IB Psychology Sociocultural

Asch study summary

Summary- test the power of normative social influence on one's likelihood to conform in an unambiguous task

Asch study key findings

Key findings- 75% of the participants conformed at least once

Asch study methods

Methods- Lab experiment, 1 participants and 6 confederates

The participants were given a card with a single line and a second card with 3 lines, and were asked to determine which one was the same length

The confederates gave the wrong answer and the actual participant answered second to last

18 trials. For the control they did the same thing but without the confederates present, just participant and researcher

Asch study psych guide

What does it relate to in the psych guide?- Conformity, research methods, ethics

Asch study SAQ

Which SAQ Question would it answer?- Explain Social Identity Theory with reference to one study.

Festinger study summary

In Chicago there was a doomsday cult who believed the world would end in a great flood on December 21st. the leader had received a message from another planet that colt members would be rescued by flying saucers if they remained isolated from non-believers followed prescribed rituals and read sacred texts. Festinger and his team became cult members to study them. members of The Cult had no idea they were getting studied. on December 21st when nothing happened they believed that God had answered their prayers and they had saved the world.

Festinger study key findings

Festinger her explained their response with cognitive dissonance theory. he argued that to reduce feelings of dissonance, anxiety that they had devoted so much time to something false, they changed their beliefs .

Festinger Methods

Covert Observation, participant observation

Festinger psych guide

Cognitive Theories

Festering SAQ

Good discussion of ethical considerations in research.

Tajfel summary

Aimed to investigate if intergroup discrimination would take place based on being put into different groups. A sample of 48 boys were asked to rate 12 paintings by painters Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. Theydidn;t know which artist had painted which painting during the test. They were randomly allocated to one of two groups and told that they preferred either Klee or Kandinsky.

Tajfel Key findings

In the first system of point allocation, the boys generally awarded more points to the members of their in-group showing in-group favoritism. In the second system of point awarding, the boys were willing to give their own team fewer points to maximize the difference between their in-group and the out-group. This was a bit surprising since it meant that the boys left the study with fewer points than if they had all given each other the largest number of points possible.

Tajfel methods

Repeated measures

Tajfel Psych guide

Evaluate social identity theory, making reference to relevant studies.

Discuss research methods used in the sociocultural approach.

Tajfel SAQ question

Explain Social Identity Theory with reference to one study.

Drury Summary

Discusses Social Identity Theory, and the social categorization theory, our tendencies to get into groups. Drury had separated the sample into two groups, one who felt like part of a group and one who felt like an individual.

Drury Methods

independent samples design, sample was 40 students, 7 were male rest were female.There was a virtual reality simulator where they had experienced an emergency situation on london metro. They had to get out of the emergency, either by helping those around them or shoving them out of the way.

Drury psych guide

Role of SIT in helping

Abrams summary

Abrams et al (1990) attempts to investigate the role of social identity in a person's social confirmation (crowd following) Abrams gathered fifty people and split them into two groups based on what they were studying (either psychology or history majors). Each participant was shown a line and were asked to pick which of three other lines best represents it. Ten people were placed in front of a screen that showed the lines, one of the people was the participants the remaining nine were predetermined and not part of the group. The participant was placed at the end of the line. They went in order recording their response. As for the public condition all four members of the group gave their judgments aloud, with their response being recorded by the researcher. In the private condition the participant is the one recording all of the responses the other members do not get to know the responses, The participant still gets their own response.

Abrams Key findings

Most people conformed to the incorrect date in the trials. "The results seem to indicate that social categorization can play a key role in one's decision to conform publicly."

Abrams Methods

Multivariable, false participants, deception.

Abrams Pysch Guide

Shows how people conform/follow others because of culture or social pressures.

Abrams SAQ

Explain one cultural dimension with reference to one study.

Bagby and Rector summary

Bagby and Rector wanted to see if one's social identity would influence objectivity in determining the guilt of a defendant accused of rape. They did this by allocating 102 participants into four different conditions in which they had to read the rape trials of people in which the social identities of the defendants and victims were different.

Key findings - French Canadians rated the out-group (English) defendant more guilty when the victim was from their in-group (French).

