Social Acceptance and Social Deprivation of Personality Development.

Social acceptance and Social deprivation of personality development are two important factors of environmental factors, which are described under:

Social Acceptance.

This is an important factor influencing personality development. We all live in a social group where we expect approval and appreciation of the members of the group. When a person’s performance behaviour and role play is according to group expectations, he gets the approval of the group members. This is an important criteria for self-evaluation by an individual and it influences his self-concept to a large extent.

This factor influences people differently based on the importance they lay on social acceptance. To some people social acceptance holds no value. They will not be affected by the comments of people or by the impression people have of them. People who lay importance on group and who are liked by the group will have a more friendly and congenial nature than those who are rejected by the group.

The degree of impact of social acceptance on the behaviour of the person will depend on two factors: 

• The level of security a person has about his status in the group, and
• The importance he gives to social acceptance.

If a person feels secure of his status, he will act freely and not get influenced by others. Again, if the person attaches a lot of value to social acceptance, he will always try to act more to the approval of the members of the group.

High social acceptance makes people more outgoing, flexible, daring and active than others with moderate social popularity. But such people, due,to their feeling of superiority are not able to build close relationships with people. They fail to exude the warmth which is required for building a close personal relationship. The reason why these people remain aloof is that they have a feeling of superiority.

There are people who face social rejection as well, on the contrary. These people want Social acceptance but people reject them. The person who faces rejection develops a lot of anger and resentment against the people who have not shown him acceptance. Such persons also become depressed, sad and unhappy.

If rejection is faced early in life, the children may become juvenile delinquents (committing a crime before adulthood) or criminals later in life. If in early life a child has good social experiences, as an adult he would be better able to adjust in society and become healthy social members, otherwise they may become antisocial elements.

Social Deprivation.

This factor has a huge impact on personality development. Those people who do not get the opportunities to experience social contacts including, love and affection are called socially deprived. Such people become socially isolated and it is highly damaging for the very young and the old people, influencing their personality adversely. Young children are not able to develop a healthy and normal personality. They behave in a socially unacceptable manner and people do not have favorable opinion of them.