The Affective Determinants of Socialization in Terms of Structuralism

Abstract

This article is concerned with the issue of socialization in the context of considering the conceptual and methodological elaborations of structuralist thought representatives. This largely refers to modern social scholars, who have been involved in the studies of effective socialization mechanisms in so-called “advanced societies”. When examining the given issue, it was revealed that the criticism, inherent in postmodern post-structuralism as well as conceptualization of sociological structuralism are related to the common understanding of the productive determinants significance for “conserving” and, consequently, reproducing the established social order. Furthermore, the developers of these contemporary social thought concepts share a common belief in the dependence of the individual’s mental structure on the institutional framework of society. In other words, according to most representatives of the structuralist paradigm, the basic personality orientation patterns are a function of the social system, in which the individual was socialized. The same can be said about the individual’s affective-motivational structure, i.e., it largely depends on the specifics of the corresponding social system. Thus, the direct aim of this paper consists in revealing the general logic and arguments in favor of social determinism in the structuralist theory of personality development as well as considering the relevance of structuralist ideas as such.