Bagby and Rector methods

Quasi experiment

Bagby and Rector psych guide

social identity theory and in - group out - group

Bagby and Rector SAQ

Explain the use of one research method in one study of the individual and the group.

Bandura summary

The study investigates how children will imitate adult's actions if they see it. 36 boys and 36 girls with an average age of 52 months old were participants along with 1 male adult and 1 female adult to act as role models. 3 main conditions were a control group, a group exposed to violent actions, and a group exposed to passive actions. There are also more variables in the study because there are groups of boys and girls that will look at opposite sex models when they perform the actions. In total there are 8 variables in this experiment.

Bandura methods

The method that was used in this study is experiment and matched pair design.

Bandura SAQ

Explain Social Cognitive Theory with reference to one study.

Explain one ethical consideration in one study of the individual and the group.

Explain the use of one research method in one study of the individual and the group.

Kimball summary

Kimball (1986) conducted a natural experiment to investigate how the introduction of television in a remote Canadian community might influence children's gender stereotyping. She compared gender stereotyping in four communities: Notel (a town without television), Unitel (a town with one television station), Multitel (a town with multiple stations), and Vancouver (used as a control group). The study revealed that before was introduced to Notel, children had more egalitarian gender attitudes than children in areas with regular television exposure. However, after two years of exposure to television, gender stereotyping in Notel children increased, especially among boys. This study highlights the impact of media exposure on gender role development in children.Key

Kimball Findings

Findings/Results:Kimball's study found a significant increase in gender stereotyping in Notel children after they were exposed to television for two years. Initially, children from Notel held more egalitarian views about gender roles compared to those from communities with television access. However, following television exposure, the level of gender stereotyping increased notably among both boys and girls in Notel. The boys in Notel showed a marked increase in stereotypical gender views, particularly regarding gender-specific jobs. The study supports the idea that media, specifically television, plays a role in reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes.

Kimball Methods

Methods:Kimball's research used a natural experiment design, taking advantage of the introduction of television to the Notel community.

Kimball Psych Guide

Relation to psych guide- Enculturation

Kimball SAQ Question

SAQ:Explain one ethical consideration in one study of the brain and behaviour

Kimball ERQ Question

ERQ:Discuss (or Evaluate) one or more studies on the formation of stereotypes.

Charlton Summary

Charlton (Nick)

-Summary-The Charlton et al (2002) study aimed to investigate how television plays a role in the development of aggressive behaviors in children in Canada and on the island of St Helena. The study was conducted in three towns in Canada and had 120 children in the sample. The psychologists were observing the behavioral hanges of childrens aggression both physical and verbal. Charlton explored this in St Helena when television was first introduced in 1995. Cameras were set up in order to survey the playgrounds where the children were present. The researchers in Charltons experiment observed 160 children in comparison to the 120 children in Canada.

Charlton Key Findings

-Key findings- From hundreds of hours of videotapes and teacher records on kids, there was no increase in antisocial behavior among the children of St Helena. The childrens good behavior had been there before television and remained even years after its introduction.

Charlton Methods

-Methods-Natural experiment, camera recordings, teacher accounts.

Charlton SAQ Question

-Which SAQ Question would it answer? Explain Social Cognitive Theory with reference to one study.

Charlton ERQ Question

-Which ERQ would it answer? Discuss (or Evaluate) the use of one or more research methods in the study of the individual and the group.

Charlton Psych Guide

-What does it relate to in the psych guide? Social cognitive theory,

Hamilton and Gifford Summary

-Summary: The aim of this study was to investigate illusory correlation of group size and negative behaviour. The experiment consisted of 40 American undergraduates (20 males and 20 females). Participants were shown a series of slides, each with a statement about a member of one of two groups, simply called groups A and B. The participants were told that Group B was smaller than Group A before starting the experiment. Each statement was about one individual in one of the two groups; the statement was either positive or negative. Each group had the same proportion of positive and negative comments. Then, participants were asked to rank members of each group on a series of 20 traits. After this task, they were given a booklet where they were given a statement and asked whether the person who did this was from Group A or B. Finally, they were asked how many of the statements for each group had been "undesirable." The booklet was completed before the trait rankings.

