Sociocultural Approach to Understanding Behavior

All studies + Ethical and Research

Tajfel et al (1971)

Social Identity Theory (SIT)

• argues that a person has not just one “personal self”, but rather several social selves that correspond to group membership

• central to SIT is the concept of salience: where a particular social identity becomes more prominent in a given context. (ex: when at a match of our favorite football team, all you are is a fan of the team, nothing else is significant)

• Tajfel outlined 4 mechanisms underpinning SIT: social categorization (identifying in-groups and out-groups), social identification (adopting in-group norms), social comparison (validating group membership through comparisons), and, positive distinctiveness (favoring in-groups to boost self-esteem).

Aim: to investigate whether random assignment to a group is enough to demonstrate social identity theory

Procedure:

• sample of 48 boys (14-15 yro) asked to rate 12 paintings by Klee and Kandinsky. They were not told which artist had painted which painting. The boys were randomly allocated to groups and told they had preferred either Klee or Kandinsky

• each boy was then asked to award points to 2 other boys, one from his same group and one from the other group.

• 2 systems of awarding points employed by the researchers:

  • Point allocation system 1: Point scores were linked so sum of 2 scores were 15 (if one participant chose an 8, the other would automatically get a 7)

  • Point allocation system 2: Tajfel manipulated this one. If a Klee member chose a high value for another Klee member, it would give a higher profit to the out-group. If a Klee member chose a middle value for another Klee it would give same points to the other group. If a Klee member chose a low value for another Klee it would away only 1 point to the other team

Results:

• Point allocation system 1: boys generally awarded more points to the members of their in-group showing in-group favoritism

• Point allocation system 2: boys willing to give their own team fewer points with the goal of maximizing the difference between their in-group and out-group. (this was surprising because it left the boys with fewer points)

Findings:

• Tajfel concluded that out-group discrimination is easy to trigger, demonstrating how a “minimal group” is all that is necessary for individuals to exhibit discrimination against an out-group.

• Obvious conclusion that there is a natural tendency of members of a group to favor their in-group.

Abrams et al (1990)

Social Identity Theory (SIT)

Aim: to replicate Asch (1956) to see if, as SIT predicts, people are more likely to conform to the behavior of people in their in-group.

Procedure:

• 50 intro psych students thought they were taking a test of visual accuracy

• three confederates were introduced either as “fellow psych students from the university (in-group)” or “ancient history students from the competitor university (out-group)”

• participants shown a stimulus line, and then three other lines- one of which was the same length as the stimulus line. The task was to identify which of the three lines matched the stimulus line.

• 18 trials: 9 of them the confederates gave the correct response, the other 9 the confederates gave a unanimous, incorrect response

Results:

• Found that the participants conformed to the confederate judgments more often when they believed the confederates were from their in-group

Findings:

• results seem to indicate that social categorization can play a key role in one’s decision to conform

Abrams et al (1990) - Social groups - SAQ

• The social groups were the confederates acting as the “fellow" psychology students from same university (in-group)” or “ancient history students from competitor university (out-group")”

• The participants conformed to the confederate judgments more often when they believed they were from their in-group, indicating social categorization can play a key role in one’s decision to conform

Bandura et al (1961)

Social Cognitive Theory (SCT)

• Bandura’s theory assumes that humans learn behaviors through observational learning, where models influence behavior directly or indirectly and behaviors are acquired through vicarious reinforcement.

• Four Cognitive factors of SCT:

  • Attention: the learner must pay attention to the model

  • Retention: observer must be able to remember the behavior that has been observed

  • Motivation: learners must want to replicate the behavior that they have observed

  • Potential: one’s belief in one’s ability to succeed at accomplishing a task

Aim: to see if children would imitate aggression modeled by an adult. and to see if children were more likely to imitate same-sex models

Procedure:

• children aged 3-6 yro (36 boys + 36 girls) divided into 3 groups

  • one group was exposed to adult models who showed aggression by either bashing an inflatable “Bobo” doll or using verbal aggression towards it

  • a second group observed a non-aggressive adult who assembled toys for 10 minutes

  • third group served as a control group and did not see any model

• In 1st and 2nd groups, some children watched same-sex models and some watched opposite

• After watching the models, children were placed in a room with toys. Very soon, they were taken out of the room being told that those toys were for other children, then put in a room with the Bobo doll. This was done so that all of the children experienced some level of frustration that may lead to them showing aggression

Results:

• Bandura’s group found that the children who had observed the aggressive models were significantly more aggressive - both physically and verbally. Children showed clear signs of observational learning.

