Socialization model
This text is part of: "I would never send my kids to school" by Piotr Wozniak (2017)
Introduction
The process of socialization can be modelled. Models are needed for optimization. With a good model, we can optimize socialization using a set of chosen optimization criteria.
In this chapter, I will look at socialization as a neural learning process that is governed by a set of rules developed in the course of biological evolution. Those evolutionary rules are derived from game theory. The behavioral dynamics that determine the learning process in socialization are also affected by game theory.
The presented model of socialization is not value based or value dependent. Optimization criteria can be chosen using a different set of values. Kids, parents and educators can use the conclusions coming from the model to plot their own developmental trajectories. Those trajectories will be different for a Christian, Muslim, anarchist, or an atheist. All value systems can benefit from good modelling of the socialization process.
In the end, a common set of socialization strategies seems to emerge independent of the value system. The chief reason for the common core is that it emerges from the overarching goal: the good of the child.
Evolution and game theory
The name "socialization" might imply that sociologists are best equipped to analyze and optimize socialization. However, as socialization is all about behaviors, it is the behaviorists who might be better equipped to understand its underlying mechanics.
My work revolves around efficient learning. Socialization is a very special form of learning, and my specialization makes me see it in a very unique light. My background in biology helps me see the evolutionary aspect of socialization. There are things in our behavior that socialization will not and should not change. Socialization does not change our genes or our hormones. It can only result in changes in the brain via learning.
My background in computer science helps me see socialization in terms of game theory. If you distill the unchangeable biological components from the popular meaning of socialization, game theory can explain a great deal of social behavior. This makes modelling of social dynamics easier. With a good model, we can begin the process of optimization. We can take an analytical approach and look for strategies that would result in the best outcome given a set of criteria.
Socialization process
Socialization process occurs via exposure to social interactions in a social context. Socialization cannot be programmed, micromanaged, derived from books, or based on instructions from a teacher. The external forces may have an impact on the direction of the socialization, e.g. by choice of environments, or on via a commentary. However, the process itself is neural and organic, and it should be subject to minimum external interference. In short, you cannot take a kid's head, point it towards a stranger, and instruct him: "say 'Hello'".
Optimization criteria
At the choice of optimization criteria, we run into first trouble with the concept of universal socialization. We need to know what we are trying to achieve. Should socialization serve the society or the individual? Or do we have a multicriterial problem at hand. We instantly see that the optimization of socialization will be inseparable from values. This means that optimization of socialization will always be a question of personal choice. We may codify certain aspects of socialization goals in law to provide the boundary conditions. The law may make breaking certain social norms illegal. We largely agree that killing should be illegal. However, more detailed socialization guidelines would encroach on personal convictions and freedoms.
For example, spanking has been made illegal in several countries. Nudity in public is illegal worldwide. Unveiling one's face may be illegal. Veiling one's face may be illegal. It is easy to see that codifying socialization goals in law nearly always involves limiting personal freedoms. As much as the state attempts to never intervene in the matters of religion, it should minimize its intervention in defining optimum socialization. The analogy to religion is striking when we compare the goals of socialization for a Christian, Muslim, socialist, or for a liberal.
Here I propose a major simplification of the optimization problem. I claim that socialization optimized for an individual will serve society as a whole. In other words, if you make an individual well-socialized and happy, he will likely make a good contribution to society. It is not much different from market economics: we want to minimize legal constraints on businesses in the belief that markets predominantly optimize in the direction of global good. Individualistic socialization optimizes for an individual, and will leave some members of society unhappy or hurt, as much as market economics incurs many casualties.
All forms of socialization would lead to a different social life which is a non-zero sum game. Stable strategies in individualistic socialization will produce maximum social gains. The losers of the game will primarily recruit from those who were poorly socialized. We cannot optimize globally, because individual strategies will be closely linked to personalities and values. Global optimization is complex and is not possible for it is data deficient.
In addition, I believe that socialization should serve individual productivity, and should free the talent and creativity. This is where the greatest potential of socialization lays hidden. Genius and creativity provide exponential returns on investment. Those who fail to conform to social pressures will often be labelled as poorly socialized. I take the opposite view: socialization should make sure an individual can accomplish great goals independent of pressures exerted by others.
If you disagree with that claim, this chapter will not convince you. Please refer to your sociology textbook for a more standard take.
As of this point I will limit my considerations to the following socialization creed:
- Human beings are social.
- Socialization should not attempt to change behaviors ingrained by evolution.
