One under-recognized dimension of social conditioning involves gender. The effects of gender are so pronounced that any sociologist must examine their own gender biases to more effectively work within the field. A society’s gender norms may be so thoroughly cemented that they may be believed to be strictly instinct-based, but any ideal taught to a child from infancy may appear that way. A mother-to-be, upon finding out her unborn child’s biological sex from a doctor-administered test or scan may feel different emotions toward the child based on the result, and parents may prepare by buying gender-directed furnishings for the child’s future bedroom. The dichotomy of cool colors, athletics and Legos for boys and warm colors, art and dolls for girls is often enforced playfully by parents and teachers who offer these pastimes to children and may act confused or disappointed toward those who deviate from such norms. Further onward into adolescence and adulthood, gender conditioning can be assisted by the mass media, with advertisements and programs which feature “admirable” men as tall, muscular and aggressive and “attractive” women as skinny, curvy and submissive. Action hero movies which feature a powerful male protagonist in a pursuit to rescue a helpless woman aid norm enforcement. These portrayals of “ideal” men and women may be related to an epidemic of appearance-related insecurity among men and women alike, but the gender standards still stand. 

Although some types of socialization can produce arguably negative effects among a society’s members, depriving a person of contact with a social group can cause immensely worse damage. Two examples of children who were imprisoned by their parents from infancy and underwent extreme social isolation are cited in the text. Although these were cruel circumstances, they are fascinating to sociologists who wish to examine the effects of isolation on people. Upon being discovered in their situations, both had received negligible exposure to human language and therefore had undeveloped capacities for understanding speech or, even after exhaustive attempts at training, communicating in complete sentences. They were completely unaccustomed to activities most humans consider among the most basic, such as actively eating food rather than being fed by another and standing or walking rather than being constantly restrained. They were denied an opportunity to be “human,” in all but physical respects, by being denied any medium of socialization. 

At its most basic, socialization is the process of learning to be human, but “human” may have a subjective definition between cultures and civilizations. Although certain types of social conditioning, such as with gender, may make one “less-oneself” in a way, socialization through contact with others is required for a person to become oneself in the first place and to become adjusted to communities and the world. Total isolation is perhaps the harshest punishment anyone could endure.