Socialisation - Is it all that important?

            Socialization and is it all that important?

Socialization is extremely critical for human beings, without it life would be dull. In 1938 it was an unfortunate but true case study of this.  A girl named Anna was born to a mentally impaired woman that lived with her father. She was sent countless of places but was then returned home due to financial restraints. She was then forced into the attic and was given only enough milk to live on and lived there until she was five. She wasn’t given no affection, no smiles, no hugs, or anything else, just coldness. Luckily, social workers saved the girl and sociologist Kingsley Davis went to see the girl immediately once he heard of the tragedy.  The girl was completely unresponsive, he reported and she did not laugh nor speak. However, with some help and guidance the girl did learn how to walk, speak a little, and even care for herself.  However, she died at the young age of 10.  This is an example of how lack of socialization can harm someone both physically and mentally. The term socialization refers to the way humans adapt to their surroundings and learn their culture. Unlike animals that behavior is biologically programmed, humans learn and adopt over time. Social experience and interacting with people is what helps forms an individual’s personality or an individual’s consistent pattern such as emotions, thoughts, and behavior. Animals generally tend to act similar such as a cat. A cat in America will usually act the same as a cat in Egypt, but the same can’t be applied to humans. We build a personality it just doesn’t come automatically to us, and we build it by our surroundings but as the case I mentioned earlier, without socialization a personality doesn’t form. In Anna case it is defiantly clear that humans depend on other people to not only mature physically, but mentally. About a century ago it was believed that people was born with certain instincts that would form personality and behavior.  An example is Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution that led people to think this. The US economic system led some people to believe that some behaviors just occurred “naturally,” such as some people are born criminals, or women tend to think more emotionally while men think more rationally. People also used this thinking for centuries to justify their “ethnocentric” view on society. They claimed that members of a technologically inadequate society were not as biologically evolved as they were so they were viewed as being less human. Why not exploit others if they seem to be less evolved and not as human as us? You can obviously see the flaw in this. In the twentieth century a psychologist who helped explained behavior clearer is known as John B Watson, and developed the theory of behaviorism. This refuted the theory mentioned above and stated that behavior was not something that people are born with, but more learned by their surroundings. He also stated that people around the globe are equally human beings, just they share different cultures and that behavior can be correlated to not nature, but more with nurture.  However, that does not mean that biology does not play any part of behavior.  Most people usually share biological traits with their parents such as height and hair color, and their parents genetic makeup could influence their intelligence and artistic talents such as art or music. But, as again it deals with socialization, and individual can’t develop a personality without interacting so children tend to pick up habits from their parents through years of socialization. Also, it’s interesting to note that people brains can’t fully develop if they didn’t utilize it when they were a child. So yes, it’s quite important to get mysterious games and puzzles for your children so you can help them develop a more elastic brain.  So avoiding people is not good for numerous of reasons. An interesting and classic study was conducted by psychologist Harry and Margaret Harlow using monkeys.  It would be illegal to use human beings for a study like this. Since monkeys show the closest correlation to human beings than they were used for this experiment. The experiments included testing monkeys in various environments and comparing the results to one another.  When a baby monkey was placed in complete isolation (except for food and nutrients) for six months they reported some deformities in their development. They found that when they returned to their group that they were extremely fearful and subservient. They then placed a baby monkey in cage with an “artificial mother,” and this mother was made of wire and had a wooden head, and a feeding tube for a nipple. These monkeys also showed some deformities because when they were placed back in their group they were unable to interact properly.  However, for the last experiment a baby monkey was placed in a cage with an artificial mother made of “soft cloth,” than the monkey held on to the artificial mother very closely and show very little sociological deformities. So what was the difference between the artificial mothers? Well, with the hard wired one the monkey was unable to hold on to the mother because it was rough and didn’t give back. However, with the soft artificial mother the baby monkey held on to it very deeply because it was soft more like the way a mother is and  it developed a bond with it. So, this experiment confirms how important it is for infants to receive love and hugs so that they can develop properly. It’s also interested to note that the psychologists studied that the infants can recover from as much as three months of isolation, but around six months the behavior was noted to be “irreversible.” Like the story I mentioned earlier with Anna, after ten days the sociologist visited her she showed immediate improvement and even smiled. A year later she show some slow but steady progress showing some interest in objects and people and even teaching herself how to walk. About six months later she could take care of herself such as feeding and even played with toys. Even though she showed drastic improvement by the age eight she showed the mental development of that of a two year old, and at the age ten she died of a blood deformity. This is evidence that some things are irreversible but this statement can easily be argued.  As noted earlier she was born to a mentally disabled mother so that could have stunted her developing process even greater and the mystery remains unsolved even to this day.  A more up to date case of child isolation took placed when a California girl was tied up in a dark garage in a basement. The girl name was Genie and when she was saved at the age of thirteen she weighed only about sixty pounds. She had the mental capacity to that of a one year old, and her language remains that of a young child. Today she lives in a home of mental disabled adults. This is evidence that socialization is crucial for the development of humans and animals for that matter. Human beings can sometimes recover from damage but to what extent is the answer, and I will assume it will remain the same because every individual is different.