• Bandura observed girls were more likely to imitate verbal aggression and boys were more likely to imitate physical aggression.

Findings:

• Supports SCT of how behaviors are learned through observation

Joy, Kimball, and Zabrack (1986)

Social Cognitive Theory (SCT)

Aim: to investigate whether children in small towns in Canada would exhibit more aggressive behavior after TV introduced to island in 1974

Procedure:

• 120 children grades 1-5 in 3 towns

  • Notel (no TV)

  • Unitel (had 1 channel for 7 years)

  • Multitel (had 4 channels for 15 years)

• Observed on playground before school, recess, lunch, and after school - looking for 14 specific aggressive behaviors

• Peer and teacher ratings obtained by questionnaire to determine aggression level of each child in study

Results:

• behavior was compared across grade levels and from year to year

  • Notel: in 10-12 groups, comparisons revealed a statistically significant increase in level of aggression

• increase of both verbal and physical aggression

Findings:

• Children showed significantly increased aggression after TV was introduced, supporting SCT by demonstrating how observational learning from media can influence behavior

Rogers and Frantz (1962)

Stereotypes: Formation

• Stereotypes are generalized and often fixed believes about a group of people. They are a type of social schema and can influence how we perceive and interact with each other.

• According to Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, stereotypes can for through observational learning - people learn by watching others.

• Proposed by Hamilton & Gifford, illusory correlation explains how stereotypes form when people mistakenly perceive a relationship between two unrelated events.

• Stereotypes also form through cultural transmission and social norms. Learned through enculturation.

Aim: to see if people new to Zimbabwe (Rhodesia)would adopt the stereotypes and feelings of prejudice about the local African population (part of SIT). to see if race attitudes would become more “conservative”

Procedure:

• sample consisted of 500 White Europeans aged 20+ living in Rhodesia

• Survey containing 66 examples of laws and customs in which White Europeans and Africans were treated differently - included racially segregated lands, lack of political representation, use of public facilities, and cross-racial sexual relations

Results:

• mean score was 2.45 illustrating that the majority of Europeans in Southern Rhodesia favored the retention of the status quo

• Europeans who support the status quo least strongly were those who had been living in Southern Rhodesia for less than 5 years

Findings:

• Appears that the stereotypes and attitudes about the African population were integrated into the identities of the newcomers as they began to identify with their new group and conform to the group norms

• (not longitudinal - limitation. it was cross-sectional)

Hamilton and Gifford (1976)

Stereotypes: Formation

Aim: to investigate illusory correlation of group size and negative behavior

Procedure:

• participants listened to a series of statements made about people from 2 groups - simply called group A and B

• twice as many people in group A (26) as group B (13) so group B was the minority group

• each statement was about one individual in one of the two groups; either positive or negative

  • positive: Nick, member of group A, helps at his local church

  • negative: teacher named John, member of group B, screams at his students

• Each group had same proportion of positive and negative comments

• Then asked how many people in each group had positive vs. negative traits

Results:

• participants overestimated the number of negative traits in the minority group (group B)

Findings:

• Because the minority group was smaller in number, their negative behaviors appeared more distinct and representative of the group, demonstrating why negative stereotypes may be more common for minority groups than for the majority

Martin and Halverson (1983)

Effects on Stereotypes

• Memory Distortion - if schema plays a role in reconstructing memory, then stereotyping will also

Aim: to investigate whether gender stereotyping would influence recall in 5 and 6-year-old children

Procedure:

• Children were given a test (SERLI) to assess their level of gender stereotyping prior to the experiment

• The children were presented with 16 pictures of males and females, one at a time

  • activities in line w/ gender role schemas (girl playing w/ doll)

  • or inconsistent w/ gender role schemas (girl playing w/ toy gun)

• Children asked to identify the sex of the person in the picture but not told they would have to remember the images

• A week later the children were asked to remember what they had seen in the pictures

  • asked about 24 pictures - the 16 they had seen and 8 that they had not. the 8 “unseen images” were included to test for response bias

  • children asked “do you remember seeing a picture of something doing (activity) in the pictures I showed you last week?

