Social Community

A jukebox is a machine which plays music automatically mostly when a coin is dropped into it. It has a collection and you get to choose a song from the collection. The term “juke” was taken from the African –American slang the “jook” which means dance. The steepletone jukebox had several ancestors which were invented way before 1890’s. The jukebox reached its peak of popularity after the World War II. The juke boxes were brightly decorated and many graphical gimmicks were then used to make it look very attractive.

The period from 1940’s is called the Golden age for the tem. This is not only because of the immense popularity but also because of the bright yellow plastic that was used to make it in those days. The next era came up with making the steepletone jukebox with chrome and hence was known as the Silver age. It’s still popular and is very dear to the hearts of young and old alike.

The sun’s energy has two parts of solar energy – light and heat. The heat energy is used in Solar Heating Systems which are very popular due to their cost-efficiency and easy installability, in places that receive sunshine throughout the year, like India, Spain, Greece, Africa, America, etc. There are many Solar Heating systems  – the first is called the Active Solar Heating System, it has what is known as a solar collector to heat a fluid, like oil, water, etc. Then this fluid is pumped or blown through ducts to deliver the heat wherever it is needed. The heat collected and held by the fluids than can be stored in insulated tanks made of brick or stone – a very popular heat storage system in cold countries. This system is very easy to install, generally on the rooftops or the areas that receive maximum sunlight and for longest hours.   Other options include solar lighting of which installation can be goverment funded.

Socialization and is it all that important?

Socialization is extremely critical for human beings, without it life would be dull. In 1938 it was an unfortunate but true case study of this.  A girl named Anna was born to a mentally impaired woman that lived with her father. She was sent countless of places but was then returned home due to financial restraints. She was then forced into the attic and was given only enough milk to live on and lived there until she was five. She wasn’t given no affection, no smiles, no hugs, or anything else, just coldness. Luckily, social workers saved the girl and sociologist Kingsley Davis went to see the girl immediately once he heard of the tragedy.  The girl was completely unresponsive, he reported and she did not laugh nor speak.

However, with some help and guidance the girl did learn how to walk, speak a little, and even care for herself.  However, she died at the young age of 10.  This is an example of how lack of socialization can harm someone both physically and mentally. The term socialization refers to the way humans adapt to their surroundings and learn their culture. Unlike animals that behavior is biologically programmed, humans learn and adopt over time. Social experience and interacting with people is what helps forms an individual’s personality or an individual’s consistent pattern such as emotions, thoughts, and behavior. Animals generally tend to act similar such as a cat. A cat in America will usually act the same as a cat in Egypt, but the same can’t be applied to humans. We build a personality it just doesn’t come automatically to us, and we build it by our surroundings but as the case I mentioned earlier, without socialization a personality doesn’t form. In Anna case it is defiantly clear that humans depend on other people to not only mature physically, but mentally.

About a century ago it was believed that people was born with certain instincts that would form personality and behavior.  An example is Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution that led people to think this. The US economic system led some people to believe that some behaviors just occurred “naturally,” such as some people are born criminals, or women tend to think more emotionally while men think more rationally. People also used this thinking for centuries to justify their “ethnocentric” view on society. They claimed that members of a technologically inadequate society were not as biologically evolved as they were so they were viewed as being less human.

Why not exploit others if they seem to be less evolved and not as human as us? You can obviously see the flaw in this. In the twentieth century a psychologist who helped explained behavior clearer is known as John B Watson, and developed the theory of behaviorism. This refuted the theory mentioned above and stated that behavior was not something that people are born with, but more learned by their surroundings. He also stated that people around the globe are equally human beings, just they share different cultures and that behavior can be correlated to not nature, but more with nurture.  However, that does not mean that biology does not play any part of behavior.  Most people usually share biological traits with their parents such as height and hair color, and their parents genetic makeup could influence their intelligence and artistic talents such as art or music.

So avoiding people is not good for numerous of reasons. An interesting and classic study was conducted by psychologist Harry and Margaret Harlow using monkeys.  It would be illegal to use human beings for a study like this. Since monkeys show the closest correlation to human beings than they were used for this experiment. The experiments included testing monkeys in various environments and comparing the results to one another.  When a baby monkey was placed in complete isolation (except for food and nutrients) for six months they reported some deformities in their development. They found that when they returned to their group that they were extremely fearful and subservient.

