Sociocultural SAQs

complete!

Social Identity Theory P1

• proposed by Henri Tafjel

• to explain intergroup behavior

• three psychological mechanisms

• social categorization

• social identification

• social comparison - include in group and out group

• salience (increase = likelihood of social categorization also increases)

• in group favoritism vs out group discrimination

• positive distinctiveness

Social Identity Theory P2

• Hillard & Libben (2010)

• aim: to investigate whether introducing salience of gender categories in a classroom would increase gender stereotyping and ingroup bias

• sample: 57 u.s. children aged 3-5 in two preschool classrooms over two weeks

• low salience condition: no particular mention of gender

• high salience condition: emphasized gender identity - gender-based lines, reinforcing gender roles

• before and after: POAT-AM

  • showed stereotypically gendered activities and occupations

  • to determine the level of gender stereotypes in a child

  • examples: firefighter → male, teacher → female, flying a kite → neutral

• high-salience: showed high amount of gender stereotypes, decrease in play with out-group (who?) in comparison to low salience

Social Identity Theory P3

Social identity theory appears to be the case in Hillard and Liben, with the study demonstrating the effects of the three aspects of SIT on behaviour and attitudes on children in a preschool environment. The researchers showed that emphasising group identity, in this case, gender, enhanced the children’s identification with their own gender (the ingroup) and led to ingroup favouritism and stereotyping. This aligns with SIT’s idea that individuals derive self-esteem from their group memberships, leading to a stronger inclination to favour their ingroup while differentiating each other from the out-group. They went through the three psychological mechanisms necessary to create a social identity, demonstrating SIT. Social categorization and identification were implemented through the teachers’ choice of wording, mentions of gender, and specific instructions according to participants’ gender in the classroom. Social comparison was similarly implemented, with teachers in the gender-salient condition emphasising the differences between groups, causing the participants to easily see an us vs. them mentality in regards to the other gender. After the end of the study, children showed ingroup favouritism (interacting with their own gender more) and outgroup discrimination (decreasing play with other gender), as per SIT, as they decreased in play with the out-group, the other gender, and increased their stereotypical views on gender norms and roles attributed to certain genders.. 

Social Cognitive Theory P1

• assumes that behavior is learnt through observation of a model: someone else, usually an adult, and imitating the behavior observed

• four main cognitive factors

  • attention: pay attention to the model

  • retention: be able to remember the behavior observed

  • motivation: must want to replicate this behavior (understanding the potential consequences), often influenced by liking or relating to the model

  • potential: be physically and mentally capable of actually carrying out the behavior

• for the behavior to continue, vicarious reinforcement is needed

  • learning through the observation of the consequences of actions for other people will increase our ability to continue the behavior

• more likely to occur when a learner has high self-efficacy

  • belief in ability to succeed in a task

  • individuals with low self-efficacy are less likely to believe in themselves and recover from setbacks/criticism, making it less likely they will imitate a behavior

• doesn’t always link to negative outcomes, which is shown in the Sabido method, where researchers stimulated positive change in social attitudes and behaviors

Social Cognitive Theory P2

• Joy et al

• longitudinal natural experiment

• the impact of television on children’s aggressive behaviors

• three small towns in Canada: television was introduced to one community and the other two, which already had TV, were given a new channel

• pre/post study design

• observed physical and verbal aggression/behavior of 120 elementary students on the playground in 1973 (before implementation) and 1975 (one year after)

• also measured behavior using teachers and peer ratings of aggressive behavior and collected information about television viewing habits of participants

• study found that participants in Notel had increased their aggressive behavior significantly

• behaviors in the other two communities did not change significantly, with males being more physically aggressive than females

• since the children’s favorite shows showed no differences between aggressive and less aggressive children, the most probable explanation was that there was heightened arousal resulting from children’s lack of familiarity with television in Notel, resulting in a greater likelihood of aggression