  • if they said yes, they were then asked if the person they remember seeing was a girl, a boy, a man, woman, or don’t remember

  • also asked to rate confidence on a 4 point scale

Results:

• Children distorted memories of pictures that were not consistent with gender role schema, supporting the theory that stereotypes affect both the encoding and retrieval of information.

Findings:

• Gender stereotypes held by the children distorted their memories

Payne (2003)

Aim: to see the effect of stereotyping on memory distortion

Procedure:

• 30 undergrad students

• Studied list of name-occupation pairs (2×2 design) presented for 3 seconds each

  • 24 names: black-typical or white-typical

  • Occupation: basketball player or politician

• 10 minute filter task of logic puzzles

• Memory test presented the names

  • indicate whether each name is a basketball player or politician

  • how certain are you (6 point scale)

• DV: whether names typical of each race are correctly matched to occupation

Results:

• participants falsely identified white names as politicians more frequently than black names

• tended to falsely identify black names as basketball players more frequently than white names

Findings:

• participants memory performance was distorted in a stereotype-consistent direction

• Participants falsely identified white names as politicians names more frequently than black names and black names as basketball players, demonstrating how participants memory performance is distorted in a stereotype.

Odden and Rochat (2004)

Enculturation

• Enculturation: the gradual learning and maintenance of the necessary and appropriate behaviors and norms of our own culture. This is a significant part of the development of our personal identity.

• It’s a constant process that reinforces your identity as a member of your culture.

• Can occur in:

  • Direct tuition - your parents tell you what to do

  • Social Cognitive Theory - or observational learning

  • Participatory learning - children engage in an activity and then transfer that learning to later situations

Aim: studied the role of Social Cognitive Learning Theory - or observational learning - on the development of cultural norms in Samoa. In particular, they looked at the behavior of line fishing and conceptual understanding of rank.

Procedure:

• qualitative research involving observation, interviews, and a multiple choice test

• researchers carried out a longitudinal study of 25 months on 28 children in a single Samoan village

Results:

• Samoan culture is very hierarchical, and samoan children are largely left to learn things on their own without adults attempting to motivate their learning.

• Through interviews and observations the researchers noted that young males spend a lot time watching the adult males fish, but there is no direct instruction.

Findings:

• Somoan children learned fishing and social hierarchy through observational learning rather than direct instruction, demonstrating how enculturation occurs by watching adults over time, and imitating.

Bandura et al (1961)

Enculturation

• same study as before - reusing it for enculturation

Takeaway:

• The children displayed aggression after observing adult models, showing how children learn their culture and how enculturation occurs as they learn social behaviors by imitating actions considered acceptable within their observed environment.

Odden and Rochat (2004) - norms - SAQ

Cultural norms: a set of rules based on socially or culturally shared beliefs of how and individual ought to behave to be accepted

• surface and deep culture

Norms regulate behavior within a group

Somoan children learned cultural norms, such as fishing, respecting authority and social hierarchy, demonstrating how cultural norms are transmitted through observational learning.

Berry (1967) - CIoB

Cultural Influence on Behavior

• Culture: how we describe food and eating habits, gender roles,, communication patterns, etc.

  • Surface culture: what we easily see as different when we have contact with another group

  • Deep culture: the beliefs, attitudes, and values of a group

Aim: carried out a study on conformity based on the Asch paradigm to see if the dimension plays a role on the level of conformity

Procedure:

• Berry used 3 different cultures - 120 participants in each group

  • Temne of Sierra Leone (Collectivist society)

  • The Inuit People of Baffin Island in Canada (Individualistic society)

    • Each group made up of ppl who never had a western education

• Each individual brought into a room by themselves. For the test they were given a set of 9 lines, asked to match the line below that most closely matched the line on the top.