Hamilton and Gifford Key Findings

-Key findings: It was found that Group A ranked higher than Group B for positive trits and lower for negative traits. In the booklet, participants correctly recalled more positive traits for Group A (74%) than for Group B (54%) and more negative traits for Group B (65%) than for Group A (55%).

Hamilton and Gifford Methods

-Methods- Repeated Measure Design

What does it relate to in the psych guide?: The formation of stereotypes and cognitive biases.

Hamilton and Gifford SAQ Question

-Which SAQ Question would it answer?: Explain one theory of the formation of stereotypes with reference to one study, Explain one study of the effects of stereotyping on behaviour.

Hamilton and Gifford ERQ Question

-Which ERQ would it answer?: Discuss (or Evaluate) one or more studies on the formation of stereotypes, Discuss (or Evaluate) one or more theories on the formation of stereotypes, Discuss (or Evaluate) one or more studies on one or more effects of stereotyping on behavior, Discuss (or Evaluate) one or more effects of stereotyping on behavior.

Rogers and Frantz Summary

Summary- The aim of this study was to to test the hypothesis that in Zimbabwe the attitudes of European settlers about Africans would be inversely correlated to the amount of time that they had lived in the country. Participants were given a survey containing sixty-six examples of laws and customs in which White Europeans and Africans were treated differently - this included the use of racially segregated lands, lack of political representation, the use of public facilities, and cross-racial sexual relations. Four response choices were provided with 0 for it being very important to maintain the current system, 2 for a weak feeling of importance, 4 for a preference for discontinuing the law, and 6 for it being very important to discontinue the law.

Rogers and Frantz Key Findings

Key findings- The mean score of the sample was 2.45 (SD 1.12) illustrating that the majority of Europeans in Zimbabwe favored the retention of the status quo. 348 of the 500 participants (almost 70 percent) fell below a mean score of 3.00. Significant statistical correlations were found between the Europeans’ country of birth, occupation, length of schooling, religious affiliation, political party preference, and length of residence in Southern Rhodesia.The scores indicate that new arrivals would inevitably change their attitudes over time. In other words, they would modify their beliefs and attitude.

Rogers and Frantz Methods

Methods- Likert scale survey

Rogers and Frantz Psych Guide

What does it relate to in the psych guide?- stereotypes

Rogers and Frantz SAQ Question

Which SAQ Question would it answer?- Explain the use of one research method in one study of cultural influences on behaviour and cognition.

Rogers and Frantz ERQ Question

Which ERQ would it answer?- Discuss (or Evaluate) one or more studies of Social Identity Theory.

Steele and Aronson Summary

-Summary: The aim of the study was to see how stereotype threat affected the test performance in African Americans groups. Steele & Aronson defined stereotype threat as being at risk of confirming a negative stereotype about a certain group. The sample consisted of 114 male and female, black and white, undergraduates from Stanford University. There were two independent variables in this study: the race of the participant and the test descriptions. The undergraduates were given a standardized test of verbal ability and were told one of two things. The first was described as "a test to diagnose your intellectual ability". While the second described it as "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." the undergraduates were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions; however, they made sure that there were equal numbers of participants in each condition.

Steele and Aronson Key Findings

-Key Findings: they found that the African American students did poorly when they believed that the test was testing their ability, but did just as well as the white students when they believed it was testing their problem-solving skills. In other words, African American students performed poorly compared to their white counterparts in the stereotype threat condition, but their performance equaled that of their white counterparts in the non threat condition .

Steele and Aronson Methods

-Methods: the effect of stereotypes on behavior, independent samples design

Steele and Aronson Psych Guide

-What does it relate to in the psych guide: how stereotype threat may affect an individual's test performance.

Steele and Aronson ERQ/SRQ Question

-What erq/ srq does it answer:Discuss (or Evaluate) one or more studies on the formation of stereotypes.

Wood Summary

Summary - A sample of 48 children had a one-on-one play session at either their home or preschool with either their own mother or father, a mother or father of another child, and a man or woman who was not a parent. There were 15 toys arranged, 5 typical male toys, 5 typical female toys, and 5 gender neutral toys. During the play session, the amount of time children and adults played with gender-specific toys was recorded. After the session, the adults were given a "gender sorting task" in which they were asked to categorize each toy as a masculine, feminine or neutral toy.