Acting Techniques - How to Find the Right Acting Method For You

There are so many acting techniques out there. How do you know which acting technique is right for you? Below are some quick pointers to make sense of it all and to help actors choose an acting class based on the type of acting training they want.
1) The Stanislavski System
First, note that all the major acting techniques currently taught in American acting schools are based on the work of Constantin Stanislavski, a Russian actor and director who developed an acting method to help actors be real on stage. Here are a few highlights of the Stanislavsky system you'll want to be familiar with as an actor:

In order to believe in the given circumstances of the play, Stanislavsky actors use the magic if: "What if this was really happening to me?"

Actors break down the script into objectives (what the character wants to accomplish) and actions (what the character can do to try to reach his objective). Each action is an active verb (to help, to hurt, to convince) that helps the actor concentrate on doing rather than feeling.

Actors learn to relax their muscles and practice concentration so they can focus on the given circumstances of the play and deal with stage fright.

Actors access their own memories to call upon emotions needed to play certain scenes and acting roles.

2) Method and Meisner
The other two major acting techniques taught in acting schools are method acting (also known as "The Method") and the Meisner technique. Both of these acting techniques were inspired by Stanislavski and both help the actor create real thoughts and emotions under imaginary circumstances, but they do it very differently.
Method Acting turns the focus inward. Actors learn to use their five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) to recall objects, experiences and emotional memories. These sense memory exercises allow actors to draw from their own experiences in order to create the character and connect with the play.
Meisner Acting turns the focus outward. Actors train to shift focus from themselves to their acting partners so they can react truthfully to what is happening in the moment. They rely on their imagination rather than their memories to prepare for a scene. (Stella Adler, another student of Stanislavski, stresses the importance of imagination in her acting technique.)
3) Other Acting Techniques
Stanislavski, "The Method", Meisner, Stella Adler... These are the acting techniques most actors have heard about, but if you've already explored these acting methods and want to try something new, there are plenty of acting classes that teach lesser known techniques like Anne Bogart's Viewpoints method, Viola Spolin's improvisation technique or Tadashi Suzuki's physical training for the actor, to name a few.
4) Which technique to choose
Is there one method that is superior to the others? Each one of the major acting techniques has been studied and used by great actors, so the point is not which acting technique is the best, but which one works for you.

Think about what you'll be doing in class. Are you more interested in doing a lot of solo exercises or do you respond more to improvisation and scene study? Also consider the kind of acting you want to do. For example, The Method works great for film acting while a Spolin class is a great choice if you are mostly interested in theater and improvisation.
Also think of your strengths and weaknesses as an actor when you decide what to study next. For example, a Viewpoints or Suzuki acting class is a good choice if you need to work on your presence on stage or if you want to get more comfortable in front of an audience.
Although it is important to try to pick the acting technique that speaks the most to you now, remember that acting school is not the end of your acting journey, but the beginning. As your career grows, you will adapt your acting training to different acting jobs and eventually develop your own method, a unique way of rehearsing, creating a character and finding the truth in a scene.