• Third trial a critical question was asked: “This time I am going to give you a hint. Most Temne (or Inuit) people say this like (experimenter pointed to a designated line) is equal in length to the one at the top. Which one do you say?

• For the 3rd trial, the correct answer was given by the researcher. For trials 4-6, the wrong response was given. DV = number of lines that they were away from the correct line.

Results:

• The Temne (collectivist) had a much higher rate of conformity when told what other Temne believed, even though it was incorrect.

• The Inuits had even a lower rate of conformity.

Findings:

• Demonstrated how collectivism and individualism influence behavior and conformity, with individuals from collectivist cultures displaying higher conformity compared to the individualistic cultures, suggesting that cultural influence and identity play a role in behavior.

Cousins (1989) - CIoB

Cultural Influence on Behavior

Aim: to investigate the relationship between individualism and collectivism and self-concept

Procedure:

• compared 159 Japanese students from Tokyo with 111 American students from Michigan

• each student provided 20 answers to the question “Who am I?”

Results:

• Japanese students were more likely to refer to social roles:
  I am a brother” and membership in social groups: “I am in the gymnastics club”

• American students used personal or psychological attributes: “I am intelligent” or “I am musical”

Findings:

• Demonstrated how cultural influences shape self-concept - with Japanese students (collectivist culture) emphasizing social roles and American students (individualistic culture) focus more on personal traits.

Berry (1967) - Cultural Groups - SAQ

• Same study

• Shows how cultural groups like the collectivist Temne and the Individualistic Inuit differ in their levels of conformity, demonstrating how cultural groups shape individual behavior.

Berry (1967) - Cultural Dimensions

Cultural Dimensions

• Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions: Dimensions are how the values of a society affect behavior. A dimension describes the trends of behavior in a given culture.

• Individualism: in individualistic societies, the ties b/t individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his/her family

• Collectivism: in collectivist societies, from birth onwards people are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families, which provides them with support and protection.

Aim: carried out a study on conformity based on the Asch paradigm to see if the dimension plays a role on the level of conformity

Procedure:

• Berry used 3 different cultures - 120 participants in each group

  • Temne of Sierra Leone (Collectivist society)

  • The Inuit People of Baffin Island in Canada (Individualistic society)

    • Each group made up of ppl who never had a western education

• Each individual brought into a room by themselves. For the test they were given a set of 9 lines, asked to match the line below that most closely matched the line on the top.

• Third trial a critical question was asked: “This time I am going to give you a hint. Most Temne (or Inuit) people say this like (experimenter pointed to a designated line) is equal in length to the one at the top. Which one do you say?

• For the 3rd trial, the correct answer was given by the researcher. For trials 4-6, the wrong response was given. DV = number of lines that they were away from the correct line.

Results:

• The Temne (collectivist) had a much higher rate of conformity when told what other Temne believed, even though it was incorrect.

• The Inuits had even a lower rate of conformity.

Findings:

• Demonstrates the influence of cultural dimensions, specifically the dimension individualism vs. collectivism, showing collectivist cultures are more likely to conform to group norms.

Cousins (1989) - Cultural Dimensions

Cultural Dimensions

Aim: to investigate the relationship between individualism and collectivism and self-concept

Procedure:

• compared 159 Japanese students from Tokyo with 111 American students from Michigan

• each student provided 20 answers to the question “Who am I?”

Results:

• Japanese students were more likely to refer to social roles:
  I am a brother” and membership in social groups: “I am in the gymnastics club”

• American students used personal or psychological attributes: “I am intelligent” or “I am musical”

Findings:

• Illustrates the impact of cultural dimensions, specifically individualism vs. collectivism, and how people from collectivist cultures define themselves through relationships and people from individualistic cultures describe themselves through personal characteristics.

Miranda & Matheny (2000)

Acculturation

• defined as the process of learning and incorporating the values, beliefs, language, customs and mannerisms of the new country immigrants and their families are living in. Also defined as the process of cultural and psychological change in the behavior of a person or group that takes place as a result of contact between two or more cultural groups.

