Unit 2: Sociocultural Approach

IB Psych 🧠

Social identity theory: social categorization

Social identity theory: social categorization

The process by which people categorize themselves and others into different groups.

Social identity theory: social identification

The circumstances under which individuals think of themselves as individuals or members of a group.

Social identity theory: social comparison

The idea that individuals determine their own social and personal worth based on how they stack up against others.

Self esteem hypothesis

Proposal that people are motivated to achieve and maintain positive concepts of themselves.

Salience

A person’s personality changes depending on the situation they are in.

In group favoritism

The tendency to favor members of one’s own group over those in other groups.

Out group discrimination

The tendency to dislike members of groups that we don’t identify with.

Positive distinctiveness

Through the process of social comparison, we attempt to make our in-group distinct from out-groups.

Stereotype

A fixed, oversimplified and often biased belief about a group of people.

Stereotype threat

The risk of confirming negative stereotypes about and individual’s racial, ethnic, gender or cultural group which can create high cognitive load and reduce academic focus and performance.

Confirmation bias

People’s tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with their existing beliefs.

Out group homogeneity effect

The perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than in-group members.

Gatekeeper

A person who decides what information should move past them to the group or individuals beyond and what information should not.

Grain of truth hypothesis

One experience with an individual causes that conclusion to be generalized to a group (one girl is bad at math — all girls are bad at math)

Illusory correlation

When we set an association between two variables when they aren’t actually associated.

Implicit association test

Measures attitudes and beliefs that people may be unwilling or unable to report.

Social cognitive theory: Attention

A person must be paying attention to a model to learn behavior from them.

Social cognitive theory: retention

A person must be able to remember behavior to replicate.

Social cognitive theory: motivation

Says that a person must have a reason to want to replicate behavior.

Social cognitive theory: potential

The amount a person believes they can replicate a certain behavior (self-efficacy)

Vicarious reinforcement

Frequency of certain behaviors increases as a result of observing others rewarded for the same behaviors.

Self efficacy

An individual’s belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments.

Triadic reciprocal determinism

Three factors impact how a person will react: environmental, individual characteristics, and behavior.

Individualistic cultures

Cultures that stress the need of the individual over the group as a whole.

Collectivistic cultures

A culture that values the needs of a group as a whole over the individual.

Cultural groups

A collection of individuals who share a corse set of beliefs, patterns of behavior, or values.

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions

Shows the effects of a society’s culture on the values of its members, and how those values relate to behavior.

Park and Rothbart

Aim: Do naturally occurring social groups have in-group bias and the out-group homogeneity effect?

Procedure: Sororities from University of Oregon were given questionnaires where they ranked their own sorority and an out-group sorority on ten characteristics. They assessed the similarity of members of their sorority vs similarity of members of a different sorority.

Results: All groups demonstrated in-group bias and demonstrated the out-group homogeneity effect.

Study topics: Social identity theory, social groups, formations of stereotypes.

Stone et. al.

Aim: What effect do racial and sport related schemas have on comprehension and interpretation?

Procedure: Participants listened to a radio commentary of a basketball game and made judgments of the players without seeing what they look like. Then they were shown photographs and made further judgments about the players.

Results: Black players were rated as having more athletic ability and less “game”. White players were rated as having more intelligence and hustle.

Study topics: Stereotypes

Berry

Aim: How do conformity rates differ between individualistic and collectivist cultures?

Procedure: Three different cultural groups studied (Temne, collectivist, Inuit Individualist and Scottish control). They underwent the Asch paradigm where they were asked to rate line lengths while being told the wrong answer to measure conformity. The number of incorrect responses was measured as the DV.

Results: Temne had higher conformity rates than Inuit and Scottish, Inuits had higher conformity than Scottish.

Study topics: Cultural groups, cultural dimensions, enculturation, norms

Bandura

Aim: Can aggression be learned through observation? What role does gender play in learning?

Procedure: Three groups of children were shown videos of models being aggressive or not aggressive to a doll and given a doll and the same tools the model had. They were observed with the doll.

Results: Children who saw the aggressive results were likely to be aggressive towards the doll, boys were more likely to be aggressive than girls.

