Debate: Sociology and Human Behavior Essay

Submitted By nwachief
Words: 683
Pages: 3

Among the popular theories that prove socialization is the main determined of human behavior is the theory of suicide by one of the founding father of sociology, Emile Durkheim. The main instinct in all animals is to survive. To want to commit suicide is the exact opposite of survival and goes against human nature, therefore can be reasoned to be socially-constructed and influenced by external factors. According to Durkheim’s investigations, he found that suicide rates shoot up even when society is in peace economically and socially because the norms and values of society aren’t clear. It shows that people tend to commit suicide during normless times. He called these anomic suicides. Durkheim also touched on the reverse of anomic suicides which is fatality suicides. This theory displays suicides factored by too much norms and rules of the society. People get too wound up due to the endless dos and don’ts and expectations of society and put an end to it. Other than that, another suicide theory is egoistic suicides. These suicides are consequences of low levels of integration in society. The people who commit egoistic suicides are often socially neglected, unsupported by members of their social groups and rejected by the norms of society. Lastly, Durkheim also discovered altruistic suicides which are commonly known as sacrificial deaths. Individuals who commit altruistic suicides give primary thought and consideration to the interest of the whole community before his own welfare. Thus, this concludes that suicide is a contradiction of nature and is only brought up by negative social forces.
Languages are the main aspect of communication. The variety of languages is socially formed by the place and heritage of every different community. Look at Mandarin for instance, people all over the world speak it yet there are slangs and phrases only a certain branch of the race would know. This occurs due to the different places and societies all over the world developing while speaking the same language. The way our native tongue sounds and how we pronounce it is much affected by our socialization and surroundings. Hence, different languages are crucial evidence that human behavior is mostly socialized.

The norms and values of our culture have shaped our conception of the gender roles to a very narrow perspective. Rigid ideas that nudges the gender stereotyping such as the dominant and submitting roles of a household or even the colour association to genders are all formed by social forces. According to US feminist Barbara G. Walker’s book “The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets”, women were the alpha characters in most Neolithic civilizations. The book touches on the social construction of a