ib psychology sociocultural approach saq

Explain one study of one effect of culture on behaviour or cognition

• Definition: Culture refer to shared beliefs, norms, and values that influence how individuals act in social situations.

• Explanation: One behavior influenced by cultural origins is conformity, the act of aligning one’s actions or beliefs with group norms.

  • Collectivist cultures emphasize group harmony and cohesion, leading to higher conformity.

  • Individualist cultures value autonomy and self-expression, leading to lower conformity.

• Aim: To investigate how cultural origins, specifically individualism and collectivism, affect conformity rates using the Asch paradigm.

• What is the Asch Paradigm?

  • A conformity experiment originally developed by Solomon Asch (1951):

    • Participants are shown a line and asked to match its length to one of three comparison lines.

    • In critical trials, confederates (actors working with the experimenter) unanimously give the wrong answer.

    • The participant is placed under social pressure to conform to the incorrect group judgment.

    • The percentage of participants conforming (agreeing with the wrong answer) is measured.

• Procedure (Smith and Bond 1996):

  • Meta-analysis of studies using the Asch paradigm, conducted across 17 countries.

  • Countries were categorized into collectivist cultures (e.g., Japan, Hong Kong) and individualist cultures (e.g., USA, UK) based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions.

  • Conformity rates in each study were compared across cultural groups.

• Findings:

  • Collectivist cultures: Conformity rates were higher (e.g., participants conformed to the group’s incorrect response more often).

  • Individualist cultures: Conformity rates were lower (e.g., participants were more likely to stick to their independent judgment).

• Conclusion and Link to Cultural Origins:

  • Why it supports the question:

    • In collectivist cultures, conformity reflects the cultural norm of maintaining group harmony. This is consistent with the idea that cultural origins (e.g., collectivism) create behaviors that prioritize the group over the individual.

    • In individualist cultures, lower conformity reflects the emphasis on personal independence.

  • Direct link: This demonstrates that cultural origins significantly shape social behaviors like conformity in terms how the participants behaved under social pressure, where this is thought to be correlated with the culture they are a part of.

Outline one ethical consideration related to studies on the individual and the group

Deception.

• In sociocultural psychology, researchers often study how people behave in groups or how group dynamics influence individuals.

• Sometimes, experiments are used to simulate group dynamics, and deception may be necessary so participants do not alter their behavior due to awareness of the study’s purpose.

• Deception is when participants are misled or not fully informed about the true aim of a study. While it can reduce demand characteristics, it raises concerns about informed consent and trust.

Tajfel blabla - deception in the false rationale for group assignment saying it was painting preference but actually rando

• Deception here allowed the researchers to study group bias without interference, but it raises concerns about violation of informed consent and participant autonomy.

• Participants may have felt differently about their behavior had they known the groupings were meaningless — their consent was not fully informed.

• Nonetheless, debriefing likely occurred after the study,

Explain one ethical consideration relevant to studies on cultural origins of behaviour and/or cognition

Privacy and confidentiality: researchers often use interviews or qualitative methods to explore deeply personal and culturally sensitive topics, such as identity, discrimination, or mental health.

• In such cases, ensuring privacy and confidentiality is crucial to protect participants from harm, social stigma, or community backlash.

Lueck Wilson - interviewed about discrimination mental health and lang difficulty. potenitally private cult exepericne

• These types of interviews require careful handling of participant data, as disclosing this information publicly could lead to social harm or even family conflict.

• Researchers had an ethical obligation to anonymize responses, store data securely, and ensure participants were fully aware of their rights, including withdrawal and confidentiality.

• This ethical consideration matters because cultural research often touches on collective identity and sensitive community norms. Ethical breaches could have wider consequences beyond the individual.

Describe the use of one research method used to study the individual and the group

• Experiments are used to determine cause-and-effect relationships by manipulating an independent variable (IV) and measuring its effect on a dependent variable (DV).

• In a true experiment, participants are randomly assigned to groups, and researchers have high control over extraneous variables to ensure internal validity.

• In the sociocultural approach, experiments are useful for investigating how group membership influences behavior, especially through concepts like social identity.

Tajfel desc - A true experiment allowed researchers to isolate group membership as the only manipulated variable (IV), minimizing confounds.

• By randomly assigning participants and controlling the environment, they could infer that social categorization alone led to discriminatory behavior.

