Sociol Cultural Approach - The individual and the group

Social Identity theory (studies)

Social Identity theory (studies)

Hilliard & Liben - Levine

Social identity theory

Tajfel and Turner - states that an indivual’s sense of self is developed on te basis of group membership - this identity is shared with other members of the same group

Personal identity → self-knowledge that derives from individual’s attributes e.g. hard working

Social identity → self-concept derived from membership of social group e.g real Madrid fan, student

Salience → when self becomes salient, we become more aware of our identity

Hilliard & Liben

aim → determine how social category salience may play role on the development of streotypes and inter-group behaviour in children

research method → experimental - field experiment - high ecological low internal validity ( environment cannot be controlled)

sample →57 US children - 3 -5 years old. Roughly equal number of male and female.

Conditions:

• High Salience → aware of their gender by lining them up by sex, posting seperate boys’ and girls’ bulletin boards - teachers use gender specific language

• Low salience → no instructions about changing behavior - control group

Procedure → pre-test/ post-test design

• Each child completed a gender attidute test - measure gender flexibility

• They were shown pictures of activities and were asked for each if boys,girls, or both should perfom it

  • Included 22 culturally masculine, 20 culturally femenine, 34 neutral.

• Test calculated number of “both” answeres.

  • Lower number of both responses → high number of gender stereotypes

• Study lasted for 2 weeks.

Results → Children in high salience showed increased gender stereotypes and decreased play with other-sex peers.

Evaluation →

• Sampling bias - private school

• Cause-and-effect → not possible to measure leve of salience

• Ethical concern

Levine (2005)

aim→ see the effect of in-group bias on helping

design → independent sample design (?) - 3 conditions Man utd shirt, lfc shirt, white shirt

sample → 45 males who identified as Man.Utd fans

Procedure →

• When arriving for the experiment thay got told that it was moved to another room.

• When walking to the other room, a confederate fell holding onto his ankle and shouting in pain - the confederate was either wearing a Man Utd , LFC or plain white shirt.

Results →

• Students were most likely to help another Man Utd fan and were less likely to help plain t-shirt or LFC fan.

• No matter if LFC and Man utd are “rivals”

Evaluation →

• high ecological validity

• not generalisable

• low internal validity

Social Group (study)

Levine, Hilliard & Liben

Social Cognitive Theory (studies)

Bandura,

Social Cognitive Theory

argues that humans learn behaviour thorugh observations

Bandura

aim → investigate the effect of children’s exposure to an aggressive model

• Vicarious reinforcement → learning through observation of the consequences of actions for other people

method → lab experiment

design → matched pairs + independent sample design

procedure →

1) matched children based on preexisting levels of aggression.

2) room 1- model exhibits aggressive or non aggressive behaviour towards toys while children oberve

3) room 2- frustration and anger arousal in which children play with toys but then told them no

4) room 3- children play with toys and are observed

Variables → IV1: control ; IV2: sex of model ; IV3: sex of children; DV: behaviour of children

Results : more instances of aggression in aggressive group

Boys imated physical aggression, girl imitated verbal aggression from female model

Both acted more physically aggressive with male model

Evaluation:

ethical use of children

low ecological validity

Formation of stereotypes (studies)

Hilliard & Liben and Hamilton & Gifford

Formation of stereotypes

stereotype → generalization of a group of people - perception of an individual in terms of physical attributes.

theory argues that it is a natural cognitive process of social categorization-

Hilliard & Liben (stereotypes)

aim → how social category salience may play a role on the development of stereotypes and inter-group behavior in elementary school children

illusort correlation

tendency to overestimate relationships between two groups when distinctive and unusual information is presented

Hamilton & Gifford

aim → see if people associate negative statement to the minority group -

sample → 40 American undergraduate (50/50) - separated into 2 groups

Procedure →

1) Participants listened to a series of statements made about groups A and B - group A 26 people , group B 13 people.

• There were positive and negative statements about each individual from each group.

2) Participants were asked how many people in each group had positive vs negative

Results →

Number of negative traits assigned to the minority (group B)

Conclusion →

minority group was smaller by nature - negative behaviours became more distinct.

• demonstrate why negative stereotypes are more common for minority groups.

group b members and negative behaviour are both fewer and more distinct than group a - standing out more → causes illusory correlation

Evalutation →

artificial

somewhat applicable - explains negative stereotypes and why they are common for minorities

no cause-and-effect

effect of stereotypes (studies)

Steele & Aronsen, Martin Halverson

stereotype threat - steele and aronsen

when one is in a situation where there is a threat of being judger or treated stereotypically - fear of doing something that would confirm a stereotype.

Steele and Aronsen

aim → see the effect of stereotype threat on performance (in african americans)

sample → 114 male and female black and white undergraduates

design → independent sample design

procedure →

Participants were given a 30-min standardized test of verbal ability, similar to the SAT.

Participants were given a test 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 “problem-solving”. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions.

Results →

AA did poorly when believed that it was a test of their ability, but did as well as WA when they believed it tested their problem-solving skills

AA performed less well than WA in the stereotype threat condition - performed equal in non-threatening condition

certain stereotypes can negatively affect our performance and self-esteem

evaluation →

cant be generalized

factors went unmeasured (salience about racial identity, stress during exam

memory distortion (martin & halverson)

when our brain creates false memoeries or changes the memories we already have - done through incorrect processing of schema or altering of schema

Martin & Halverson

aim → see if gender stereotyping would influence recall in 5 and 6-year-old children.

participant → 48 children (50/50 )

method → lab experiment

procedure →

Each child was shown 16 pictures - half depicting a child doing gender-consistent activities, and half depicting children displacing gender-inconsistent behaviours.

A week later they tested the recall of the children to see how many photos they could accurately recall

results →

Children easily recalled the sex of the actor which performed gender-consistent activities.

When behaviour was gender inconsistent the child often distorted the image of what they recalled

evaluation →

low ecological validity - very artificial

can be replicated + highly standardized

ethical considerations CARDUD

Consent

Anonymity

Right to withdrawal

Deception

Undue stress or harm

Debriefing

Any study (?)