Sociocultural SAQs

Social identity theory

Social identity theory states that an individual’s self-concept and evaluation of themselves is derived from their perceived membership to social groups

Was developed by Tajfel and Turner.

An individual’s social group is determined from the following social processes:

Firstly, social categorization, wherein people identify which groups they do or do not belong to, establishing in groups and out groups.

Then, by social comparison, which is the process by which individuals engage in social comparison in order to justify their own group membership.

Finally, positive distinctive, where individuals seek to achieve positive self esteem by the perception of their in-groups as comparatively superior to out groups. Wherein, people tend to think overall more highly of traits belonging to their ingroups, irrespective of whether they chose to be part of said group.

Harris and Fiske (2006): Study

Aim: Harris and Fiske aimed to observe the role of the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala in reacting to what they called ‘extreme out-groups’, such as homeless people and addicts.

Sample: The same was made up of 22 Princeton University students.

Procedure: Participants were attached to an fMRI, and once in the fMRI, they were shown six sets of ten photographs.

These photographs included people with disabilities, rich businessmen, older people, American Olympic athletes, addicts, and homeless people.

The participants were shown a response screen after each image and then, using a joystick, were asked to choose which of the four emotions of pity, envy, disgust, or pride, they felt towards the image that was just displayed.

Harris and Fiske (2006): Results

It was found that there was a clear difference in brain activity when participants rated pictures of addicts or homeless people.

In addition to the activation of the amygdala, their brains set off a series of reactions associated with disgust.

The insula was activates, which is usually a response to non-human objects such as garbage and human waste.

The part of the brain that is activated when we think about other people or ourselves, the medial prefrontal cortex, was not activated, meaning their brains did not react to them as people.

Social cognitive theory

Social cognitive theory states that an individual’s behavior is modeled based on other members of a group and acquired through observation, where this theory was developed by Bandura.

This is derived from ‘modeling’, which occurs when an individual utilizes an observation of another person’s behavior and their consequences to guide their own actions.

This occurs by the following learning process:

Firstly, attention, wherein the learner actively watches the model’s behavior.

Then, retention, which is where the model’s behavior must be remembered, including visuals, sounds, and words.

Motivation, where the learner must actively want to perform the behavior, and hold the belief that it is useful.

Finally, potential, in that the learner must be both physically and mentally capable of the behavior.

Bandura (1961): Study

Aim: Bandura aimed to investigate whether children witnessing an aggressive action by an adult will imitate this aggressive behavior when given the opportunity.

Sample: The sample was 36 boys and 36 girls aged between 37 and 69 months old. One male and one female adult were used to act as role models.

Procedure: The study had three conditions:

A control group, who were not exposed to a model.

A second group who were exposed to an aggressive model who was aggressive to the doll in both a physical and verbal manner for 10 minutes.

And a third group who were exposed to a passive model, wherein the model played quietly with other toys.

The children were all then subjected to aggressive arousal. Where, each child was taken to a room with a variety of attractive toys, and as soon as they begun to play with them, the experimenter told the child that these were their very best toys, and had been reserved for other children

Finally, the child was then taken into a room, with a variety of toys including the bobo doll, of both non aggressive nature, including crayons, a tea set, three bears, and plastic farm animals. And of aggressive nature, including a mallet, dart guns, and a peg board.

The child was in this room for 20 minutes, and their behavior was observed through a one-way-mirror at 5 second intervals by researchers.

Bandura (1961): Results

The boys physical aggression after a male aggressive model was higher than the girls after a female aggressive model (average 25.7 acts to an average of 5.5 acts).

Although, the girls verbal aggression after a female aggressive role model was slightly higher than the boys after a male aggressive role model (13.7 to 12.7).

The children who observed an aggressive model showed a lot of verbal and physical aggression that resembled the scripted routine the model had acted out.

Stereotype threat

Stereotypes are collections of beliefs that are held about a certain group of people, in spite of any individual differences among members of said group.

Stereotype threat is an individual’s fear that they will confirm a negative stereotype surrounding a group that they belong to.

Typically, people will exhibit a worse performance when participating in an activity negatively stereotyped about themselves, out of a fear of confirming the stereotype, regardless of whether or not they believe in it, although they must be aware of the stereotype’s existence.

Steele and Aronson (1995): Study

Aim: The aim of this study was to see how stereotype threat affects test performance in African Americans.

Sample: The sample was made up of 114 male and female black and white undergraduates from Stanford University.

Procedure: The participants were given a 30-minute long standardized test of verbal ability similar to the SAT and were told one of two things.

Either that it is a test to diagnose your intellectual ability “a genuine test of your verbal abilities and limitations”. Or that it is a test of your problem solving skills, “to better understand the psychological factors involved in solving verbal problems”.

Participants 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 (1995): Findings

African Americans did poorly when they believed that the test was a test of their intellectual ability, but did just as well as the white Americans when they believed that it was a test of their problem solving skills. Thus, African American participants performed less well than their white counterparts in the stereotype threat condition, but in the non-threat condition, their performance was equal.

Cultural dimensions

Cultural dimensions refer to the values that which members of a society living within a particular culture uphold.

