal values inherited by the localcommunities on the one hand and the performancevalues imposed from the outside as well as thealternative goal values that legitimate the newperformance values, on the other hand.

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today we are facing the same problem: the merechange of goal values would not be enough (andin fact it is not likely to happen without areal transformation in the social laborenvironment).

References

Bernstein, Bazil (1975). Language and social classes.Paris: Editons du Minuit.

Bernstein, Bazil (1978). Studii de sociologie a educaţiei[Studies of sociology of education], edition under theguidance of Lazăr Vlăsceanu. Bucharest: Didacticand Pedagogic Publishing House.

Campbell, Angus & Converse, E. Philip & Miller, E.Warren & Stokes, E. Donald (1980). The AmericanVoter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Chelcea, Septimiu and Iluţ, Petru (edits.) (2003).Enciclopedie de psihosociologie [Encyclopaedia of

The conflict between the two sets of valuesrelegates the political elites of the traditionalsocieties (as is the case of the Romanian society)to the practice of a double discourse: an internaldiscourse (focused on inherited goal values) and anexternal discourse (focused on the performancevalues that stemmed from the globalization processitself as well as on the goal values afferentthereto. We shall be able to give up the doublediscourse only when the political elite from such acountry shall be able to present the new goal(universal) values as performance values, desirablein the daily practice of the respective country.


psychosociology]. Bucharest: Economic PublishingHouse.

Durkheim, Émile (1973). Moral Education. New York:Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Durkheim, Émile (2009). Sociology and Philosophy.Routledge Revivals, Taylor & Francis e-Libary.

Fromm, Erich (1983). Texte alese [Selected Texts].Bucharest: Political Publishing House.

Madar Nicolae (coordinator); Borţun, Dumitru;Poenaru, Emil; Pop, Valeria; Tatu,

9 From this perspective, the NATO intervention inYugoslavia under the Milosevic’s rule cannot beneither ‘legitimate’ nor ‘necessary’. It is notworthwhile raising the issue of legitimacy becauseit is a false problem: NATO intervention aimed atchanging the type of legitimacy in theinternational relations (the replacement of theacknowledged one after the Second World War andlegitimated through UN-Charter). As regards the‘necessity’, one must be culturally obtuse toimagine that a violent action that comes againstthe goal values shared by the overwhelming majorityof the Serbs shall lead to the change of theirbehavior towards the Kosovo Albanians or toward thenational problem in general. As a matter of fact,the military intervention did not even suited theelementary expectations of the performance valueswhich has been proven in the months following thetermination of the bombing (the presence of KFORtroops in Kosovo has exacerbated the originalproblems and generated new problems inexistentbefore the intervention).

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Cornelia; Ungurean, Ştefan (1985). Îmbinareapregătirii de specialitate cu pregătirea politico-ideologică aviitorilor specialişti. Studiu în Universitatea din Braşov[Combination of the specialized training with the political-ideological training of future specialists Study within theUniversity of Brasov], Department of socialsciences, Faculty of Sociology –‘Transylvania’ University of Brasov.

Padioleau, Jean G. (1976). La formation de lapansée politique: développementlongitudinal et déterminants socio-culturels. Revue francaise de Sociologie, vol.XVII, N ° 3, June-September, pp. 451-484.

Piaget, Jean (1967). Problema mecanismelorcomune în ştiinţele despre om [The problemof common mechanism in the human sciences],in Sociologia contemporană. Al VI-lea Congres mondialde sociologie - Evian [Contemporary sociology. The 6th

It is obvious that the leaders of the NorthAtlantic Alliance have learned nothing from thelesion of over seven decades of real communism (anenormous attempt of forced welfare against thedominant goal values in the countries subdued tothe experiment and against performance values –mainly of the economic ones). This lesson shouldhave served as least in the elaboration of thejustification discourse of the intervention and ofthe legitimacy discourse of the Alliance if not inthe elaboration of the new identity thereofsubsequent to the ‘Cold War’.


World Congress of Sociology Evian]. Bucharest:Political Publishing House.

Sapir, Edward (2000). Lannguage. An Introdiction to theStudy of Speech. New York: Bartleby.com.

Vlăsceanu, Lazăr (1978). Pentru o teorie atransmiterii mesajului educaţional [Towardsa Theory of Educational Transmissions],introductive study to Bazil Bernstein, Studiide sociologie a educaţiei [Studies of sociology ofeducation], ed. cit.

Notes

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SOCIALIZATION THROUGH VALUES: GOAL VALUES AND PERFORMANCE VALUES

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