Social Cognitive Theory P3

The findings in Joy et al reflect the SCT, with participants seemingly increasing aggressive behaviours due to the introduction of TV in their community. When children gained access to the TV, they learned to be more aggressive on the playground because of the things they were watching. Participants followed the four main cognitive factors of SCLT: according to teacher and peer observation, children watched TV attentively to the television once it was implemented, showing the cognitive factor of attention. Secondly, children were able to remember this behaviour as it was entertaining and they most probably viewed the model on the television enough to remember their actions. Children were also most likely exposed to romanticised aggressive models which didn’t always have the same consequences as they would in real-life, enabling vicarious reinforcement. Therefore, they were able to comprehend what the behaviour looked like and what potential consequences there were. The children were also physically and mentally capable of carrying out aggressive physical and/or verbal behaviour that they saw on the television on the playground, aligning with the final cognitive factor of potential. Participants in the study also most likely had high or average self-efficacy due to their young age, influenced by their teachers and peers, allowing them to carry out this behaviour in a comfortable setting like school. In conclusion, due to the four cognitive factors of SCT being present in the children's lives and their levels of self-efficacy, they were able to imitate the behaviour they saw displayed to them by the aggressive character on the television, their model, therefore aligning their actions with SCT. 

Stereotype formation P1

• stereotypes: positive or negative generalizations of a social group’s characteristics based on a shared attribute, that simplifies or misrepresents the group, it is a form of social categorization

• schema definition

• can be formed due to illusory correlation ( one sees a correlation between two variables that do not actually correlate)

  • distinctiveness-based: when people associate rare behaviors with minority groups because they are both less common

  • expectancy-based:when people notice and remember information that confirms their pre-existing beliefs, actively searching for information that confirms this mindset (confirmation bias)

  • IC reinforces biased beliefs even when no real relationship exists

Stereotype Formation P2

• Hamilton & Gifford

• aim: to determine illusory correlation between negative behavior and group size

• sample: 70 american female and male undergraduates

• shown a series of slides, each with a statement about a member of one of two groups - A and B

• A: twice as many people B: minority group (participants were told this)

• statements were either negative or positive (each group had same proportion of each)

• then aksed to rank members on a series of 20 traits (popular, social)
  then given a booklet in which they were given a statement and asked which group the person came from

• then asked how many of the statements for each group had been ‘undesirable’

• results:

  • group a was ranked higher for positive traits and vice versa

  • in the booklet - participants correctly recalled more positive traits for A and more negative for B

Stereotype Formation P3

This study supports the theory that distinctive-based illusory correlation can result in stereotype formation by how group A, with more participants was associated more with positive traits whereas group B with less participants, was associated with the negative traits, despite both having the same proportion of positive and negative comments. A strength presented in the study is its high internal validity, by creating two artificial groups, A and B, representing real humans with no pre-existing stereotypes, the researchers ensured that observed patterns were purely because of the manipulated variables. This eliminates confounding factors such as prior bias or real-world experiences between the groups. Furthermore, this made it possible to identify the cause and effect presented in the participants actions. However, there are limitations to the study as well; such as a low ecological validity since the experiment was highly artificial and does not reflect real-world reasons for stereotype formation, which are more complex than simply associating a group with a set of behaviours. Despite this limitation, the study has practical applications beyond social psychology, where research found that doctors may exhibit illusory correlation by remembering poor health choices done by obese patients more than other patients, highlighting that illusory correlation can have real-world consequences.

Stereotype Effect P1

• Stereotype definition = social perception of an individual in terms of group membership or physical attributes. It is a generalization made about a group and then assumed about every individual in that group, regardless of whether or not it is an accurate claim

• stereotype threat

  • occurs when individuals fear confirming a negative stereotype about their group, leading to impaired performance

  • typically created in situations that pose a significant threat to our sense of identity as important, valuable, or capable

• this fear induces spotlight anxiety

  • feeling of emotional distress and self-consciousness that inadvertently results in continuing the perceived notions of the stereotype

  • can occur even if individual does not believe the stereotype

Stereotype Effect P2

• Steele & Aronson

• aim: to see how stereotype threat may affect an individual’s test performance

• sample: 76 male and female, black and white undergrads from Stanford

• procedure

  • given standardized verbal test

  • told this was either a test to diagnose intellectual ability or test of problem-solving skills

  • random allocation to condition with equal number of participants for each condition

  • asked to indicate race before taking test

• results

  • no significant difference between gender

  • aa did poorly on intellectual ability test

  • aa did just as well when they believed it was problem-solving skills test

Stereotype Effect P3

• African-Americans performed worse than their white counterparts in the stereotype threat condition, but in the non-threat condition, their performance equaled that of their white counterparts.