You can also discover lesser known acting techniques at http://www.acting-school-stop.com/acting-training.html

Why Method Acting Is The Most Successful Acting Technique

The Method approach to acting became famous when Marlon Brando and James Dean started to appear on the silver screen, changing the perception of what the acting profession was capable of. Their acting seemed so real you forgot they were acting. Since then, there has been a list of outstanding acting talent that has been enabled by the Method. Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Paul Newman, Daniel Day Lewis, Meryl Streep and this year 'Best Actor' Academy Award winner, Forest Whitaker, all use the Method.
But why has it been so successful?
The Method creates a reality beyond the conventional reality. This means that instead of the actor adhering merely to the conventional thought of the character and situation, they are able to stimulate themselves, and indeed the audience, on a much deeper level.
Christopher Walken was asked what he was thinking about when he shot the scene at the end of the film, 'Deer Hunter', where he plays Russian roulette and kills himself. He said that when he was younger, he went to summer camp and his parents made him go - he hated going, and the experience filled him with a sense of abandonment, loss and anger. He said that he felt his character was experiencing similar feelings, so he thought about that event during the scene. He understood that events from his own experience could expose the experiences of the character on a much deeper level.
He was using an important tool within the Method called 'affective memory'. This is when an actor recalls an event from his own life using his senses. The rationale behind this is that we all experience the world through our senses - we see, we hear, we touch, we smell and we taste. If the actor trains and uses these senses in conjunction with their own memories, they can have a powerful effect on the actors' instrument - the human body.
The Method also allows the actor to create a completely different physicality and psychology from their own, using the animal exercise. Marlon Brando famously used the animal exercise in the 'Godfather' when he played a bulldog. He stuffed his cheeks full of tissue paper in his audition to recreate the jowls of the dog; he started to move around slower and heavier with the underlying menace of a bulldog. In 'A Streetcar Named Desire' he played an ape, scratching his chest and moving objects around with his knuckles and eating like an animal. The animal exercises allowed him to create the life of another human being in a deeper more complete fashion.
Using the Method, actors can go beyond the conventional and effective way to act, and make the work more human, more alive, more exciting, more amused and entertained - not on a light level, but on the utmost level which acting is capable of.
Author: Brian Timoney
http://www.themethodcentre.co.uk
email:info@themethodcentre.co.uk
Brian is an experienced actor, director and teacher of the Method. He established The Method Centre in London, an actors studio in the UK focused on the Method.

Use Acting Techniques For Success In Any Area of Your Life - Part Three

The title of this article is sure to raise the question, "How can mere acting techniques translate into success in real life?" Well thank you, I'm glad you asked.
To answer that question, let me first convey a story Anthony Robbins writes about in his great book on NLP, Unlimited Power. One day Tony happened to be on an airplane and found himself sitting next to Ken Blanchard, one of the co-authors of The One-Minute Manager series of books.
Blanchard happened to mention that he had recently taken several golf lessons from some of the world's best golf instructors. The problem was, Blanchard said, that keeping all the individual techniques and instructions in mind at one time was very difficult for him. In other words, he had trouble remembering how to hold his club, how to stand, how to move the club on the upswing, how to follow through on his swing, and on and on.
Tony Robbins, asked Blanchard if he had ever made a perfect golf swing. Of course the answer was yes. Had he ever hit the ball perfectly? Blanchard's answer was yes again. Had he hit the ball perfectly on many occasions? The answer was yes again.
Then, Tony said, all the individual pieces of information about how to perform a perfect golf swing were already stored in Blanchard's head. He didn't need to try to remember each bit of instruction each time he tried to hit the ball, all he had to do was re-create the "state" he had been in when he had previously hit the ball perfectly.
Acting techniques are an excellent way to put yourself into a desired state. Suppose you are a struggling sales person. You have been to all kinds of sales training courses. You know your product and your company very well. And you have a good personality in other situations.
But when it comes to actual selling situations, you come apart and cannot perform as a good sales person.
In a situation like this, all the information, all the selling techniques, all the times you have observed more successful sales people, and all the skills you have observed in relating to people, are already stored in your brain. Your difficulty selling will not be solved by taking another sales class. What you need to do is create a resourceful state in which all that knowledge is used and applied.
In all likelihood, you can create this resourceful state if you act "as if" you are a very accomplished sales person. If you walk into the next sales interview acting as if you are another person - or better yet - another version of you, who is confident and has already had thousands of successful sales interviews under your belt, you will find your results will be much more successful.
Acting "as if" enables your brain to pull all the information you already have stored in it together. Just as recreating a positive state can help a golfer pull all the golf techniques together in a single swing.
Try acting "as if" the next time you want to change your state. You will be amazed at your results.




