IB Psychology SL - Sociocultural Terms and Theories

Social Identity Theory

A person has not just one “personal self,” but rather several social selves that correspond to group membership

Saliency

becoming more aware of a specific facet of our identity; can have an influence on behavior

Tajfel’s 4 social mechanisms of SIT

Social categorization - the process by which we identity which groups we belong to and which groups we do not.

Social Identification - process of adopting the norms of the group and taking on the characteristics of the group

Social comparison - justifying group membership

Positive distinctiveness - achieved positive self-esteem by positively comparing our in-group to an out-group on some valued dimension

Social Cognitive Theory

Humans learns behavior though observational learning - by watching models and imitating their behavior

Vicarious reinforcement

The fact that a model was rewarded or punished for a behavior is enough - we don’t need a reward ourselves to imitate it.

Four factors of SCT

Attention, Retention, Motivation, Potential

Stereotypes

Social perception of an individual in terms of group membership or physical attributes; generalization made about a group and then attributed to members of that group

Formation of stereotypes

Start with Tajfel’s Steps in SIT

Add generalization of the out-group’s attributes to all members of the category

Schema is now formed that influences our perception and evaluation of the stereotyped individuals

Two key sources of stereotypes - grain of truth hypothesis - personal experience with an individual from a gorup will then be generalized to the gorup; gatekeepers - parents, media, other members of culture

Illusory correlation

Perceived relation between 2 variables that don’t exist; false association between social group and specific behaviors, supported through confirmatio

Culture

how we describe food and eating habits, gender roles, rituals, communication patterns, and use of free time within a society

Surface culture- what we easily see as different when we have contact with another group - their food is different, men and women are separated at dinner, or the music uses a different scale

Deep culture - the beliefs, attitudes, and values of a group, their perception of time, importance of personal space, respect for authority or the need to save money for the future, these may lead to specific kinds of attitudes, beliefs and behavior

Cultural norms

A set of rules based on socially or culturally shared beliefs of how an individual ought to behave to be accepted

Cultural Dimensions

how the values of a society affect behaviorl describes the trands of behavior in a given culture

Enculturation

gradual learning and maintenance of the necessary and appropriate behaviors and norms of our own culture significant part of development of our personal identity

Ways that enculturation can occur

Direct tuition - your parents tell you what you’re supposed to do

Observational learning - SCT

Participatory learning - children engage in an acitivity and then transfer that learning to later situations

Acculturation

the process of learning and incorporating the values, beliefs, language, customs, and mannerisms of the new country immigrants and their families are living in

4 different acculturation strategies

Assimilation - when an individual abandons their original culture and adopts the cultural behaviors and values of their new culture

Integration - when there is an interest in adopting the behaviors and values of the new culture while still maintaining the original culture

Separation - when migrants maintain their own culture and minimize contact with the new culture

Marginalization - when it’s not possible to maintain one’s original culture because of exclusion or discrimination; not possible to addimilte into the new culture

Acculturation gaps

generational differences in acculturation and how this leads to conflict within the family.

Immigrant parents and their children live in different cultural worlds.

Acculturative stress

the psychological, somatic, and social difficulties that may result from the personal battle between enculturation – maintaining one’s cultural identity – and acculturation, changing one’s culture in order to fit in.