IB Psychology: The sociocultural approach

Basic assumptions

-culture influences behaviours

-human beings are social animals with a basic need to belong

-our behaviour is influenced by other people even when we believe that we are acting independently

-situational factors play a key role in our behaviour

-we have both an individual and social self

Conformity

-a change of behaviour as a result of real or imagined group pressure or norms

-it is a basic human behaviour, all are prone to it: social comparison to validate self

-it is a result of 2 key factors: informational and social influnce, narrative social influence

Informational and social influence

the need for certainty. When in ambiguous situations, we engage in social comparison in order to figure out how to behave

Normative social influence

the need for social acceptance and approval. We conform in order to be accepted and fit in

Pluristic ignorance

-ignorant because everyone else is

-happens due to need for social acceptance and a want to conform with a group

-eg. Asch paradigm: people waited so long because it is the usual thing to do, if no one else is going against routine, they don't

Social identity

-individual's self-concept derived from percieved membership of social groups

-it is an individual-based perception of what defines "us" associated with any internalised group membership

-we have many different social identities

-social identities include: ethnic groups, religious denominations, occupational groups, neighbourhoods, etc.

-eg. australian, daughter, only child, musician, runner, etc.

Social identity theory

-perspective that considers when and why individuals consider themselves members of groups

-developed by Tajfel and Turner

-there are 4 mechanisms

Social categorisation

process by which we identify which groups we belong to and which groups we do not

Social identification

process of adopting the norms of the group and taking on characteristics

Social comparison

-justifying membership

-the benefits of belonging to the in group rather than out group

Positive distinctiveness

being more positive to anything that your own group represents due to need of positive self concept

Studies - Social Identity

-when one of our social identities becomes salient, it affects our behaviour

-in many studies of social identity theory, one social identity is primed to see if it has an effect on an individual's behaviour

-when an identity is salient, others are muted. This is why we sometimes carry out behaviours that are contradictory to other identities

Writing a SAQ for SIT

Para #1:

-key assumption of sociocultural approach

-brief descriptions of SIT

-4 mechanisms of SIT

Para #2:

-study: aim, procedure, findings

Para #3:

-social categorisation

-social identification

-social comparison (via positive distinctiveness)

Vicarious reinforcement

involves learning through the observation of others, which may lead to imitation

Social cognitive learning theory

developed mainly by Albert Bandura and suggests that behaviour is learned from the environment through the process of modelling and reinforcement

Conditions for social cognitive learning theory

attention, retention, motivation, potential

Attention as a condition for social cognitive learning theory

to learn, observers must be paying attention

Retention as a condition for social cognitive learning theory

to reproduce behaviour, observers must be able to remember features of the behaviour

Motivation as a condition for social cognitive learning theory

to reproduce behaviour, observers must want to reproduce it and expect a certain outcome from the behaviour influenced by vicarious reinforcement

Potential as a condition for social cognitive learning theory

to reproduce behaviour, observes must physically and/or mentally be able to carry out the behaviour

Factors that affect overall potential for social identity

-models must stand out

-model's behaviour must be consistent

-model is liked and respected by observer

-observer percieves a similarity between them and the model (member in group)

-models behaviour is reinforced

Writing an SAQ for SCT

Para #1:

-brief definition of social cognitive theory

-outline 4 mechanisms (attention, retention, motivation (vicarous reinforcement), potential)

-state factors which increase the likelihood of observational learning occuring

Para #2:

-aim, procedure, findings of selected study

Para #3:

-explicit linking between 4 mechanisms and findings

Aim of Hilliard and Liben

to determine how social category salience may play a role on the development of stereotypes and inter-group behaviour in elementary school children

Procedure of Hilliard and Liben

-the study took place at 2 preschools, each school had a roughly equal number of male and females

-the study used a pre-test/post-test design. Each chlid completed a gender attitude test to measure their "gender flexibility". They were shown images of activities or jobs and asked if boys, girls or both "should" perform it. The test included 22 culturally masculine, 20 culturally feminine and 24 neutral

-a second measure was taken by observing their play to determine to what extent they played with same vs opposite sex peers

-schools were randomly allocated to 1 of 2 conditions

-the high salience: where kids were aware of their sex by segregation and geneder specific language and the low salience with none of that

-prior to the study both were under similar conditions

-the study lasted 2 weeks and kids were debriefed