H.M. Johnson, in his treatise “Sociology-A Systematic Introduction” has listed four stages of socialization. These stages are 

1. The oral stage 

2. The anal stage 

3. The oedipal stage 

4. Stage of Adolescence.

1. The oral stage: The oral stage commences at birth arid continues till the completion of first year. At birth the child faced the first crisis that is he must breath, exert himself to fed, exposed to conditions of wet and other discomforts. Here the child cries a lot for everything, by this the child establishes oral dependency and also learns to signal his needs for care.

In this stage the child is founding sub system consisting of two persons himself and his mother. For others the child is little more than a possession. The child cannot differentiate the role of others from the mother. Thus in this stage in the personality of the child, his role and that of the mother are not probably clearly distinguished. Hence the infant and mother are merged. Sigmund Freud called the stage as the stage of a “primary identification”.

2. The Anal stage: According to Sigmond Freud the Anal Stage normally begins after first year. Completed during the third year. The crisis of this period is called anal crisis and is caused by imposition of new demands. In this stage the child is asked to take over some degree of care for himself. Anal disciplines are learned through what in ordinary termed as “Toilet Training”.

In this stage the child internalizes to clearly separated roles- his own and that of the mother. The child now apart from receiving love and care also starts giving love in return. In this stage the child becomes capable of discriminating between correct and incorrect performances in two ways. Firstly by the training from the socializing agent and secondly by being rewarded for correct actions and punished for incorrect or wrong actions.

3. The Oedipal stage: The third stage begins from the fourth year of the child and lasts up to puberty, that is the age of twelve or thirteen years. At this stage he starts taking himself as the member of the family. He also becomes familiar with his or her roles. Sigmund Freud has suggested that at this stage the boy develops “Oedipus complex”. That is a feeling of Jealousy towards his father and love towards his mother.

Likewise a girl develops the “Electra complex” that is a feeling of jealousy towards her mother and love towards her father. These feeling in both the cases are believed to be sexual. Moreover indentifying different role models is an important thing to be observed in this stage.

In this stage the child joins the group of his playmates. Interest in the opposite sex in this period in relatively content. In this stage the boy makes three kinds of identification. They are. 

• Sex role identification that is identification with the father and brother. 
• Role of the child in the family that is identification with his siblings. 
• Identification with the family as a member.

4. The Stage of Adolescence: The fourth stage begins roughly at puberty. This is an important stage of socialization because of changes like physiological and psychological start taking place within the individual. In this stage the young ones would like to free themselves from parental control. This stage is said to be very sensitive for boys and girls because they pass through various types of emotional crisis. Sex instinct which was latent till now is aroused and an interest in the opposite sex is heightened. But the sexual norms prevailing in the society will not allow them to satisfy it as and when they wish.