• Berry (1974) proposed 4 different acculturation strategies:

  • Assimilation - adopts cultural behaviors of new culture

  • Integration - interest in adopting new culture behaviors while still maintaining original culture

  • Seperation - migrants maintain their own culture + minimize contact w/ new culture

  • Marginalization - not possible to maintain one’s original culture

• Issues w/ acculturation:

  • Acculturation gaps: generational differences in acculturation + how it leads to conflict within the family

  • Acculturative stress: (culture shock) the psychological, and social difficulties that may result from the personal battle between enculturation

Aim: to see which factors in the lives of Latino immigrants to the US would decrease the level of acculturative stress

Procedure:

• random sample of 197 members of 2 social services agencies completed a questionnaire and tests to assess family cohesion, acculturative stress, and coping strategies for stress.

Results:

• Suggests that immigrants with effective coping strategies, good proficiency in English and a strong family structure were less likely to experience acculturative stress

Findings:

• Shows that there are many protective factors that may influence the extent to which an individual acculturates and the effect that this will have on mental health

Luek and Wilson (2010)

Acculturation

Aim: to investigate the variables that may predict acculturative stress in a nationally representative sample of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans

Procedure:

• sample consisted of 2095 Asian Americans - some who were first-generation immigrants who were 18 yro when they came to the US and the rest was born in the US to first-generation immigrant parents.

• researchers carried out semi-structured interviews. The interviews had cultural and linguistic backgrounds similar to those of the sample population.

• The interviews measured the participants’ level of acculturative stress. They also measured the impact of language proficiency, language preference, discrimination, etc.

Results:

• of the 2095 observations, 1433 were found to have acculturative stress according to their score

Findings:

• Bilingual language preference contributed to lower acculturative stress and sharing similar values and beliefs as a family contributed to lower stress, demonstrating factors that can influence to extent to how someone acculturates and the acculturative stress that is involved.

Luek and Wilson - Assimilation - SAQ

• assimilation: when an individual abandons their original culture and adopts the cultural behaviors and values of their new culture

• They found factors like bilingualism, family cohesions, and economic satisfaction reduce acculturative stress, demonstrating how successful assimilation depends on maintaining cultural connections.

Research Methods: Individual & Group

Tajfel et al (1971): True experiment

• Manipulation of IV: researchers manipulated group assignment to study in-group favoritism

• Random assignment: boys were randomly assigned to groups, even though the group identities were meaningless, ensuring a controlled experimental setup

Joy, Kimball, and Zabrack (1986): Natural Experiment

• Naturally occurring IV: researchers studied the introduction of TV to a rural town, which wasn’t controlled by them

• No manipulation: they observed changes in behavior (aggression)

Ethical Considerations: Individual & Group

Tajfel et al (1971): Deception

• Participants were misled about the true aim of the study - they were told it was about visual estimation, not group behavior or discrimination

• Lack of full disclosure may have influenced their behavior

Joy, Kimball, and Zabrack (1986): Protection from Harm

• Children were observed for changes in aggression, which may have caused emotional discomfort, especially if behavior was labeled as aggressive

• Tracked long-term behavioral impacts, so it was important to ensure children weren’t harmed psychologically

Research Methods: Culture

Berry (1967): Quasi Experiment

• pre-existing cultural groups: participants came from different cultures which the researchers did not randomly assign

• naturally occurring IV: cultural background

Cousins (1989): Questionnaire / Survey

• written self-report format: participants completed open-ended prompts about self concept - reflecting a survey/questionnaire method

• responses were analyzed across American and Japanese participants

Ethical Considerations: Culture

Berry (1967): Informed Consent

• essential that the participants from different cultures understood the purpose and procedures of the study

• without culturally sensitive communication, there’s a risk that consent wasn’t fully informed

Cousins (1989): Confidentiality

• participants shared personal reflections on their self-concept which could include sensitive or culturally specific values

• since the study compared American and Japanese participants, it was important that the individual data was not linked back to specific individuals or communities