Conclusion: (link this to procedure and results)

• Stereotype threat and spotlight anxiety cause performance to deteriorate

• In the non-threat environment: performance wasn’t affected

FROM SAQ: This study demonstrates how stereotype threat and spotlight anxiety can negatively affect performance, because of the pressure they feel not to conform to a negative stereotype of their group, leading to possible anxiety, causing them to perform worse. The stereotype that African Americans are academically inferior led to spotlight anxiety in the stereotype relevant conditions, causing underperformance. It was strongest when participants identified their race as this amplified their awareness of the stereotype. Without mention of race, participants performed almost equally to the other participants, showing the impact spotlight anxiety can have on results.

Cultural dimensions P1

• comes from theory proposed by Hofstede to better undesrtand differences in culture

• four initial dimensions: one is i vs c

• the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups

• i versus we

• individualism: uniqueness, speaking one’s mind, individual achievement, freedom, self-actualization, privacy, self-reliance

  • us, uk, france

• collectivism: social harmony, modesty, group membership, advancing interests of a group, shared responsibility, interdependence

  • china, korea, japan

Cultural dimensions AND ethics/research method COOBC P2

• Berry

• aim: to measure level of conformity in two types of societies: fishing and agricultural

• investigating theory that suggested that hunting/fishing societies tend to be individualistic whereas agricultural societies tend to be collectivistic

• Temne (rice farming → collectivistic), Inuit (hunting/fishing → individualistic), Urban and rural scots (control group)

• traditional living or “in transition” (Western education/employment)

• procedure

  • one individual entered a room to complete a test with nine lines after completing two practice tests, instructing participants to match two line lengths - in their native language

  • first non-practice trial indcluded the researcher saying what most people of their culture would pick, with the correct answer given for the first trial

  • for the next three, the wrong answer was given

• results

  • temne © conformed more to the incorrect answers

  • inuit (i) had an even lower rate of conforming than the control group

  • no significant difference between ‘in transition’ and traditional participants

Cultural dimensions P3

Berry (1967) investigated the theory of individualistic versus collectivistic cultures from Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory about understanding the differences between cultures across countries. Berry’s findings support the initial theory suggested by research that hunting and fishing societies tend to be individualistic whereas agricultural societies tend to be collectivistic. This could explain certain behaviors within people and values from their cultural background. The fact that the Inuits, an individualistic culture, had a very low rate of conforming show their self-reliance and their value of speaking one’s mind, similar to values outlined by Hofstede as individualistic. Whereas the Temne had an extremely high rate of conforming, showcasing their values of group membership and interdependence, demonstrating that the value they place on being part of a group, very similar to values outlined by Hofstede as collectivistic. In conclusion, Berry’s study provided two examples of individuals in a culture that closely demonstrate Hofstede’s individualism vs collectivism cultural dimension.

Culture and Cognition

Cultures, a shared system of values, beliefs, attitudes that shape perception and behavior, can influence our cognition.

can be defined as either collectivist or individualistic, according to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions.

• individualism: uniqueness, speaking one’s mind, individual achievement, freedom, self-actualization, privacy, self-reliance

  • us, uk, france

• collectivism: social harmony, modesty, group membership, advancing interests of a group, shared responsibility, interdependence

  • china, korea, japan

An individual’s culture can play a role on their flashbulb memories, their highly detailed, exceptionally vivid snapshot of a moment when a surprising or emotionally arousing event occurred.

Culture and cognition P2

• Kulkofsky et al

• aimed to study the role of collectivistic or individualistic culture on flashbulb memory

• studied five countries - CGT UU

• sample of 274 middle-class adults

• procedure

  • given five minutes to recall as many memories of public events in their lifetime, at least one year ago

  • researchers used this list to create a memory questionnaire in english, which was then translated, asking participants five questions about how they learned about the event and specifics (e.g. time of day, where, what they were doing, who with)

  • asked about importance of the event (national/international/personal importance, surprise felt)

• results

  • c cultures - personal importance and intensity of emotion played less of a role in predicting FBM (china)

  • national importance was equally linked to fbm formation across cultures

Culture and cognition P3

This study demonstrated the link between flashbulb memories and culture, showing that collectivist cultures, like China, had less flashbulb memories because of the collectivist value of not placing emphasis on personal importance and intensity of emotion. In such cultures, placing less emphasis on the individual’s own experience is common, lowering a chance of developing a FBM. Whereas, in individualistic cultures, it was more likely people developed FBMs due to their focus on an individual’s personal involvement and emotional experiences. However, collectivistic (and individualistic) cultures formed FBMs when they were “nationally important”, showing the value they place on interdependence and group membership (in this case) of a country. 