Wood Key Findings

-Key findings - boy's tend to spend more time with masculine toy's while girls tend to have greater flexibility with the toys that they played with.

Wood Methods

-Methods - naturalistic observation

Wood Psych Guide

-What does it relate to in the psych guide?

Wood SAQ Question

-Which SAQ Question would it answer? - Explain Social Identity -Theory with reference to one study.

Wood ERQ Question

-Which ERQ would it answer? - Discuss (or Evaluate) one or more studies of Social Identity Theory.

Lueck and Wilson Summary

-Summary:The study involved semi-structured interviews with 2095 Asian Americans, including first-generation immigrants and U.S.-born individuals with immigrant parents. Participants came from various Asian backgrounds (e.g., Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese). Interviews were conducted either online or in person by culturally and linguistically similar interviewers. They assessed acculturative stress and examined related variables: language proficiency and preference, discrimination, social networks, family cohesion, and socioeconomic status.

Results: 70% of participants experienced acculturative stress, Bilingual preferences were linked to lower stress, strong family bond and sharing issues showed a link to lower stress, and discrimination and negative treatments significantly increased to acculturative stress.

Lueck and Wilson Key Findings

-Key findings:bilingualism, strong family ties, and positive economic outlooks reduce stress, while discrimination and English-only language preference increase it.

Lueck and Wilson Methods

-Methods: semi structured interview

Lueck and Wilson Psych Guide

-What does it relate to in the psych guide?

Acculturation and assimilation

Lueck and Wilson SAQ Question

Which SAQ Question would it answer?

Explain one study of acculturation.

Lueck and Wilson ERQ Question

Which ERQ would it answer?

Discuss (or Evaluate) one or more studies of acculturation

Discuss acculturation with regard to behavior and/or cognition.

Norasakkunkit Summary

-SummaryNorasakkunkit and Uchida (2014) investigated the phenomenon of hikikomori, a culture-bound syndrome in Japan, which involves severe social withdrawal, often for extended periods. The study aimed to understand the potential link between globalization and the rise of hikikomori, with a focus on how cultural conflicts between traditional Japanese values and globalized individualism might contribute to the disorder. Using a sample of 195 Japanese university students, the researchers measured participants' attitudes toward social harmony, conformity, and their sense of local versus global identity. The study found that individuals at high risk for hikikomori showed a lower alignment with social harmony values compared to their peers and felt alienated both from Japanese society and global culture.

Norasakkunkit Key Findings

-Key findings/Results-The study revealed that Japanese university students at high risk for hikikomori showed a significant disconnect from both traditional Japanese values and the values associated with globalized cultures. Specifically, these students valued social harmony and conformity less than their peers and desired to be less conforming to societal expectations. Moreover, the high-risk group demonstrated weaker identification with both their local culture (which emphasizes social harmony and collectivism) and global culture (which tends to prioritize individualism and achievement). These findings suggest that the tension between local cultural expectations and the influence of global individualism might contribute to feelings of marginalization, leading some young people to withdraw from society entirely.

Norasakkunkit Method

-Method Norasakkunkit and Uchida (2014) conducted a correlational study with a sample of 195 Japanese university students. The participants were given a standardized test to assess their risk for hikikomori, followed by a series of measures to evaluate their attitudes toward social harmony and conformity. They were also asked to rate their local identity (which reflects collectivist values of social harmony) and global identity (associated with individualism and achievement). The results of these tests helped determine how the students’ alignment with traditional Japanese cultural values and global values related to their risk for hikikomori. Since the participants did not actually have hikikomori, but only exhibited certain risk factors, the study used an analogous approach to study the phenomenon.Relation to psych guide-Culture and its influence on behavior and cognition and Acculturation

Norasakkunkit SAQ Question

-SAQ:Explain neuroplasticity, with reference to one study.

Norasakkunkit ERQ Question

-ERQ:Discuss two or more ethical considerations relevant to the study of the individual and the group.