• This method is ideal for studying individual and group processes because it identifies direct causal links between social identity and behavior (like favoritism)

Explain how and why one research method is used to study cultural origins of behaviour and/or cognition

Research method: Semi-structured interview (correlational qualitative study)

• Interviews are used to gather detailed qualitative data about participants' beliefs, values, and experiences.

• In semi-structured interviews, the researcher follows a flexible guide with open-ended questions, allowing participants to share their own culturally relevant insights.

• This method is useful for studying cultural origins of behavior because it helps uncover how cultural values are transmitted and internalized.

Lueck and Wilson 2010 - Interviews allowed researchers to access deep personal and cultural narratives that cannot be captured in a lab or experiment.

• Cultural origins (e.g., traditional values or migration history) cannot be manipulated, so a non-experimental, qualitative method was ethically necessary.

• The flexible structure of interviews enabled individualized responses that revealed how cultural values influenced psychological well-being.

• Enables exploration of how culture influences stress, communication, and belonging, without reducing complex experiences to numbers.

• Captures rich, nuanced data that might be missed in standardized experiments.

Explain how belonging to cultural groups may influence behaviour and/or cognition

Concept: Cultural group membership shapes not only behavior but also thinking styles (e.g., holistic vs. analytic cognition), emotional expression, and communication norms.
Explanation: Individuals internalize the values of their cultural group, which affects daily decisions, social behaviors, and even mental processing.

SEE BASU 2017

Outline what it means to assimilate and how this may influence behaviour

Concept: Assimilation is when individuals adopt the cultural norms of a new/dominant culture while abandoning their original culture.
Explanation: Assimilation may help with external adaptation but can lead to identity confusion or psychological stress if heritage values are rejected.
Study: Lueck & Wilson (2010)

Shows that assimilation can influence behavior and well-being negatively, especially when identity becomes unstable due to cultural disconnection.

Describe social identity theory/Explain how one study supports social identity theory

• Social identity theory (SIT): Proposes that individuals derive part of their self-concept from their membership in social groups. CATEGORIZATION IDENTIFICATION COMPARISON

• In-group favoritism: Preferring members of one's own group.

• Out-group discrimination: Negatively stereotyping or discriminating against members of another group.

Explanation and Study Connection

1. SIT and behavior: Membership in social groups creates distinct in-group and out-group dynamics, influencing behavior.

2. Tajfel (1971):

   • Aim: To investigate the minimal conditions required for in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination.

   • Findings: Participants favored their in-group, even when groups were randomly assigned. they went through the 3 stages of SIT supporting it

   • Relevance: Highlights how social identity alone can influence behavior, such as loyalty or discrimination.

With reference to one study, explain social cognitive theory

Key Definitions

• Social cognitive theory (SCT): Proposes that behavior is learned through observation, imitation, and modeling of role models.

• Vicarious reinforcement: Learning through observing the consequences of others’ actions.

Explanation and Study Connection

1. SCT and behavior: Behaviors are learned by observing role models in one’s environment.

2. Bandura (1961):

   • Aim: To investigate if aggression can be learned through observation.

   • Findings: Children exposed to aggressive role models imitated aggressive behavior.

   • Relevance: Demonstrates how observation of others influences behavior. as all the stages were displayed in this experiment with controls which allows isolation of each(?)

Explain one theory of stereotypes, making use of one study

Key Definitions

• Stereotypes: Oversimplified, generalized beliefs about a group of people.

• Illusory correlation: The perception of a relationship between two variables when none exists.

Explanation and Study Connection

1. Theory of stereotypes: Stereotypes may form due to illusory correlations, where rare behaviors by a minority group are overemphasized.

2. Hamilton and Gifford (1976):

   • Aim: To investigate illusory correlation in the formation of stereotypes.

   • Findings: Participants overestimated negative behaviors in a minority group, forming stereotypes.

   • Relevance: Demonstrates how illusory correlations contribute to stereotype formation.

   • After illusory correlations are formed, people actively seek to confirm and support their beliefs by looking for evidence in a "biased" way, which is known as confirmation bias.

Explain how stereotypes may influence human behaviour

• Stereotype threat: Anxiety experienced by individuals when they feel they may confirm a negative stereotype about their group.

Explanation and Study Connection

1. Effect of stereotypes on behavior: Stereotype threat can reduce performance in stereotyped domains.

2. Spencer et al. (1999):

   • Aim: To investigate stereotype threat in women’s math performance.