Just a few years after attempting suicide, Charles Brown has learned to literally "re-wire" and "re-program" his brain to achieve success in everything he attempts. He now teaches others how to use neuro-linquistic programming (NLP), subliminal technology, self hypnosis, and other methods to make major changes in their lives. He is the author of the free downloadable ebook, The Science of Change: How To Re-Program Your Mind and Transform Your Life [http://www.geocities.com/chbrown56]. This ebook has 49 pages of transformational information and can be downloaded at [http://www.geocities.com/chbrown56]

Best Acting Technique

In my opinion, one of the biggest challenges in acting is how to approach 'emotional preparation', and as such, I feel that is the area that varies the most between techniques. Truth be told, this is pretty much what all acting coaches are going for...a reliable, repeatable method of achieving appropriate, realistic emotions to fit the scene.
Now, I'm quite biased here, but I have seen quite a few of these techniques put into play and I'm still convinced that Sanford Meisner's is the most effective. It is for me the most grounded, and more importantly, the most repeatable method that I've seen used.
I feel many techniques fail mostly due to two factors:
1- They are too external.
2- They are too internal.
Allow me to elaborate...in the first example, I've seen many acting schools preach the benefits of 'emotionalizing' through external means. That is, your emotional preparation is to come from 'infusing' some object, such as a scarf, or a painting, or even a room with associative memories. Now, this can work, but much like hearing a favorite song over and over, it eventually loses it's 'punch'. Not to mention the fact that if it's not working like you had hoped, you're then spent focusing your very valuable attention on an object. And, as we all know, an object is not an emotional thing.
In the second example, being too internal can work as well...just look at all the 'method' folk out there. The difference here is that instead of finding emotional preparation by infusing something external, the actor is asked to recall personal emotional memories from which to draw from. The big problem here is that, often things that really troubled us say, fifteen years ago, may not be such a big deal now. Plus, you are now placing your very valuable attention on yourself. Remember the last time you talked to someone that only thought of themselves? I think we call those people 'self-absorbed' to be nice...boring usually comes to mind for me though.
This is where the Meisner technique fills the gap. Instead of external measures, or pounding your emotional past into the dirt, Mr. Meisner suggested that you use your imagination to find your emotional preparation. Here the actor is always able to adapt, because our imagination is limitless. Plus, once imagined, we are now free to place all of our very valuable attention on our scene partner! And, if you doubt the power of your imagination, just start imagining your spouse, lover (or whatever) cheating on you.
Get specific.
Really picture it happening and with whom.
Now tell me you don't feel something! And that's just one example! The beauty here is that you know what it makes you feel, it's honest and you don't have to think about it. That gives you all the time in the world to focus on what's really important...what you need to do, why you need to do it and with whom you are dealing with.


D.L. White is a film and television professional with 14 years of experience in post production, working on hundreds of films from Paramount, MGM, Warner Bros. and Buena Vista, as well as dozens of network shows including Frasier, Seinfeld and Reba.
As a Director, D.L. White has shot and directed several commercials and music videos for clients from around the world and is proud to shoot on Kodak Film exclusively.
Mr. White's new book "Acting in the Real World: The Film Professional's Guidebook to the Job of Acting" is available as a free download at Film and Television Acting Book at ActingReality.com