- Socialization cannot be micromanaged.
- Socialization is a form of learning via generalization derived from sample experiences.
- Socialization operates on behaviors that are derived from game theory.
- Socialization can be optimized.
- Optimization of socialization should focus on the primary criterion: humans should be productive members of society.
- Optimization must be individualistic because it depends on individual personality and individual values.
Goals of socialization
"Society is a republic. When an individual endeavors to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by means of ridicule or of calumny. No one shall be more virtuous or more intellectually gifted than others. Whoever, by the irresistible force of genius, rises above the common herd is certain to be ostracized by society, which will pursue him with such merciless derision and detraction that at last he will be compelled to retreat into the solitude of his thoughts." - Heinrich Heine
Social skills and social intelligence
Do we want to develop social skills or social intelligence? The first approach is egalitarian and utilitarian. It aims at forming a harmonious society. However, social intelligence is more progressive and farsighted. We do not just want to form a society that functions well and keeps everyone happy. Focus on social intelligence is a way for advancement on a social platform and well beyond.
Social competence is one of the goals of socialization. Peer acceptance may be used to assess social competence. I believe that goals of socialization must primarily favor productivity derived from effective function in society. Peer acceptance should be secondary, esp. if it does not align with goals and psychological needs of an individual subject to socialization.
In essence, we rather want the smart ones to lift the society up instead of just making them adapt to social norm to please the average. I will assume that socialization is more about developing social intelligence, not just social skills.
Perpetual learning
One of the main purposes of early socialization is to facilitate social function. Socialization is a failure not when it makes an individual less productive or less happy. The main self-perpetuating impact of poor socialization is when it results in social withdrawal, asociality, or anti-socialization. Withdrawal leads to less progress in further socialization and a feedback loop that threatens to lock an individual in a lonely corner. The very least purpose of early socialization should lead to establishing a platform for lifelong social learning. Few people can be considered well-socialized by the age of 20. This is a process that will continue for life. For many, social anxiety is an inherent part of their personality. For those individuals, coercive socialization may leave scars for life. Due to the existence of critical periods of development, early life may determine the outcomes in social development. There is a world of difference between growing in a loving family, or growing up in daycare.
Social intelligence
Social intelligence is what makes humans unique. While we have poor memory for sets, lists and numbers, we have a great memory for visual images (like many other animals). We also have a great memory for social situations and for the language. Advancement in social and abstract thinking required a sharp departure from the detail-oriented brains towards generalizing brains that employ forgetting to more efficiently reason about the environment.
When I hypothesize that the human learn drive contributed to the spurt in brain growth 2 million years ago, I should add that social intelligence is one of the key areas where the learn drive is employed. This is in agreement with hypotheses of Humphrey, Mithen or Dunbar except for the fact that social intelligence makes only a large component of overall human intelligence based on a good use of the learn drive. The Facebook epidemic today relies on the same basic drive to understand other people and their place in social hierarchy. However, we all agree that Facebook will not completely satisfy the learn drive in most people. We still want to know the news, understand science, look at beautiful pictures, etc. A healthy learn drive goes well beyond just the social sphere.
Facebook might be contributing to our new take on social intelligence that keeps evolving and integrating the digital component in new ways to interact, form relationships, hierarchies, and social groups. Obviously, that powerful force may be used for good and for bad.
Social competence
Social competence is the ability to effectively accomplish goals in a social context. For me there are no hedonic aspects to social competence beyond the obvious association between a happy state of mind and productivity. In other words, social competence should lead to a happier life, but it is the productive life that defines it. Social competence should also make members of a social group happy, but this again would not override the underlying goal of productive life.
My terminology makes little difference between social competence that leads to individual productivity and social competence that leads to global good. Those are indistinguishable on the assumption that individuals should be free to set their goals and that freedom leads to a resultant global good.
Lack of social skills leads to social avoidance, which can severely cripple an individual in most contexts. However, I can also imagine situations in which a social misfit is highly productive while working on some genius idea. For example, a mathematical theory. This tells me that socialization should be just one of the components of education, however, it should not override other goals of learning if they loom paramount. Freedom in satisfying the learn drive and the growth trajectory should prevail even if socialization suffers as a result. It is the individual who should make his own decisions. Socialization should not be achieved per force, should not be mandatory in any way (other than in cases like criminal re-socialization), and should not lead to distress which might result in asociality.