   • Findings: Women performed worse on a math test when reminded of the stereotype that men are better at math.

   • Relevance: Demonstrates how stereotypes negatively impact behavior through self-fulfilling prophecy(?)

Explain one effect of enculturation on human behaviour

• Enculturation: The process by which individuals learn and internalize the norms, values, and behaviors of their own culture through socialization.

• Cultural norms: Shared expectations and rules that guide behavior within a group.

Explanation and Study Connection

1. Effect of enculturation: Enculturation influences behaviors such as gender roles, language acquisition, and moral development.

2. Basu et al. (2017):

   • Aim: To examine how cultural practices influence gender role attitudes in Indian and Chinese adolescents.

   • open style interviewing with no prep were conducted, discussing gender beliefs in how they should behave

   • Findings: Adolescents enculturated in ladylike/proper ways for girls and for boys they were expencted to be polite to girls, brave and tough. forbdiden interaction result in beatings or humiliation.

   • Relevance: Some cultures enculturate traiditonal genered behaviour which may have a negative impact on the kids like corporal punishment for rule violations, thus pushing them to adhere to these norms and internalize them

3. Globalization connection: Enculturation can be disrupted by globalization, as exposure to global media introduces conflicting norms, such as more egalitarian views on gender roles in western societies opposed to indian. We can see an example of this….

cult norms on behaviour

• Culture refer to shared beliefs, norms, and values that influence how individuals act in social situations.

• Cultural norms: Shared expectations and rules that guide behavior within a culture (. They guide how people behave, communicate, and interact in social contexts.

same as basu

describe one effect of acculturation on human behaviour

Key Definitions

• Acculturation: The process of psychological and cultural change resulting from contact between cultures.

• John Berry proposed a bidimensional model, in which there are two independent dimensions, combining to form four strategies of acculturation.  (define) marginalization, separation, assimilation, integration

• Acculturative stress: Psychological challenges that arise when adapting to a new culture.

Explanation and Study Connection

1. Effect of acculturation: Acculturation can lead to stress, identity confusion, or adaptation, depending on the strategies used (assimilation, integration, separation, or marginalization).

2. Lueck and Wilson (2010):

   • Aim: To investigate acculturative stress in Asian-American immigrants.

   • Findings: Immigrants who maintained strong ties to their heritage culture while integrating into American culture experienced less acculturative stress.

   • Relevance: Demonstrates the psychological impact of acculturation on well-being. integration was strongest strat with lowest acculturativs stress, assimilation leads to identity loss while separation and marginalization increase acculturative stress

3. Globalization connection: Increased migration due to globalization accelerates acculturation, emphasizing the need to navigate host and heritage cultural identities.
   In globalized societies, marginalized individuals may struggle more as they lack a clear cultural identity in both local and global contexts, leading to heightened stress.

outline role of 1 cultural dimension on behaviour

• Definition: Individualism vs. collectivism is a cultural dimension identified by Hofstede (1980). It describes the extent to which individuals prioritize their personal goals over group goals.

  • Individualist cultures: Emphasize autonomy, self-expression, and independence.

  • Collectivist cultures: Value group harmony, interdependence, and conformity to group norms.

• Explanation: Behavior, such as conformity, varies depending on whether a culture is individualist or collectivist.

1. Aim: To explore how Hofstede’s cultural dimension of individualism vs. collectivism affects conformity behavior using the Asch paradigm.

2. Procedure:

   • Meta-analysis of 133 conformity studies conducted in 17 different countries.

   • Countries were classified as individualist or collectivist based on Hofstede’s framework.

   • The studies used the Asch paradigm:

     • Participants in each study judged the length of lines in a group setting where confederates gave incorrect answers.

     • Researchers measured how often participants conformed to the incorrect majority.

3. Findings:

   • Collectivist cultures (e.g., Japan, Hong Kong):

     • Conformity rates were significantly higher because of the cultural emphasis on maintaining group harmony and avoiding conflict.

   • Individualist cultures (e.g., USA, UK):

     • Conformity rates were significantly lower because of the cultural value placed on independence and self-expression.

4. Conclusion and Link to the Cultural Dimension:

   • Why it supports the question:

     • The results directly reflect the influence of individualism vs. collectivism on social behavior.

     • Collectivist cultures align with higher conformity to preserve group dynamics, while individualist cultures align with lower conformity to uphold personal independence.