Enculturation P1

• process by which individuals learn their culture

• via observation, direct instructions, direct personal experience

• constant process by which an individual becomes a fully funcitoning member of society, adopting and learning a culture and its norms

• can occur with

  • direct tuition - reinforcing appropriate behaviors to young children

  • observational learning - observing models

• individauls acquire internal standards for behavior through reward and punishment, either by personal or vicarious (others) experience

• example: gender schema theory

  • argues that once children can categorize genders and recognize which group they belong to, they will actively seek out information to build up their gender schema (which is..)

Enculturation & ciooiaib ethics P2

• Martin and Halverson

• aim: to see if children of both genders between age of five and six would experience memory distortion as a result of gender schema

• sample: 48 5-6 year old participants

• procedure

  • conducted a test to asses level of gender stereotyping

  • then showed them 16 pictures of males and females in activities that were either consistent or inconsistent with gender role schemas

  • a week later, they were asked to remember what gender was in 24 pictures (w/ option to not remember and boy/man, girl/woman) (16 they had seen, 8 they had not)

• results

  • activities consistent with gender stereotypes were more often remembered than other activities

  • for pictures with males, those activities incosistent with the stereotype were remembered better

  • distorted memories of pictures that were not consistent with gender role schemas

    • picture of girl holding hammer → remembered as a boy

  • more confidence when stories were consistent with gender schema

Enculturation P3

Martin and Halverson’s study demonstrates how gender schemas acquired through enculture can influence our cognitive processes, like memory. Participants had many distorted memories of pictures to make them consistent with gender schema and displayed more confidence when recalling pictures that matched their gender schema, supporting the theory that stereotypes affect both the encoding and retrieval of emotion. Children making errors that made the sex consistent with gender stereotypes is evidence of distortion. Gender schema and gender stereotyping can be developed by direct tuition, parents or adults close to the child reinforcing behavior that is consistent with stereotypes and punishing behaviour that is inconsistent, or observational learning, observing other people’s actions and what certain genders like. This is likely how the children developed these schemas and then utilised them in a way that created memory distortion, matching genders to pictures, even if incorrect, matching the gender schema theory.

Ethical consideration individual and the group AND coobc P1

• define deception

• typically used to avoid demand characteristics (define)

• deception by commission (gives false info)

• deception by omission (omits crucial information)

• confederates are often key (define)

Ethical consideration individual and the group P2

• Tafjel

• to investigate if intergroup discrimination with two different groups would occur

• sample of 48 boys, 14-15

• procedure

  •  asked to rate twelve paintings by two artists, not aware of which painting was by which artist

  • randomly allocated to a group but told they had preferred one artist

  • Each individual was tasked with awarding points to two other people, one from his group and one from the other

  • award system conditions: point allocation system (explain) and the second (explain)

• results

  • participants typically gave more points to their group mates and in the second system, participants attempted to give the opposing team few points rather than earning more points for their own team.

Ethical consideration individual and the group P3

This study demonstrates how the use of deception by omission is used by not letting the participants know about the random allocation system of the grouping. Despite this, deception is a violation of ethics and participant trust, and unless crucial to the study, researchers should aim to avoid its usage. Participants were deceived on the nature of the study, which was necessary to make sure demand characteristics did not influence results and that participants would perform naturally, and the nature of the grouping, which was necessary to study how people behave in groups formed without any meaningful bias. They randomly allocated participants to alleviate any pre-existing biases that could come from preferring one artist to another, implying that deception can be used for studies investigating behavior without creating a bias in the participants. 

Ethical consideration coobc P3

This study demonstrates how the use of deception by commission is used for research purposes in a study by providing false information by stating that those from the participant’s culture tend to pick a specific answer. Berry might have felt that by providing false information about the actual correct answer, an insight about how much a participant was willing to conform can be shown. The results show that although deception was unethically used, the deception allowed the participants to showcase their individualistic or collectivistic stance which supported the initial theory that agriculture cultures tend to be collectivistic cultures and hunting and fishing cultures tend to be individualistic. This implies that deception can be used for studies investigating behaviour and cognition without creating a bias in the participants. 

