Social Psychology

Question 1

Explain the difference between primary (family) and secondary (media, schooling) socialisation.

Answer 1

Socialisation includes the rituals, cultural expectations and social influences from the environment and those in the society around us. Primary socialisation is the lessons we learn from our immediate family and caregivers, whereas secondary socialisation is the lessons we learn from school, teachers, friends and media

Question 2

Describe group social influence, with reference to compliance identification and internalisation

Answer 2

Social influence theory states that the attitudes, values and beliefs we hold are influenced by people we associate with. There are three processes that individuals undergo to change their attitudes and beliefs: compliance, identification and internalisation.

Question 3

Describe gender and compare social learning, cognitive developmental and biological-based theories of gender role formation

Answer 3

Gender is a social and cultural construct that helps us to define and identify male and female characteristics, including:
- what we should look like
- how we should act
- our personality traits
Theories of gender role formation: gender role is defined as the set of expectations that are determined by the society around us. It dictates how we should look, act and function based on our gender. There are a number of theories that explore how gender roles are formed, including the biological theories of gender role formation, cognitive theories and the social learning theory

Question 4

deduce how status and power operate in groups, with reference to the standford prison experiment (Haney, Banks and Zimbardo 1973)

Answer 4

Power and status are linked concepts. Power can be defined as how much influence or control a person perceives they have over other or over a group of people. Status is the percived importance of an individual within a group. Often, the higher the power of someone, the higher their status in the group.

Question 5

Predict how obedience, conformity and social norms (robert Cialdini et al. 2006) lead to behaviour change.

Answer 5

obedience: suggest that when instructed by an authority figure, it is highly likely that you will act according to what the authority figure has asked you.
comformity: Due to our need to be accepted by the social groups around us, we act in a way that will make us feel most accepted by the groups.
social Norms: Descriptive social norms and injunctive social norms both lead to behaviour changes in people. The Study of Cialdini et al. (2006) investigated the use of social norms, and found that injunctive social norms are more effective in changing behaviour compared to descriptive social norms.

Question 6

Evaluate historical social psychological research, with reference to studies conducted by Stanley Milgram (1963) and Solomon Asch (1951).

Answer 6

Milgram expirment (1963)