Microsoft Word Socialized Choices 31-12 pod docx

Socialized Choices - Labour Market Behaviour of Dutch Mothers 
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socialization can be pragmatically useful, and have much less subjective 
inevitability compared to the contents of primary socialization. Consequently, the 
subjectivity reality of internalizations within secondary socialization is 
particularly susceptible to challenging definitions of reality. “Not because they 
are not taken for granted or are apprehended as less than real in everyday life, 
but because their reality is less deeply rooted in consciousness and thus more 
susceptible to displacement” (Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.167).   
The issue of consistency 
What is particularly interesting is the character of the transitional process from 
primary to secondary socialization. Is this process characterised by reproduction 
and re-enforcement or by recreation? Handel concluded that a satisfactory 
explanation of the relationships between primary socialization and adult 
socialization still evades us (Handel, 2006, p.18). As mentioned, according to 
Berger and Luckmann (1967) within secondary socialization, there is always a 
problem of consistency between the original and new internalizations, when 
individuals are confronted with new alternative realities and possible identities 
that appear as subjective options (p.160). Within and among the different sub-
worlds there will be differences and disagreement about values, norms, 
vocabulary and ways of interacting. At many levels, contradictions between and 
even within the different settings exist (Bandura, 1977, p.44; Handel, 2006, p.17). 
The different perspectives of significant others are fraught with possibilities of 
internal conflict (Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.190). People cannot simply 
accept each set of roles for them (Eagle, 1988). The individual is therefore often 
confronted with a dilemma of consistency, which he can typically solve either by 
modifying his perception of reality or by only clinging to reality-maintaining 
relationships (Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.170).  Berger and Luckmann’s 
principle assumption was that the individual likes their identity being confirmed, 
and significant others are important for this ongoing substantiation of their 
identity (Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.170). Within the social process of 
reality-maintenance, people will make a distinction between significant others 
and less important others, and tend to avoid the social reality of less important 
others that have deviant practices, norms and values compared to their own 
(Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.169). Other scholars have argued that people 
rather establish an acceptable position for themselves throughout their lives out of 
all these contradictions (Eagle, 1988; Handel, 2006). “When exposed to diverse 
models, observers rarely pattern behaviour exclusively after a single source, nor 
do they adopt all the attributes even of preferred models. Rather, observers 
combine aspects of various models into new amalgams that differ from the 
individual sources. Different observers adopt different combinations of 
characteristics” (Bandura, 1977, p.48). 
Also Berger and Luckmann (1967) acknowledged that partial transformations 
of identity are common, especially in relation to individuals’ social mobility and 

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Chapter 2 - Theoretical framework and hypotheses 
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occupational training (p.181). However, they also emphasised that even within 
partial transformation, there is a continuing association with symbols, persons and 
groups who were significant before. Since these influences continued to be 
around in people’s minds (often also around them physically), they are likely to 
protest to fanciful re-interpretations of people’s new identities. And even within 
partial transformational processes, individuals must persuade themselves that 
their personal changes are plausible (Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.181). 
Bandura (1977) also recognised that people are initially reluctant to embark on 
new undertakings. Moreover, as long as familiar practices and routines work well, 
people will have little motivation to think about alternatives (Bandura, 1977, 
p.49). And where they are confronted with new behavioural examples, people 
will readily take up what they (and their significant others) regard as 
praiseworthy, but resist new ways of behaviour that violate their social and moral 
convictions (Bandura, 1977, p.53). As described in chapter 2, during the ‘70s, 
women’s societal role changed drastically, and the initial advancement of few 
mothers, by simply entering the labour market, was later followed by many more 
mothers. However, the particularly ground-breaking behaviour of certain mothers 
- the group of consciously single mothers and full-time working mothers - did not 
attract many followers. The innovative behaviour of these mothers did not 
become socially approved, and therefore remained encumbered by restraints. “It 
requires the cumulative impact of salient examples to reduce restraints 
sufficiently to initiate a rise in modelled behaviour” (Bandura, 1977, p.55). Put 
differently, only in cases in which ‘innovators’ are able to perform new 
behaviours without experiencing harmful effects, wherein mass communication 
can serve as an important accumulator, may defensive behaviour by its observers 
be weakened, fear reduced and imitations created.  
In addition, the benefits of new behaviour can only be experienced when the 
new behaviour is tried.
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 Only after practicing the new behaviour, as is supported 
by secondary socialization, can agents strengthen or weaken inhibitions over 
behaviour that has previously been ‘taught’ (Bandura, 1977, p.49-52). Reflecting 
a less deterministic view of primary socialization compared to Berger and 
Luckmann, Bandura argued that, with secondary socialization, successive 
modelling can “produce a gradual imitative evolution of new patterns bearing 
little resemblance to those exhibited by the original models” (Bandura, 1977, 
p.48). 
The last stage of this study is the examination of whether mothers tend to 
sustain their (acquired) attitudes through secondary social relations, by creating 
and recreating the familiar, or whether they are able to reset their attitudes if 
confronted with new models of behaviour or supportive others. Nonetheless, a 
limiting frame of this examination is the cross-sectional research design of this 
study. By employing qualitative and quantitative research methods, mothers are 
                                                           
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  Yet people will not adopt innovative behaviour if they lack the money, the skills, or the accessory 
resources that may be needed (Bandura, 1977, p.55). 

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