Ethical consideration ciooiaib P1

• informed consent

• essential that informed consent is gained before a study begins

• be informed about what procedure entails (typically involves giving written document containing description of procedure, asking for signature)

• consent is NOT sufficient, it must be informed!

  • participant must understand every aspect and each necessary element

  • including topic of research, description of procedures, any reasons not to participate, right to withdraw

Ethical consideration ciooiaib P3

Martin and Halverson’s experiment had all of the necessary elements of consent. Since their participants were young children, a parent or guardian was asked to sign the consent form. In these cases, researchers are obligated to attend to signs that the participants may want to discontinue during the experiment. However, this is not always visible, raising an ethical dilemma. It was necessary to have informed consent as these participants are very young children. Therefore, it was of utmost importance that they and their guardians understand what they are signing up for. Participants may have had anxiety about participating in something they weren’t sure of, leading to undue stress or harm, making it important the researchers gathered all elements of informed consent. 

Acculturation P1

• define acculturation (process of transferring one’s values and beliefs from one culture to another)

• done when another individual comes into contact with another culture (by moving to a new country, immigrating, etc.)

• berry’s model of acculturation states that two models of acculturation….

  • high identification with heritage culture or new culture

• …creates four different strategies of acculturation

  • assimilation: where an individual adopts the traditions of a new culture and abandons original culture entirely

  • when an individual does this without losing their sense of identity to their original culture, it is called integration

  • sometimes assimilation can fail and can result in groups of people being treated differently, called marginalization

  • separation includes rejecting the new culture and keeping the original culture

• acculturative stress : psychological and social difficulties that can lead to depression and anxiety

• examples: often by immigrants when move to a new country, ver common in university students studying in a different cultural environment to the one they grew up in

Acculturation P2

• Miranda & Matheny (2000)

• to investigate which factors in the lives of Latino immigrants to the US would decrease the level of acculturative stress

• Sample: 197 Spanish-speaking American immigrants

• procedure: participants completed a questionnaire and tests to assess family cohesion, level of acculturation, acculturative stress, and coping strategies for stress

• results

  • immigrants with effective coping strategies, good proficiency in English, a strong family structure were less likely to experience acculturative stress

  • immigrants who spent a longer time in the US were less likely to demonstrate this stress and showed a higher level of acculturation

Acculturation P3

This study illustrates the concept of acculturation according to Berry's model, thus suggesting that the process leads to psychological and cultural differences in members of the two cultures under investigation; the study hence demonstrates that integration into a foreign culture, meaning the interaction with the dominant culture while maintaining pesonal idenitty, the status of being bi-cultural reduces acculturative stress.
the study, therefore, answers the main questions of Berry's model, suggesting that one's original identity should be balanced with the task of getting involved with the foreign cultural group:

make more explicit references to the study itself though!

Quasi-experiment P1 (relevant for coobc and ciooiaiab)

• type of experiment where participants are grouped based on a shared characteristic (e.g. race, gender, age)

• no random allocation

• do not show causation, can imply a casual relationship between iv and dv

• researcher is unable to manipulate iv (cannot randomly assign people to a culture, for example)

Quasi-experiment P3 coobc

berry

• grouped based on their culture - temne or inuit

• no random allocation of participants

• implies a casual relationship between the IV (culture) and DV (level of conformity)

• research couldn’t manipulate the iv, which was the culture

Quasi-experiment P3 ciooiaiab

• participants naturally grouped by naturally-occuring characteristic: gender (the results were based on ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ did xyz - not random groups)

• no random allocation to gender groups

• IV: congruence of the story content with gender stereotypes

• IV: gender of the child

• DV: memory accuracy

• researchers could not manipulate the iv - because of this, the study cannot establish causation but can suggest a casual relationship

Experiment P1 (relevant for individual and the group)

true experiment

-highly controlled

• done in a lab or controlled environment

• used to establish c&e relationship between iv and dv

• random allocation to testing conditions

• control group: not given the treatment to ensure results aren’t due to chance

• based on supporting a hypothesis

Experiment P3 (individual and the group)

• tajfel

• conducted in a psych lab, controlled setting (strict control over all variables)

• boys randomly assigned to groups based on meaningless criteria (kandinsky vs klee preference)

  • this isolated group membership as IV

• hypothesis driven: mere group categorization is enough to produce in-group favoritism

• iv: group membership

• dv: point allocation to in-group vs out-group members