In its basic sense the word socialization refers to making the individual into a member of society. In considerations of adult socialization, however, the term has been generalized to refer to the process by which individuals become members of any organization. Caplow has grouped the changes that occur in organizational socialization into four categories: skills, self-image, involvements, and values.
Socialization or Selection?
It is worth emphasizing that one way by which organizations make it easy for themselves to socialize new recruits is careful screening or selection. Not much is known about this process, however, it must be recognized that all organizations try to select their membership and, in that sense, organizations are almost never random samples of the population. Selection is difficult and even when successful may produce problems, as when persons who have been selected because of certain traits turn out to be ill-adapted to the requirements of the organization once they are promoted to new positions. The schools try to control this process by selection according to qualifications. If forced to take all students, then they are likely to select within the schools for special programs. There will be ability groupings within grade schools and in universities there are special requirements for entry into professional schools.
The phenomenon of selection raises an important issue. If organizations try to select persons according to certain ideal characteristics, then perhaps they do not socialize their members at all. Or, to put the matter in another way, how does one study socialization if the members of organizations have been preselected? What one attributes to socialization may in fact be due to the process of selection, assisted by dropouts.
Studies by Wheeler in Scandinavian prisons, Massachusetts institutions for juvenile delinquents, and California prisons concluded that selection is more important than socialization in accounting for the values and behavior of prison inmates. This conclusion tends to be supported by studies of women's prisons. However, other studies tend to support a deprivation theory that suggests that it is the prison itself which accounts for prisoner behavior. Street, Vinter, and Perrow, for example, showed that when prisoners in therapeutic prisons were compared with those in more orthodox custodial prisons, there was less deprivation in the former, a situation that may account for the finding that the values and behavior of the prisoners were different. The trouble is that, as prisoners are not randomly assigned to such prisons, there is a confounding effect of selection and deprivation.
Studies in universities tend to show that socialization is much more important in accounting for student behavior than is selection. It is probably important to note that the difference between the two kinds of organizations, prisons and universities, includes the degree of voluntariness. It is perhaps not surprising that socialization is less successful where persons do not want to be socialized (prisons) than where they are presumably more willing, as in the case of universities.
A Four-Process Model
Any model of organizational socialization will have to consider the effects of selection both at entry (in-selection) and at departure (dropouts or persons being selected out in other ways-a process we may call "out-selection"). It is also possible that the members of the organization themselves may affect the goals or values of the organization, thus producing a kind of "counter-socialization."
All four processes (in-selection, out-selection, socialization, and counter-socialization) operate in all organizations but probably differ depending on the kind of organization. In-selection is probably most common when an organization has an excess of applicants, as in the case of elite colleges, medical schools, elite military academies, or Wall Street law firms. Out-selection is also present in such elite institutions, but those institutions rarely select out very many because it is too embarrassing for them to confess failure and it may interfere with their ability to attract others. However, it does take place, as in the case of religious excommunication and, occasionally, of deviant labor unions. Those examples illustrate a danger. An excommunicated cleric may found a new sect; the United Mine Workers, if thrown out of the AF of L, may go ahead and form the CIO.
Socialization is most common and most effective where the organization expects to make major changes in the personality or attitudes of its members and where the members willingly lend themselves to such changes. Examples include schools, convents, monasteries, certain kinds of therapeutic prisons, and certain kinds of mental hospitals, especially those to which persons voluntarily commit themselves. Gamier has described this process for the case of the Sandhurst Military Academy in England.
Finally, although counter-socialization does go on, we have few research examples. It seems to occur when there is a considerable change in the makeup of the members of an organization, as, for example, when an organization hires a considerable number of women or blacks. After World War II there was a large influx of veterans many of whom rejected traditional college fraternity values as being frivolous, a process that helped to bring about a decline in those values and a lessening of interest in joining fraternities. It also seems highly likely that it was the sheer increase in the number of students who came of college age in the 1960s that led to some of the troubles of that period.
The emphasis of this paper on organizational and occupational socialization has naturally placed the organization or occupation in an active role. However, it must be recognized that a good deal of organizational and occupational socialization takes place at a young age. In one sense the whole culture tends to socialize persons for organizational and occupational performance at an early age through media and organizational exposure. Perhaps the most important influence is school itself-certainly a large organization. Students at a tender age are exposed to hierarchy every time they are asked to report to the principal's office, and to specialization when they are exposed to different teachers or when they meet the counselor. The emotional disciplining that is felt to be so characteristic of organizations is taught when students must wait in line to get into the cafeteria or when the fire drill occurs. Class scheduling introduces young students to the importance of time. The study of the way childhood socialization articulates with adult socialization is an important area of inquiry that has hardly begun. Similarly, organizational and occupational socialization have obvious important implications for job satisfaction and this relationship should be investigated.
