Sociocultural approach Flashcards
Social identity theory
Core Idea:
People have multiple “social selves” linked to group memberships.
Understanding ourselves and our value in social contexts leads to categorization by group identity (e.g., gender, nationality, profession).
Self-esteem can be boosted through personal achievements and group affiliations.
Minimal Groups Paradigm:
Tajfel argued that competition is not necessary for intergroup rivalry.
Even random group assignment creates in-group (us) and out-group (them) dynamics, leading to group identification and potential prejudice.
Key Mental Processes:
Social Categorisation: Dividing people into groups to simplify understanding, exaggerating similarities within and differences between groups.
Social Identification: Emotional attachment to group membership, influencing self-esteem through group association.
Social Comparison: Favorably comparing one’s in-group to out-groups, which may lead to stereotyping but doesn’t always cause prejudice.
Salience of Social Identity:
When a social identity becomes more noticeable, it significantly influences behavior and group interactions.
Chen et al. (SIT)
The aim of the study was to investigate the role of Confucian Work Dynamism (Long-term orientation) on an individual’s buying habits.
The sample was made up of 149 bi-cultural participants from a Singaporean university. The study was conducted online. The participants were randomly assigned to conditions.
First, the participants were primed in order to make either their Singaporean or their American identity more salient - that is, to make them more aware of that part of their identity. This was done by first showing them a collage of 12 photos that were emblematic of the culture. The images included famous buildings, brand names, the flag, and celebrities. After looking at the collage they were then asked to write down as many of the items as they could remember.
After completing the priming task, the participants were given a shopping scenario to buy a novel online. They were told the standard delivery cost was 2.99 Singaporean dollars. They were then told that it would take five business days to receive the delivery, but that they could pay extra to get the book in one day. Participants were asked how much they were willing to pay to receive the book in one day.
Finally, the participants were asked to list the first three politicians that came to mind.
People whose Western cultural values were made more salient through priming placed a higher value on immediate consumption than the people whose Eastern cultural values were made salient. It appears that Confucian Work Dynamism played a role in their online shopping behavior.
In both cases, the participants listed politicians that were relevant to the culture that they had been primed for. This indicates that the priming had remained throughout the study and should discount individual differences between the groups.
Chen et al (link to SIT)
- more salient to one culture meant that they would self-identify to that culture more than the other, and therefore categorise themselves with that culture, therefore adopt the behaviours of that culture.
Social cognitive theory
Core Idea:
Behavior is learned through observation, modelling, and reinforcement.
Learning does not require direct experience; we learn vicariously by observing others.
Key Concepts:
Modelling: Observing and imitating others’ behaviors.
Vicarious Reinforcement: Learning by seeing the consequences (rewards/punishments) experienced by models.
Self-Efficacy: Belief in one’s ability to succeed; higher self-efficacy increases likelihood of imitating behavior.
Reciprocal Determinism: Behavior, personal factors, and environment interact and influence each other.
Conditions for Learning:
Attention: Focus on the model’s behavior.
Retention: Ability to remember the behavior.
Motivation: Desire and expectation of a reward.
Potential: Physical/mental ability to reproduce the behavior.
Factors Enhancing Imitation:
Consistent, likable, and relatable models.
Observer perceives similarity to the model.
Model’s behavior is reinforced.
Role of Self-Efficacy:
Influenced by past success, observation of others, encouragement, and physiological state.
Higher self-efficacy leads to persistence and resilience in learning.
Joy Kimball and Zabrach
Aim:
To investigate the impact of the introduction of television on children’s aggressive behavior in a natural environment.
Procedure:
- The study was conducted in three towns in British Columbia, Canada:
- Notel: No television in 1973; introduced a single Canadian channel by 1975.
- Unitel and Multitel: These towns already had television but received the new channel in 1975.
- Data collection methods:
- Observations of physical and verbal aggression on playgrounds, ensuring inter-rater reliability.
