Sociocultural approach

Discuss social identity theory

Social identity theory is the argument that a person has not just one personal self rather several social shelves that correspond to group membership. Drury et al. wanted to investigate the role of social identity theory in helping. A critical thinking aspect of this is that the theory is more explanatory than predictive.

Discuss social cognitive theory

A theory that emphasizes the interaction between personal factors and environmental factors in shaping human behavior. Bandura was investigating whether children could learn aggressive behavior by watching the behavior of adults. A critical thinking aspect would be that it is difficult to establish that behavior is the result of observing the model.

Discuss one or more theories of the formation of stereotypes

Rogers and Frantz wanted to see whether the stereotypes could be the result of conformity to group norms.

Discuss one or more effects of stereotyping on behavior

Martin and Halverson wanted to investigate how schema plays a role in how children understand and learn about gender roles, the behavior would be memory distortion.

Discuss ethical considerations in the study of the individual and the group.

Bandura used informed consent in his experiment. The children were used as participant so consent was likely obtained from parents.

Discuss the use of one research method in the study of the individual in the group

Bandura true experiment is a clear example of how this method is used to study how a group influences affect individual behavior. While this model provides strong evidence for casualty it must be carefully balanced with ethical and ecological concerns.

Discuss one example of a potential influence of culture on behavior or cognition

What example of this would be the formation of flashbulb memories, the behavior, this was studied by Kulkofsky et al. and he also explored how individualistic vs.collectivistic cultures impact this cognitive process.

Discuss the role of cultural dimensions in behavior

A cultural dimension would be individualism vs. collectivism, and the behavior affected would be flashbulb memory that was studied by Kulkofsky et al.

Discuss one or more studies of the enculturation of one behavior

Enculturation is the process through which individuals learn and adopt the values behaviors and norms of their culture and society. Martin and Halverson wanted to study how children develop gender-specific behaviors and attitudes through gender schemas. Limitation of this would be that the study over emphasizes cognitive processes and underestimates social and cultural factors.

Discuss acculturation

Acculturation is the cultural process that occurs with individuals from one culture come to continuous contact with another culture, leading to changes in their behavior, identity and mental well-being. Lueck and Wilson Wanted to investigate the variables that predict acculturative stress in Asian immigrants to the US.

Discuss ethical considerations in the study of cultural influences on the behavior and/or cognition

The ethical concern, informed consent, was obtained in Lueck and Wilson’s study, participants were asked to take part in a semi-structured interview.

Discuss the use of one or more research methods in the study of the influence of culture on behavior and/or cognition

The study Martin and Halverson was a laboratory experiment to investigate how gender schema theory influences children’s memory. A strength of this method was that there was a high level of control over the variables, a weakness was that it lacked ecological validity.