Socialization as a rule generalization
Socialization is a form of learning that is largely based on neural network generalizations. We do learn some social rules from others, incl. parents. They may politely explain that it is nice to say "Hello" to other people to signal good intent and a friendly disposition. However, this declarative learning is not sufficient for effective socialization. Social competence cannot be achieved by reading books on social competence. As it is always the case in neural learning, good generalizations require a good sample. We experience real life situations, find commonalities, and draw conclusions. Those conclusions may have a form of neural generalizations, i.e. we internalize experience without consciously declaring or realizing the rules. In short, to play well in social situations we need to experience many social situations.
The problem with social skills is that they may align and form differently depending on the context, learning sample provided, composition of social groups involved, etc. For example, socialization in prison leads to a different skillset as compared to socialization in a playground. Social rules may turn out contradictory in different contexts. This is why rapid changes of social context may actually impair learning. Rapid changes may lead to interference and instability.
Neural principles of socialization
Let's define socialization as the following processes:
- developing skills for coping with a constellation of personalities (one to one interaction)
- developing skills for coping with a constellation of social dynamics (one to many interaction)
- adapting individual behavior in the face of social pressure (many to one interaction)
By coping skills, I mean all skills targeted at minimizing aggravation and maximizing the pleasing effect for both parties of the interaction, while productively accomplishing goals in a social setting.
Two principles should be kept in mind when viewing socialization as a neural learning process:
- pre-training: for best social competence in a given environment, socialization should proceed in contexts that resemble that target environment (esp. in cultural and social terms)
- incremental change: once high competence is achieved, incremental change to the environment may lead to further learning. Incremental approach is needed for algorithmic stability based on lower degree of interference. Incremental changes are also beneficial for psychological reasons. Rapid change of environments entails stress which may condition asocial behaviors
This simple neural model makes it easy to compare socialization effects of different social groups, and different socialization trajectories in development. For healthy kids, employing the above principles allows of traversing any social trajectory towards any social setting. The process of change can be iterated over and over again in different social groups and different contexts. However, practical limitation of lifespan inevitably leads to a whole constellation of socialization rulesets that never become stable. We never finish the socialization process, and always modify our behavior in the wake of interaction with others.
In practical terms, those neural principles mean that for a CEO, feasible and useful socialization might proceed from a family setting, to peer groups (incl. one to one interactions), to business-like environments (incl. one to one interactions). Those may later be enhanced by socializing in a proverbial golf club. Exposing a future CEO to socialization in a hunter-gatherer tribe or in a football team might be educational but not a sine qua non of good social competence in business. Similarly, socializing in academic setting of a business school may be helpful but not indispensable. The entire learning trajectory is based on a feedback loop between social skill requirements and personal preferences. The target is never known in advance.
In contrast, for a researcher, socialization might begin in a family setting, advance to peer groups, to college, and to academic environments. A scientist socializing with lawyers, clergy, or with politicians will soak in inspiration, learn a great deal, but again, if deprived of those options, a scientist can still thrive in his field, and in his particular social setting.
The verdict
Socialization must favor social productivity. Cognitive social skill deficits or self-control deficits would undermine social competence, however, understanding others does not need to lead to submission or seeking acceptance.
I believe that socialization should aim at social competence based on social performance and productivity. Isaac Newton, Steve Jobs or young Bill Gates may have ridden over somebody's toes, but society needs this type of creative genius to prosper. If others suffer due to poor genius socialization, they also need to expand their ruleset to minimize aggravation. Socialization is not a one-way process. Societies change individuals, but individuals also change societies. Elon Musk may need to stand in opposition to social pressure to accomplish greater goals and lift society to a new level. Obviously, there is always a friction and trade-offs between social demands and creative performance.
- The minimum goal of early socialization should be to establish a platform for lifelong learning in the area of social competence
- The ultimate goal of lifelong socialization is to equip the individual with skills that will make her an effective member of society
- We should not demand that socialization lead to skills aimed at pleasing others at the cost of one's own effective social function
- Socialization must be individualistic, appetitive and free. It should take into account individual preferences, personalities, and values
Socialization: Free or Institutionalized?
One of the stated purposes of compulsory schooling is socialization. I will try to show that socialization via schooling is not only sub-optimum, it may also be wrong. When choosing the optimization criteria, we already see that the concept of universal socialization comes from social utopia. Socialization will never escape the fact that society is made of factions and ideologies that all have different goals and will employ different optimization criteria.