Cole and Scribner Summary

-Summary: Cole & Scribner wanted to see the effect that schooling would have on the strategies that children used to memorize lists of words. The aim of the study was to see if culture had a different effect on how one memorizesCole & Scribnerr studied the development of memory among tribal people in rural Liberia compared to children in the US. They looked at both Liberian children in school and not attending school. To overcome the barriers of language and culture, they observed everyday cognitive activities before conducting their experiments. They worked closely with the university-educated locals who acted as experimenters.The children were given a free-recall task in which they were shown a large number of objects, one at a time, and asked to remember them. (This kind of memory is called "free" recall because people are free to recall the items in any order they wish.) The list consisted of the 20 objects used in several of Cole and Scribner's studies. The list shows the objects appear to fall into four distinct categories. To make sure the list wasn't too ethnocentric, the researchers ran a pilot study to make sure that Liberian participants were familiar with the words.

Cole and Scribner Key Findings

-Key findings: They found that, unlike the children in school, the children who weren't attending school showed no regular increase in memory performance after the ages of 9 or 10. The participants remembered approximately ten items in the first trial and managed to recall only two more items after 15 practice trials. The Liberian children who were attending school though, learned the materials rapidly,similar to schoolchildren the same age did in the United States.

Cole and Scribner Method

-Methods: emic approach

Cole and Scribner Psych Guide

-What does it relate to in the psych guide?: explores how culture affects the cognitive process of memory

Cole and Scribner SAQ/ERQ Question

-Which SAQ/ erq Question would it answer?: Discuss (or Evaluate) one or more studies of one or more effects of culture on behavior and/or cognition.

Kearins Summary

Summary: Kearins (1981) aim was to better understand the cognitive strategies of Indigenous Australians. A sample of forty-four adolescent desert Indigenous Australians aged 12 - 16 years (27 boys, 17 girls) and 44 adolescents (28 boys, 16 girls) of white Australian origin was used. The desert group had been raised by people living under semi-traditional tribal conditions and all spoke English as a second language. The white Australian participants were drawn from an outer suburb of Perth. The samples were matched for age and sex. The basic procedure was that Kearins placed 20 objects on a board divided into 20 squares and were told to study the board for 30 seconds. Then all the objects were heaped into a pile in the center of the board. The children were asked to replace the items in their original locations.There were four variations of this task: Artificial Different, Natural Different, Artificial Same, and Natural Same.

Kearins Key Findings

-Key findings: On all four tasks, the Indigenous Australian children correctly relocated more objects than did white Australian children.As would be expected, the least difference between the two groups was on the artificial different task. This is the task on which the white Australian children scored the highest. The Indigenous Australian children showed no significant difference whether the task was "artificial" or "natural." This means that the objects themselves did not affect the results of the study.

Kearins Methods

-Methods: quasi-experiment

Kearins Psych Guide

-What does it relate to in the psych guide?: The effect of culture on cognitive processes.

Kearins SAQ Question

-Which SAQ Question would it answer?: Explain one study of cultural (or social) groups.

Kulkofsky Summary

-Summary: The aim of this study was to study of the role of culture on flashbulb memory. The researchers studied five countries - China, Germany, Turkey, the UK, and the USA - to see if there was any difference in the rate of flashbulb memories in collectivistic and individualistic cultures. The sample was made up of 274 adults from five different countries. All participants were identified as "middle class." First, the participants were given five minutes to recall as many memories as they could of public events occurring in their lifetime. The events had to have occurred at least one year ago. The researchers then used this list of events to create a "memory questionnaire." They were asked five questions about how they learned about the event that mirrored the original questionnaire used by Brown & Kulik (1977)

Kulkofsky Key Findings

-Key findings: The researchers found that in a collectivistic culture like China, personal importance and intensity of emotion played less of a role in predicting FBM, compared with more individualistic cultures that place greater emphasis on an individual's personal involvement and emotional experiences.

Kulkofsky Methods

-Methods: back-translation, etic approach

Kulkofsky Psych Guide

-What does it relate to in the psych guide?: One theory of how emotion may affect one cognitive process, The role of culture in cognitive processes, The role of cultural dimensions on behavior.

Kulkofsky SAQ Question

-Which SAQ Question would it answer?: Explain the use of one research method in one study of cultural influences on behavior and cognition.