- Ratings of aggression by teachers and peers.
- Surveys on children’s TV viewing habits and preferences.
- The sample included 120 children, with informed consent obtained from parents.
Findings:
- Aggression increased significantly in Notel after television was introduced (1973–1975).
- The aggression levels in Unitel and Multitel showed no significant changes during the same period.
- Boys were generally more physically aggressive than girls.
- Children’s favorite shows showed no clear link between the content viewed and levels of aggression.
- Researchers attributed the increase in aggression in Notel to heightened arousal due to the novelty of television exposure.
Conclusion:
The introduction of television correlated with increased aggressive behavior in children, particularly in a previously TV-free environment. The findings highlight the potential social and psychological effects of media exposure.
Joy Kimball and Zabrach (link to SCT)
Social Cognitive Theory, proposed by Albert Bandura, emphasizes the role of observational learning, imitation, and modeling in behavior. According to SCT:
- Children learn behaviors by observing role models (e.g., characters on television).
- Aggression could increase due to imitation of aggressive behaviors displayed on TV.
- Novelty of television in Notel may have heightened arousal, increasing susceptibility to aggressive modeling.
- The findings align with Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment, where children imitated aggressive behaviors observed in a model.
Stereotypes
Stereotypes:
Fixed beliefs about groups applied to individuals.
Function as schemas to simplify the social world.
Can be positive or negative and are prone to confirmation bias (noticing evidence that confirms stereotypes and ignoring contradictory evidence).
Acquired from social norms, not personal experience, and serve as heuristics (“assume until proven otherwise”).
Cognitive Theories of Stereotyping
Cognitive Miser Theory (Fiske, 2004):
Stereotyping shortcuts thinking processes, saving cognitive effort.
Social Categorisation (Tajfel & Turner, 1979):
Organises people into groups, exaggerating in-group similarities and out-group differences, fostering stereotypes.
Language and Stereotypes (Perdue et al., 1990):
In-group/out-group language strengthens stereotypes and may lead to prejudice.
Illusory Correlation (Error of Association):
Incorrectly associating unrelated events, often due to noticing distinctive or unusual occurrences.
Leads to stronger encoding and perception of a link.
Hamilton and Guifford (stereotypes)
Aim
- To investigate whether the extent to which illusory correlations lead to stereotype formation
- ‘Distinctiveness based illusory correlations happen when a relationship is believed to exist between two variables due to focusing too much on information that stands out’
Procedure
- ONLY 40 American undergraduate students (20 male and 20 female)
- Ethnocentric study: Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic
- Participants were asked to read 39 statements about two groups of people (Group A and group B)
- There were twice as many people in group A (26) as group B (13)
- The statement about each person was either positive or negative
- Participants were told that group B was smaller than group A before the study; to prime the participants to make assumptions about the minority group (seeing them as out group)
- Each group had the same proportion of positive and negative statements
- Participants were then asked to rate the groups on 20 traits e.g. popular or intelligent
Results and Conclusion
- Group A was ranked higher for positive traits and lower for negative traits compared to group B
- Hamilton and Guilford argued that this was because the minority group was by nature smaller in number, their negative behaviours appeared more distinct and therefore seemed more representative of the group
- This demonstrates why negative stereotypes may be formed
hamilton and guifford (link)
This study illustrates the formation of stereotypes through the process of illusory correlation, where people perceive a stronger association between two variables than actually exists. In this case, participants were primed to view Group B as the minority and, despite both groups having the same proportion of positive and negative traits, they attributed more negative traits to Group B. This occurred because the negative behaviors in the smaller group stood out as more distinctive, leading participants to form an exaggerated belief about the group’s negative characteristics. This demonstrates how minority groups can become targets of negative stereotyping due to the disproportionate focus on distinct or negative information, even in the absence of actual behavioral differences.