Institutionalized socialization
Daycare and school are often promoted as having powers of good socialization. Socialization is rarely well-defined in that context, however, it is supposed to serve society. Isaac Newton might have had miserable social skills, however, his long-term impact on human progress is astounding. Poor socialization hurt Isaac himself more than it hurt society. It was good enough to only make sure that he did not destroy his own work as a result of being disappointed with social frictions. Incidentally, religious mythology also stole a great portion of the genius's life and might have done more damage to his work than poor socialization. Poor socialization is usually a serious handicap, however, many super-smart people seem to thrive despite being poorly understood or even ostracized. Is Donald Trump well socialized? Or is he socialized well enough to thrive in the pursuit of his own goals? In some cases, poorly socialized geniuses love their own social awkwardness as if it was a badge of honor. For that reason, socialization should belong more to the sphere of personal choice than to the sphere of common good.
How does schooling meet the neural principles of socialization mentioned above? In terms of the environment, schooling is socially poor and inadequate. It adds only a very tiny fraction of skills needed, primarily in age segregated peer group, which is a highly artificial social arrangement with pretty unusual social dynamics that often translate poorly to skills needed in adult life. Age-mixed free-running peer groups in a playground provide a better model of groups encountered in later life.
In addition, interaction with adults at school is sterile in social terms. Teachers and their students almost inevitably develop a behavioral system in which there is only one center of power and there are clear submission rules. Children should be freely exposed to adults from all walks of life, all ages, all levels of skill and knowledge, all personalities, and in as many contexts as possible. Instead of healthy socialization, kids are left in a submissive position to interact with adults who are pressured by the system to form an authoritarian behavioral system.
A great deal of troubles facing modern societies, esp. in the areas of health, mental health, productivity, job satisfaction and life satisfaction come from the effects of weak socialization in the sterile environment of age-selected social groups run in an authoritarian setting.
As for incremental change of the learning sample, schooling can offer a whole spectrum of options stretched between two suboptimum extremes. On one hand, kids may keep growing in the same age-segregated class over 8-10 years. Such a peer group is likely to develop its own unique idiosyncratic set of social rules that may turn out insufficient or even harmful at later ages. Such ruleset may turn out deeply ingrained and hard to unlearn. At the other extreme, we have kids who are tossed unprepared to new environments, e.g. new schools, or new towns. This can easily end up in bullying, ostracism, stress, etc. The case of Arian described here is a classic example of socialization turned upside down by a context change that overwhelmed the learning system. In terms of neural networks, we would call it catastrophic interference.
Both extremes, high stability and violent variability, have their advantages. Kids in a stable peer group may receive idiosyncratic socialization that will benefit their learning by providing minimum distraction. On the other hand, kids who survive violent changes of environment may receive most versatile socialization and a boost to stress resilience. They will fit a multitude of environments and thrive.
In the end, optimum trajectory will be developed for each kid individually depending on her needs, interests, and personality. The assistance in determining the trajectory should be appetitive in nature. Kids should have their own choice of friends, environments, and pursuits. All forms of artificial control can disrupt the process and lead to consequences that can scar an individual for life. As much as bad schooling can produce a hate of learning, artificial socialization efforts can produce a social misfit.
Free socialization
It is true that schooling is a form of socialization, however, there are superior approaches in terms of cost and quality.
Unschooling is not social deprivation. It usually leads to socializing differently or better. We are social for evolutionary reasons. Some individuals have lesser social cravings. Optimum socialization is based on behavioral feedback. Natural predispositions and drives should also determine how we socialize. Schooling limits those options.
If we look at the biographies of great men from the past, we can see clearly that growing up with adults, home-based education, or living in small remote places never seem able to stop their progress towards greatness. Even more, a degree of isolation seems to boost creativity. Secondly, playgrounds and sports fields seem far better for socializing than schools, where most of the time is spent under the rigor of obedient focus on the learning subject. Last but not least, governments would probably gladly accept an infusion of social misfits like Isaac Newton over a mass of nicely socializing low achievers. Naturally, social deprivation stunts the brain and actually undermines anyone's Newtonian potential, so it needs to be taken seriously. Institutionalization is never optimum in that respect.
I venture we need people like Newton. His unfortunate upbringing probably hurt mostly himself. He was a treasure for mankind though. His squabbles with Hook might have resulted in his Principia never been published. Perhaps this would delay mankind by decades?