Conformity

Compliance with standards, rules or laws.

Enculturation

Gradual acquisition of the characteristics and norms of a culture or group by a person or another culture.

Norms

The accepted standards of behavior for any given group.

Nonconformist

A person whose behavior does not conform to prevailing ideas or practices.

Barry

Aim: How do economic systems impact parenting practices? (food accumulation)

Procedure: Different cultural groups were observed/interviewed on which values they taught their children, categorized into high food accumulation and low food accumulation cultures.

Results: High food accumulation cultures placed more emphasis on responsibility and obedience, low food accumulation cultures emphasized independence and initiative. Results demonstrate enculturation as parents raise their children with the values that will help them be successful in economies.

Significance loss

Feeling of a lack of self-worth.

Marginalization

It is impossible to maintain your own culture but impossible to assimilate into the new culture.

Assimilation

An individual abandons their original culture and adopts behaviors and values of a new culture.

Integration

An individual has interest in adopting behaviors and values of a new culture but still maintains their original culture.

Accumulative stress

Stress that may result from enculturation-culture shock.

Acculturation gaps

Generative differences in acculturations and their impact on familial relationships.

Lyons-Padilla et. al.

Aim: How do different acculturation techniques impact thinking and behavior of Muslim immigrants?

Procedure: First and second gen Muslim immigrants were given questionnaires about their acculturation techniques, sympathy for radical groups, interpretation of Islam and level of significance loss.

Results: Immigrants who were marginalized had highest levels of significance loss. Significance loss leads to higher opinions on radical groups, and higher discrimination led to more marginalization.

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: power distance

The extent to which less powerful members of an organization (family) accept and expect an unequal distribution of power.

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: collectivism vs individualism

Those from collectivist cultures tend do emphasize relationships and loyalty more than those from individualistic cultures

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: uncertainty avoidance index

Addresses a society’s tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity.

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: femininity vs masculinity

How much a society values traditional masculine and feminine roles.

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: long vs short term orientation

The degree to which cultures encourage delayed gratification (long-term favors long term success over short term success and short term is opposite)

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: restrain vs indulgence

The extent and tendency of a society to fulfill its desires

Tajfel et. al.

Aim: see how belonging to an in-group can affect behavior towards in and out-groups

Procedure: boys randomly allocated to three groups, shown 12 paintings and led to believe their painting preferences had an impact on their group placement (us vs them). boys were tasked with awarding money to one boy from their group and one from another group without knowing which boy it was.

Results: boys favored their own groups even though they were randomized. loyalty and bias based on group membership shown (minimal group paradigm)

Cohen

Aim: demonstrate whether people are more likely to remember schema consistent information and test the effects of prior knowledge on new information.

Procedure: college students watched a video of a woman talking to her husband. half told she was a librarian, half told she was a waitress. participants were asked to recall details about the clip.

Results: people have stereotypes about different professions. people are likely to remember schema-consistent information (participants remembered that she drank beer and listened to pop music if they were told she was a waitress, received a book for her bday and liked classical music if told she was a librarian)

Becker et. al.

Aim: to investigate the effect of exposure to TV on attitudes toward eating and behaviors in Fijian adolescent girls.

Procedure: naturalistic experiment, combination of qualitative and quantitative methods utilized. 2 samples studied two years apart. first sample completed an eating disorder survey and given questions about tv habits. the second group has extra questions about body image, dieting and perceptions of parent’s views.

Results: percentage of girls with high scores on the eating disorder survey went ip 16%. 77% said tv influenced body image. the thin ideal in western media creates a rise in risk for eating disorders.

Population validity

Generalizability

Response bias

Describing situations where people do not answer questions truthfully for some reason. (subset of demand characteristics)

Levine et. al.

Aim: Investigate cultural differences in the importance of love for the establishment of a marriage.

Procedure: Data was collected by a survey on students in different cultures asking about their attitudes toward the importance of love for marriage and divorce. Survey asked three questions.

Results: Different cultures had very different opinions on the importance of love as a prerequisite for establishing and maintaining marriages. Divorce rates were higher in countries assigning greater importance of love. Individualistic cultures said love was more important for marriage than in collectivistic cultures.