Sociocultural Approach Flashcards
(32 cards)
What is social identity theory?
It refers to the way someone thinks about themselves and evaluates themselves in relation to groups.
What does SIT posit?
It posits that a person’s sense of who they are is based on their membership of social groups.
What is an in-group and out-group?
In-group refers to groups which an individual identifies with while an out-group are groups that an individual does not identify with.
What are the 5 main features of SIT?
- Individual’s self-concept derived from perceived membership of social groups.
- Individual that has several selves that corresponds to the individual’s different circles of group membership.
- SIT has an assumption that the most fundamental way in which society attempts to make sense of the social world is through classification of ‘us’ and ‘them’.
- In different contexts/ situations, one of these ‘social selves’ may become more salient (present) and a person may identify more with that aspect of their personality.
- Anything that your personal self can do, your social selves can also do. For e.g. feel depressed or proud.
What are the 3 mechanism of SIT?
- Social categorisation
- Social comparison
- Self-esteem through group membership.
What does social cognitive theory suggest?
It suggest that behaviour is modelled by other members of a group and acquired through observation or imitation based on consequences of a behaviour.
What are the 5 main features of SCT?
- Posits that behaviour is learned from the environment through the process of modelling and reinforcement.
- Suggests that we DO NOT have to experience something personally in order to learn it, but rather we can learn through watching others ~ can learn from environment (saves brain from neural pathways).
- Saves time for our brain and protects us from harm.
- Modelling involves learning through the observation of other people, which may lead to desirable consequences. Therefore, the observer learns to watch whether actor is reinforced or punished.
- Bandera argued that through cognition, we receive vicarious (experienced in the imagination through feeling or action) reinforcement.
What are the 4 conditions for SCT?
- Attention
- Retention
- Motivation
- Potential
What are 5 factors that affect potential for social learning?
- Model’s behaviour stand’s out
- Model’s behaviour is consistent
- Model is liked and respected
- Observer perceives some similarity between themselves and model
- Model’s behaviour is reinforced
What is conformity and/ or compliance?
The presence of others can lead to changes in beliefs and behaviours resulting in conformity and/ or compliance to perceived norms, rules a and regulations. (Remember this for Bandura et al)
What is social/ cultural learning?
Learning take place within a social/ cultural context and can occur through observation (modelling) or direct instruction. Individuals gradually internalise social and cultural norms and values to guide them in the interaction with other people. Internalisation is the process of acceptance of set of norms and values established by influential people or groups. (Remember for Joy, Kimball, & Zabrack).
What is a stereotype?
It is a generalised and rather fixed way of think about a group of people.
What is costal cognition?
This refers to how people process information about the world including other humans based on cognitive elements such as schemas, attributions, and stereotypes.
What is stereotype threat?
The anticipation of a situation that can potentially confirm a negative stereotype about one’s group. It indicated that internalised stereotypes could influence an individual’s self-perception and behaviour in negative ways.
What is illusory correlation?
It is a cognitive mechanism that leads a person to perceive a relationship between two events when in reality they are not related.
What are the main ideas of culture?
Cultures are made up of a set of attitudes, behaviours, and symbols shared by a large group of people, and usually communicated from one generation to the next. Cultural groups are characterised by different norms and conventions.
What is surface culture?
It refers to the behaviours, customs, traditions and words of a culture that can easily be observed.
What is deep culture?
It refers to the beliefs, values, thought processes and assumptions of a culture that may be more easily understood by members of that culture but may be less accessible to members of other cultures.
What are cultural dimensions?
They refer to the values of members of a society living within a particular culture. E.g. individualism/ collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, masculinity/ femininity, long-term/ short-term, indulgence/ restraint.
What is individualism?
In individualist cultures people define their personality in terms of their own personal characteristics, their success and their unique features. Among the strongest values in society are personal autonomy, competitiveness and self-sufficiency.
What is collectivism?
In collectivist cultures identity is linked to the social group, and values associated with belonging to a group take priority over personal values.
What is universalism?
A universalist perspective assumes that psychological mechanisms are largely the same across cultural groups, while behaviours and experiences can differ substantially.
What is relativism?
A relativist perspective would be that psychological processes are so different that they cannot be compared across cultural groups.
What is an emic perspective?
A culture studied by an insider.
