Sociocultural Approach

Question 1

What is social identity theory?

Answer 1

It refers to the way someone thinks about themselves and evaluates themselves in relation to groups.

Question 2

What does SIT posit?

Answer 2

It posits that a person’s sense of who they are is based on their membership of social groups.

Question 3

What is an in-group and out-group?

Answer 3

In-group refers to groups which an individual identifies with while an out-group are groups that an individual does not identify with.

Question 4

What are the 5 main features of SIT?

Answer 4

1. Individual’s self-concept derived from perceived membership of social groups.
2. Individual that has several selves that corresponds to the individual’s different circles of group membership.
3. SIT has an assumption that the most fundamental way in which society attempts to make sense of the social world is through classification of ‘us’ and ‘them’.
4. In different contexts/ situations, one of these ‘social selves’ may become more salient (present) and a person may identify more with that aspect of their personality.
5. Anything that your personal self can do, your social selves can also do. For e.g. feel depressed or proud.

Question 5

What are the 3 mechanism of SIT?

Answer 5

1. Social categorisation
2. Social comparison
3. Self-esteem through group membership.

Question 6

What does social cognitive theory suggest?

Answer 6

It suggest that behaviour is modelled by other members of a group and acquired through observation or imitation based on consequences of a behaviour.

Question 7

What are the 5 main features of SCT?

Answer 7

1. Posits that behaviour is learned from the environment through the process of modelling and reinforcement.
2. Suggests that we DO NOT have to experience something personally in order to learn it, but rather we can learn through watching others ~ can learn from environment (saves brain from neural pathways).
3. Saves time for our brain and protects us from harm.
4. Modelling involves learning through the observation of other people, which may lead to desirable consequences. Therefore, the observer learns to watch whether actor is reinforced or punished.
5. Bandera argued that through cognition, we receive vicarious (experienced in the imagination through feeling or action) reinforcement.

Question 8

What are the 4 conditions for SCT?

Answer 8

1. Attention
2. Retention
3. Motivation
4. Potential

Question 9

What are 5 factors that affect potential for social learning?

Answer 9

1. Model’s behaviour stand’s out
2. Model’s behaviour is consistent
3. Model is liked and respected
4. Observer perceives some similarity between themselves and model
5. Model’s behaviour is reinforced

Question 10

What is conformity and/ or compliance?

Answer 10

The presence of others can lead to changes in beliefs and behaviours resulting in conformity and/ or compliance to perceived norms, rules a and regulations. (Remember this for Bandura et al)

Question 11

What is social/ cultural learning?

Answer 11

Learning take place within a social/ cultural context and can occur through observation (modelling) or direct instruction. Individuals gradually internalise social and cultural norms and values to guide them in the interaction with other people. Internalisation is the process of acceptance of set of norms and values established by influential people or groups. (Remember for Joy, Kimball, & Zabrack).

Question 12

What is a stereotype?

Answer 12

It is a generalised and rather fixed way of think about a group of people.

Question 13

What is costal cognition?

Answer 13

This refers to how people process information about the world including other humans based on cognitive elements such as schemas, attributions, and stereotypes.

Question 14

What is stereotype threat?

Answer 14

The anticipation of a situation that can potentially confirm a negative stereotype about one’s group. It indicated that internalised stereotypes could influence an individual’s self-perception and behaviour in negative ways.

Question 15

What is illusory correlation?

Answer 15

It is a cognitive mechanism that leads a person to perceive a relationship between two events when in reality they are not related.

Question 16

What are the main ideas of culture?

Answer 16

Cultures are made up of a set of attitudes, behaviours, and symbols shared by a large group of people, and usually communicated from one generation to the next. Cultural groups are characterised by different norms and conventions.

Question 17

What is surface culture?

Answer 17

It refers to the behaviours, customs, traditions and words of a culture that can easily be observed.

Question 18

What is deep culture?

Answer 18

It refers to the beliefs, values, thought processes and assumptions of a culture that may be more easily understood by members of that culture but may be less accessible to members of other cultures.

Question 19

What are cultural dimensions?

Answer 19

They refer to the values of members of a society living within a particular culture. E.g. individualism/ collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, masculinity/ femininity, long-term/ short-term, indulgence/ restraint.

Question 20

What is individualism?

Answer 20

In individualist cultures people define their personality in terms of their own personal characteristics, their success and their unique features. Among the strongest values in society are personal autonomy, competitiveness and self-sufficiency.

Question 21

What is collectivism?

Answer 21

In collectivist cultures identity is linked to the social group, and values associated with belonging to a group take priority over personal values.

Question 22

What is universalism?

Answer 22

A universalist perspective assumes that psychological mechanisms are largely the same across cultural groups, while behaviours and experiences can differ substantially.

Question 23

What is relativism?

Answer 23

A relativist perspective would be that psychological processes are so different that they cannot be compared across cultural groups.

Question 24

What is an emic perspective?

Answer 24

A culture studied by an insider.

Question 25

What is an etic perspective?

Answer 25

A culture studied by an outsider.

Question 26

What are the 4 underlying factors of cultural change?

Answer 26

1. Modernisation
2. Education
3. Affluence (wealth)
4. Geographic mobility

Question 27

What is enculturation?

Answer 27

It is the process by which people learn the necessary and appropriate skills and norms in the context of their culture.

Question 28

What is acculturation?

Answer 28

People changing as a result of contact with other cultures in order to assimilate with a new culture.

Question 29

What is globalisation?

Answer 29

It is the process of interaction and integration among economies, nations, corporations, cultures and people from different countries.

Question 30

How does globalisation have an influence on attitudes, identities, and behaviour?

Answer 30

The rapid increase in communication and interdependencies in today’s world may change people’s behaviour, making it more cosmopolitan (including people from many different countries). However, there is an opposing hypothesis which suggests that globalisation will trigger reactionary movements and people will more rigorously protest their local interests.

Question 31

What are the effects on interaction of local and global influences on behaviour?

Answer 31

(It is essential to distinguish globalisation as a process and outcomes of this process). The outcomes of globalisation depend on the predominant acculturation strategy. In its turn, the acculturation strategy is formed by an interaction of local and global influences.

Question 32

What are the methods used to study the influence of globalisation on behaviour?

Answer 32

Correlational methods are mainly used, and they involve cross-cultural comparisons. This implies limitations such as these methods are not easy to isolate the effects of globalisation when depending on common metrics (self-report surveys) and when generalisations from a relatively small sample to a whole nation.