Sociocultural Concepts & Definitions

Social Identity Theory

Social Identity Theory claims that ingroups develop norms, display ingroup favoritism and outgroup discrimination. Individual identity and self esteem may be linked to the status of their group. For example, football fans may practice certain traditions, favor other fans of their team, and discriminate against fans of other teams; individual's self esteem may even fluctuate based on their team's wins and losses.

Social Cognitive Theory

Social Cognitive Theory claims learning can be a result of observation. Claims learning is impacted by reciprocal determinism: the interaction of personal factors, behavior, & their environment. For example, one child may mimic the behavior of an adult model who resembles them, while another child may not mimic their behavior due to personal factors.

Stereotypes

Stereotypes are oversimplified mental representations of certain individuals based on the groups to which they belong; a form of social categorization. Claims that since our human capacity to process social information is limited, stereotypes are used to maintain cognitive function. For example, illusory correlation is a cognitive mechanism that leads a person to believe a relationship exists between two events when they are each statistically infrequent and just happen to co-occur, such as marginalized community members committing crimes.

Culture's Influence on Behavior

A person's cultural background has an influence on their behavior, such as conformity behavior. Conformity is repeating the same behavior as others. For example, members of an individualist culture may be less likely to conform to group behaviors as members of a collectivist culture.

Culture's Influence on Cognition

A person's cultural background has an influence on their cognition, such as memory and cognitive styles. For example, members of an individualist culture may be less likely to recall details related to others' reactions and emotions in their own memories as members of a collectivist culture.

Cultural Dimensions (individualism)

Cultural Dimensions are six measures of cultural values identified by Hofstede's large scale cross-national surveys. Each dimension represents independent preferences for one state of affairs over another that distinguish countries from one another. For example, individualism reflects the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members. The high side of this dimension can be defined as a preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of only themselves and their immediate families. Its opposite, Collectivism, represents a preference for a tightly-knit framework in society in which individuals can expect their relatives or members of a particular ingroup to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

Enculturation

Enculturation is the immersion in one's own culture and acquisition of cultural norms. The learning of this culture takes place in the culture itself through active learning; it is regarded as essential for survival. For example, a person born in a Spanish-speaking country will learn Spanish and other cultural norms of that society.

Acculturation

Acculturation is the process of psychological and cultural change as a result of the interaction between cultures: one's first culture, and any subsequent cultures. Berry proposed 4 strategies of cultural change: integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization. For example, a person born and raised in Iran who attends college in the U.S. would experience acculutration of both their Iranian culture and U.S. culture.

Globalization (for ERQs Only)

Globalization is the movement towards a unified, global culture. This often refers to values of individualism, free market economics, and democracy. Individuals may experience delocalization (strong global identity + lack of local identity) and/or identity confusion (diffculty integrating one's self into one identity). For example, Japan regards youth who retreat from local engagement as hikikomori,: those who engage with the global community online, but struggle with their local culture which requires high conformity.