Culture being the common rules that regulate the interactions as well as behaviors of individuals within a group, in addition to the shared values and attitudes in the group, generating a sense of safety and belonging.

Individualism vs collectivism is whether individuals view themselves as independent or dependent of a social group.

Individualistic cultures value achievement, uniqueness, and independence.

Whereas collectivism cultures value social harmony, tradition and interdependence.

Berry (1967): Study

Aim: Berry aimed to investigate the level of conformity within hunting and fishing societies which tend to be individualistic, and the agricultural societies that tend to be collectivistic.

Sample: Berry sampled from 3 distinctly different cultures.

First, the Temne people, who come from a society based on rice farming.

The Inuit people, who survive by hunting and fishing.

Finally, Scots were used as a neutral reference group.

There were approximately 120 participants in each group.

Procedure: Each individual was was brought into a room by themselves. For the test, they were given a set of nine lines.

For the first two tests, they were asked to match the line below that most closely matched the line at the top. These were practice tests to ensure instructions were understood. The directions were given in their own language by a native interpreter using a pre-translated set of instructions and questions.

After, there were four more trials, on the third trial they were then given the following directions, here is another sheet with the line lines on it, one here on the top and eight beneath it.

This time I am going to give your a hint. Most Temne (or Inuit of Scottish) people say this line (experimenter pointed to a designated line) is equal in length to the one at the top.

Which one do you say? The participant would then choose a line.

Berry (1967): Findings

The Temne, which is a collectivistic culture, had a much higher rate of conformity when told what other Temne believed, even if it was incorrect.

However, the Inuit’s had an even lower rate of conformity than the Scots.

Enculturation

Culture regards the common rules that regulate the interactions as well as behaviors of individuals within a group, in addition to the shared values and attitudes within the group, generating a sense of safety and belonging.

Enculturation is the process by which people learn the necessary and appropriate skills and norms in the context of culture.

This includes the concepts of ‘self-socialization’ wherein children actively seek our information of how to behave, for example in relation to their gender, and what behavior is encouraged, and may be modeled.

Schemas are cognitive structures that are derived from prior experiences and knowledge, Schema theory stating that an individual’s existing knowledge will affect their interpretation and processing of new knowledge.

Martin and Halverson (1983): Study

Aim: Martin and Halverson aimed to investigate whether existing schemas of gender norms may distort memories of inconsistent experiences.

Sample: The sample was 48 children.

Procedure: Each child was individually shown 16 pictures for ten seconds. The children were asked to identify the sex and age of the actor in the picture who was either a woman, man, or boy.

Half the pictures displayed the actor doing something consistent with a traditional gender stereotype, and the rest of the pictures something inconsistent with a traditional gender stereotype.

A week later the children were asked to recall what they had seen in the pictures.

Martin and Halverson (1983): Results

The children had distorted memories of the pictures that were inconsistent with their gender role schemas.

Children remembered more details and demonstrated less distortion of memory when the stories were consistent with their gender schema.

Acculturation

Culture regards the common rules that regulate the interactions as well as behaviors of individuals within a group, in addition to the shared values and attitudes in the group, generating a sense of safety and belonging.

Acculturation is the cultural and psychological change that takes place as a result of contact between two or more cultural groups.

When moving to another culture individuals make choices, both consciously and unconsciously , to what extent they will maintain their own culture versus adopt the culture of their new home country.

Acculturative stress is the psychological impact of adaption to a new culture, and may lead to reduced mental and physical health.

Miranda and Matheny (2000): Study

Aim: Miranda and Matheny aimed to investigate which factors in the lives of Latino immigrants to the United States would decrease the level of acculturative stress.

Sample: The study used a random sample of 197 Spanish speaking American immigrants.

Procedure: Participants completed a questionnaire and tests to assess levels of family cohesion, level of acculturation, acculturative stress, and coping strategies for stress.

Miranda and Matheny (2000): Results

It was found that immigrants with effective coping strategies, good proficiency in English, and a strong family structure were less likely to experience acculturative stress.

Additionally, immigrants who has spent a longer tome in the US were less likely to demonstrate this stress and showed a higher level of acculturation.

Formation of stereotypes

Stereotypes are collections of beliefs that are held about a certain group of people, in spite of any individual differences among the members of said group.

Social identity theory states that an individuals self-concept and evaluation of themselves is derived from their perceived membership to social groups.

An individual’s social group is determined from the following processes:

Firstly, social categorization, wherein people identify which groups they do or do not belong to, establishing ingroups and outgroups.

Then, social comparison, which is the process by which individuals engage in social comparison in order to justify their own group membership.

Finally, positive distinctive, wherein individuals seek to achieve positive self esteem by perceiving their in-groups as comparatively superior to out groups. Where, people tend to think overall more highly of traits that belong to their ingroups, regardless of whether they chose to be apart of said group.

Conformity

Conformity is the tendency for an individual to align their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors with those of the people around them.

Cultural dimensions refer to the values that which members of a society living within a particular culture uphold.

Culture being the common rules that regulate the interactions as well as behaviors of individuals within a group, in addition to the shared values and attitudes in the group, generating a sense of safety and belonging.