They then placed a baby monkey in cage with an “artificial mother,” and this mother was made of wire and had a wooden head, and a feeding tube for a nipple. These monkeys also showed some deformities because when they were placed back in their group they were unable to interact properly.  However, for the last experiment a baby monkey was placed in a cage with an artificial mother made of “soft cloth,” than the monkey held on to the artificial mother very closely and show very little sociological deformities. So what was the difference between the artificial mothers? Well, with the hard wired one the monkey was unable to hold on to the mother because it was rough and didn’t give back. However, with the soft artificial mother the baby monkey held on to it very deeply because it was soft more like the way a mother is and  it developed a bond with it. So, this experiment confirms how important it is for infants to receive love and hugs so that they can develop properly. It’s also interested to note that the psychologists studied that the infants can recover from as much as three months of isolation, but around six months the behavior was noted to be “irreversible.” Like the story I mentioned earlier with Anna, after ten days the sociologist visited her she showed immediate improvement and even smiled. A year later she show some slow but steady progress showing some interest in objects and people and even teaching herself how to walk. About six months later she could take care of herself such as feeding and even played with toys. Even though she showed drastic improvement by the age eight she showed the mental development of that of a two year old, and at the age ten she died of a blood deformity. This is evidence that some things are irreversible but this statement can easily be argued.  As noted earlier she was born to a mentally disabled mother so that could have stunted her developing process even greater and the mystery remains unsolved even to this day. Human beings can sometimes recover from damage but to what extent is the answer, and I will assume it will remain the same because every individual is different.

How past experiences affect your life

Sociologist Herbert Mead developed a theory known as social behaviorism, which helped explained why past social experiences help form an individuals’ personality. Mead did not believe that personality was developed by drives or biologically, but more on terms socially.  He stated that the self only developed when people interact with one another. Without the interaction of other people an individual can’t develop a personality. An example of this is if a child is left in total isolation for a long period of time then they don’t mature both physically or mentally. Next, social experience is crucial, and this includes the exchange of symbols. Only people attach meanings to words and symbols. If you tell a dog to sit and it obeys then you may give it a snack. However, this doesn’t mean it knows why to sit down, but it does so to get food. You can tell a dog to sit for numerous of reasons such as wanting to impress your friends, or to calm it down because it is running all over the place. Also, Mead noted that understanding individual intentions is critical.  This will help us to analyze how an individual will respond even before we act.  For example, when we’re driving we all anticipate what others may do because of experience. If an individual behinds you is speeding up rather quickly, then you can assume that they are about to switch lanes, or you can assume that they are in a rush and need to get somewhere quickly. Mead refers to this as taking another individual’s role.  Another important theory that is related to social behaviorism is the looking-glass self. This is basically like mirroring what we think others think of us.  If we think others view you as being “good looking,” then you will see yourself as being good looking, or if you think people think that you are fat then you will have that image of yourself. People take the roles of other people during development. Infants have very little knowledge so they tend to mimic others. Children often have creative minds and take on roles of other significant others or people such as parents that have a special importance in their   social development.  For example, children will play house in which someone will take the role of a mother while another take that of a father. As they age children will learn to take various roles and adjust to their surroundings. As we continue to age we will continue to see changes in our social life. There are a lot of critics of Mead’s theories and some claim that he focus too much on the society in developing an individual’s behavior. Another sociologist Erik H. Erikson stated that unlike Freud who believed that personality was pretty much set in stone in the first couple of years of an individual’s life, that personality changes in stages and occurs all the way up to death. His theory is not all that accurate as well, because people experience changes in different orders and time. Through all of the disagreements, sociologists generally agree on this main idea, and that is that the family has the greatest impact on an individual’s socialization abilities. When an individual is an infant they have no control and usually rely on their parents and family members to help nurture them. Through family they learn several of communication techniques such as trust, culture, and beliefs.  Don’t get me wrong, not all learning comes solely from family; they can come from the environment as well because in a lot of cultures they use the environment to help raise a child. I guess the saying is true in which it takes a “village to raise a child.” It may not be surprising to you that different social classes tend to raise their children differently. An interesting survey that happened in the United States compared what a lower class family would want in a child compared to that of an upper class family.  A lower class family would usually favor obedience and conformity while an upper class family would tend to favor creativity and good judgment (NORS, 2003). Have you ever wondered why? Well the reason is lower class workers tend to have jobs that they must be very obedient in and are highly supervised. Subconsciously they are gearing their children towards that route and will even use physical punishment to achieve it. In upper class workers they tend to have jobs that inspire individuality and creativity which is very similar to the traits they would like to have in their children. School also has a large effect on an individual’s personalities. If you think about it you spend a huge chunk of time each day at school. It’s also interesting to note that children tend to play with people as the same race and gender, and that boys are more physical and aggressive while girls are more well behaved. Boys also tend to find abstract activities more interesting like video games and girls tend to be more artistic. The same thing follows when they get to college because boys tend to major in physical sciences, and computing while girls usually major in humanities and arts. In school is where children discover peer groups or individual that has similar interest as themselves.  People tend o indemnify more with their peer groups and can have conversations about things they understand like clothes, music, and style.  Peer groups are a way for individuals to escape adult supervision, and people are usually more out spoken in peer groups.  During the adolescent years people tend to identify more with their peer groups because they identify themselves as an adult and that is also a time in which parents are concerned about who their children hang around because they know that who they hang around influence their behavior deeply.  During these years the mass media heavily affects individuals as well.  Studies have showed that television have made people more passive and lessoned their creativity.  In the United States we spend he most time watching television and own the most T.V sets per household.