Stereotype threat (effects of stereotypes)
Stereotype threat is the fear that you will confirm a negative stereotype about a group that you belong to. When people are faced with a stereotype threat, they often get nervous and perform worse, thus confirming the stereotype.
- stereotype threat occurs when one is in a situation where there is a threat of being judged or treated stereotypically, or a fear of doing something that would inadvertently confirm the stereotype
Steele and Aronson
A- The aim of the study was to see how stereotype threat affects test performance in African Americans. Steele & Aronson defined stereotype threat asbeing at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one’s group.
P- The sample was made up of 114 male and female, black and white undergraduates from Stanford University. There were two independent variables in the study: the race of the participant and the test descriptions. The participants were given a standardized test of verbal ability - similar to the SAT - and were told one of two things: 1. It is a test to diagnose your intellectual ability; 2. it is a test of your problem-solving skills; In the first condition, the focus was on “verbal ability”; in the second condition, it was on “problem-solving.” Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions; however, they made sure that there were equal numbers of participants in each condition.
F- African Americans did poorly when they believed that the test was a test of their ability but did just as well as white Americans when they believed that it was a test of their problem-solving skills. In other words, African American participants performed less well than their white counterparts in the stereotype threat condition, but in the non-threat condition, their performance equalled that of their white counterparts.
Steele and aronson link (stereotype threat)
This study by Steele and Aronson (1995) illustrates the concept of stereotype threat, which occurs when individuals feel at risk of confirming negative stereotypes about their group. In the study, African American participants performed worse when the test was described as a measure of intellectual ability, likely because this framing activated the stereotype of African Americans being less intellectually capable. The anxiety of potentially confirming this stereotype impaired their performance. However, when the test was described as assessing problem-solving skills—an unrelated framing—the stereotype was not activated, and their performance matched that of white participants. This demonstrates how stereotype threat can negatively affect performance by increasing stress and self-doubt in situations where stereotypes are made salient.
culture impact on behaviour and cognition
- A cultural norm is a set of rules based on how socially or culturally shared beliefs of how an individual ought to behave to be accepted within that group. Norms regulate behaviour within a group. When individuals deviate from social or cultural norms they may be punished, marginalised, stigmatised, or seen as creative and affecting change in society. Being social animals, the need to belong plays a strong role in the desire to conform to group norms.
- Culture is a complex concept that is used in many different ways. “Culture” is how we describe food and eating habits, gender roles, rituals, communication patterns and use of free time within a society. When we talk about culture, we refer to either surface culture or deep culture.
takano and sogon link
This study highlights the effect of culture on behavior and cognition by examining conformity in Japan, a collectivist culture. Despite expectations of higher conformity due to collectivist norms, the rate (25.2%) was similar to that in individualistic cultures like the U.S. This may reflect the study’s non-hierarchical context, where group harmony pressures were reduced. It demonstrates that cultural influences on behavior, such as conformity, depend on situational factors rather than being absolute.
Cultural dimensions
Hofstede (1973) first developed the theory that cultural dimensions shape the behaviour of whole cultures. The original theory proposed four dimensions along which cultural values that affect the population’s behaviour and cognition could be analysed at the country level: individualism, collectivism; uncertainty avoidance; power distance; masculinity and femininity; long-term and short-term orientation and indulgence vs. restraint. Hofstede concluded that most of these cultural dimensions could be used universally to describe the norms for behaviour in that culture.
1. Individualism vs. Collectivism
Individualism: Societies emphasize personal independence and responsibility. People prioritize “I” over “we,” with loose social ties and self-reliance.
Collectivism: Societies stress group harmony and interdependence. Strong, cohesive in-groups (like family) provide support, but non-conformity to group norms can lead to social repercussions.
2. Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation
Long-term Orientation: Focus on persistence, future planning, and thrift (common in Eastern cultures). Relationships are structured by status, and success is seen as gradual.
Short-term Orientation: Emphasis on stability, immediate results, and preserving reputation (common in Western cultures). Tradition and “keeping face” are valued.