If schools are great for developing social skills, it must be for clustering people in groups in limited spaces in limited brackets of time. If so, any organized activity for children can play that role. If there is a total of 1-2 hours for socializing at school, a similar amount of time spent in a football club, dance club, or chess club could do the same job and better. If 2 hours does not suffice for optimum development, the time can be extended. Make it 6 hours for the sake of mathematical proof. Whatever the optimum number, it can be achieved easily. Homeschooling families report they find this socialization component easy to achieve. They are even scornful when facing the question: "Are homeschoolers well socialized?". Homeschoolers are a bit different from your average child. They are each unique. They show special areas of strength. They might be difficult in character, and so are most great people. They come with some sense of elitism, but this might actually be good at the social level. I sympathize with their scorn of the "socialization question".
Parents who send their kids for organized evening activities tend to praise the socialization factor, as well as the fact that in those social settings kids are more likely to meet with pre-selected kids who belong to the "more desirable" crowd from the educational and behavioral point of view. In ethnically diverse countries, "desirable crowd" may have bad connotations. In Poland, it simply implies that little hooligans tend not to come to a dance class. In addition, they may also like the pre-selection of parents. One dad told me: "I was surprised to meet the same faces in swimming lessons. The same parents who brought their kids to aikido, picked up a chance to train their kids with an Olympic swimmer. That's fun for both parents and kids. The circle is closer and well-integrated". The glue of that social circle was the enthusiasm over the development options for kids. Last but not least, Dr Peter Gray has no doubt that even those extra activities organized by adults are not a good idea for socialization. To him, nothing works better for socialization than mixed-aged mixed-ability free peer groups in the neighborhood.
Moral socialization
In the context of socialization, I often hear of parents praising school for developing moral standards. This is the opposite to reality as confirmed by a multitude of studies (at least in reference to public schools in most of the western world). This is also common knowledge. Therefore, those praises of school socialization by parents must be a form of self-excuse. My own socialization experience seems to have been more likely to send one to prison than to college. Like all forms of learning, moral socialization must be free, or it will never be internalized and acted upon with conviction.
Morality and social skills should not be confused. A conman may have great social skills while a great moralist may be socially inept. Moral standards should largely be taken from a healthy home environment. Schooling is less likely to shape those. In my own case, all morality comes from reason. I ignored the original standard that my mom tried to instill in me. These were largely Christian values, and to this day, I am greatly influenced, partly due to peer pressure exerted by society at formative years. However, me and my mom disagreed about religion. For that reason, I refused to accept moral standards based on religion only. I would pick and choose, and accept only those that were based on reason. This is why I have pretty radical approach to some institutions (e.g. marriage) and rituals (e.g. funerals) while retaining core values that are more universal across cultures with varied religious influences. In that sense, I totally disagree with the view that socialization is essential for developing morality. I agree, however, with the obvious: socialization is essential.
Circadian cycle is important
Socialization is a form of learning. For that, it proceeds best in optimum circadian learning windows. Socialization must include interaction with adults to ensure early development of high social skills. Adult to child ratio in schools is usually pretty low. Moreover, socialization with teachers is as rare as flowers in the desert. Children should be exposed to a variety of adults in a variety of contexts. This exposure must take place in the optimum circadian window, which is usually obscured by school time. Instead of healthy socialization, at school, kids interact with adults, who enter an authoritarian behavioral system. There are still evenings to interact with parents and/or other adults. However, evening socialization is as good as evening learning. It is largely useless.
Socialization is good and, for healthy kids, socialization is easy. It comes naturally as it is encoded in human psychological needs and drives. For the cases where socialization is not easy, supervised socialization is easier than just tossing a kid to school with hopes and prayers for good outcomes.
Summary: Socialization Model
Socialization model illustrates a few inherent paradoxes. On one had we want to optimize socialization, on the other, it turns out that best optimization is based on non-interference. On one hand, we want to optimize for the common good, on the other it appears that the shortest path to that goal is via optimizing for individualistic socialization. On one hand we show that value systems have no bearing on the model, on the other we see that personalities and values will determine the trajectory of optimum socialization based on the model:
- socialization can be modelled and optimized
- for biological reasons, optimization of socialization is achieved best with minimum intervention
- individualistic socializations serves the good of society along principles similar to market economics
- optimum socialization can be achieved in abstraction of value and in different value systems
- individual personality and values may determine the optimum level/degree of socialization
- socialization is a lifelong learning process
- early socialization should focus on establishing a lifelong learning platform
- coercive socialization may backfire and result in asociality or anti-social behaviors
- critical periods in development make it important to opt against early socialization in daycare
- social intelligence might have had a significant contribution to the increase in the size of the human brain
- social intelligence is essential for further progress of mankind on the social platform and well beyond