Sociocultural Approach - Case Studies Flashcards
Harris & Fiske (2006)
- Lab experiment social identity theory-
Aim: To observe the role of the prefrontal cortex and amygdala in response to extreme out groups.
Method: 22 princeton university students divided into 2 groups. Half shown images of people and half shown images of object. Before entering fMRI, particpants were shown netural photos for different emotions (pride, envy, pity, disgust) on a computer screen to make sure they understood the task. Once in the fMRI, there were shown six sets of 10 photos. These included people with disabilities, rish businessman, older people, olympic athletes, homeless people. The participants were shown a response screen after each screen and asked to choose which of the four emotions they felt was just displayed.
Results: a clear difference was found i brain acitivty when they rated pictures of addics or homeless people. Amygdala was activated and their brains set off a series of reactions associated with disgust. The insula was activated, which is usually a response to non-human objects. The medial frontal cortex was not activated even though it normally is when we think about other people.
Conclusion: indicates that some social groups seem to be dehuanized, as shown by the absence of neural signoture for social recogition.
Bandura (1961)
- lab experiment social congitive theory-
Aim: To investigate the effect if children’s exposure to an aggressive model.
Method: 72 children (mean age 4) participated and it took place in a university. The children were pre.tested on how aggressive they were by observation in nursery and rating on a 5-point scale. They were then matched in each group so they had similar levels of agggression. (Matched pairs design)bfor inter-rater reliability, two raters independently rated the children and were compared which showed a high reliability correlation showing they had agreement. The study had 3 major coniditions: a group exposed to an aggressive model, a group exposed to a passive model and a control group. The children were further subdivided by their gender and the gender of the model they espoesed to. 8 experimental groups and a control group of 24 was formed as there were 3 IVs. They observed the adul model based on their conidition and gender. Then they were individually brought to another room with tors and an inflatable doll and their behaviour was observed behind a one-way mirror for 20 mins.
Results: children who observed aggressive models had an increase frequency of aggressive behaviour. Girls more likely to imitate verbal aggression while boys were more likely imitate physical aggression. The imitation was more likely to occur when children observed same-sex models.
Conclusion: support modelling and the social cognitive theory. Learning can be indirect and new behavuours can be learned by observation.
Asch (1956)
- lab experiment cultural influence on behaviour and social cognitive theory -
Aim: To investigate the extent to which social pressure from a mjority group could affect a person to conform.
Method: consisted of 123 male university students in the USA. They were told they were taking part in a vision test. The ”naive participant” went into a room with six confederates (who were working with the researcher) and the researcher. The men in the room were dressed like businessmen in suits and ties. The participant was presented with two cards (one containing one line and the other containing 3 different lines). They were asked to select the line from the second card that matched the length of the line on the first card. There were 18 trials in total.
Results: showed that a mean of 36.8 percent of the participants agreed with incorrect responses in half or more of the trials. However, 24 percent of the participants did not conform to any of the incorrect responses given by the confederates.
Conclusion: the participants were asked how they felt about the experiment and they all reported having some degree of self-doubt about their answers. Those participants who conformed said that they knew their responses were incorrect, but went along because they thought they had misunderstood the instructions and did not want to appear against the group.
Sherif (1954)
- field experiment social identity theory -
Aim: To study informal groups and see the spontaneous development of group organization and group norms.
Method: 22 middle shcool white boys were told they were attending a summer camp. For the first phase, they were split into 2 groups which were randomly selected. The boys were then kept seperate to establish group identity by the use of group activities, creating a name for the group, painting a lag and shirts. After establishment of group identity, for the second phase, the researchers created a group conflict, by the use of games, were one group beenefited at the consequences of another. The boys were constantly observed by cameras and the observers throughout this whole experiment. For the third phase, increasing contact was trialed a s away of reducing conflict. After several activities were unsucessful, superordinate goals were introduced.
Results: For the first phase, the boys develop a strong in-group identity and a clear leader was established. The second phase started with hostility. One of the groups burned the flad of the other after losing. Agme, food fights and damage to property emerged. Friendship choices were mostly in-group. The third phase showed that contact alone was not enough to reduce hostility and prejudice. The superordinate goals reduced hostility and the two seperate out-groups became one in-group.
Conclusion: the results proved realistic conflict theory. Social hierarchies and leaders were quickly formed and solidarity of the in-group increased in competitive situations, along with hostility toward out-group. Mere presence of an out-group doesnt reduce hosility. Even though inter-group condlict is inevtiable in the presence of competition, it can be reduced,
Howard (2015)
- experiment on social identity theory / social cognitive theory)
Aim: To investigate to what extent children imitate models depending on if its an in-group or out-group member.
Method: 18 19-month old children and 18 3-year old children. All were english speaking with minimal exposure to foreign languages. Each child then met 2 bilingual instructors at a time. One spanish speaking and one english speaking. The children were presented with toys by the instructors. The researchers observed the amount of times the child imitated the two instructors.
Results: the 19th month old imitated the spanish instructors significiantly more than 3-year olds did.
Conclusion: this shows that children selectively imitate the actions of an in-group member more than they do with an out-group member.
Fein & Spencer (1999)
- stereotyping -
Aim: To investigate if stereotyping and prejudice would increase when a group of men had their self-image challenged by scores on an intelligence test.
Method: 61 male psych students from uni. Participants came independently and did not interact with other pariticipanrts. They were randomly allocated to negative feedback condition or control condition. They were asked to take an online test with made up questions not always possible to answer. The control group was told the test was a fake intelligence test while the negative condition believed it to be true. The negative feedback group recieved low scores which they found disappointing. Then they took a social judgement task where they given one of two scenarios about a struggling artist named Gred who finally reciev a large part in a play. Scenario 1 was that gred is living with gf anne and in scenario to with his ”partner”. the participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire on his personality, rating traits on a scale of 0-10. Seven straits were stereotypical of gay men. They were also asked if they would like Greg as a friend TWE they found themselves similar to him.
Results: participants who recieved negativefeedback on the intelligence test rated the ”gay implied” Greg more stereotypically than those who did not. They also rates themselbes as likely to be like Greh compared to those in the neutral condiition. Dislike was strongest in the ”gay implied” condition.
Conclusion: Self-image maintenance processes play an important role in stereotyping and prejudice. When individuals evaluated a mmember of a stereotypes group, they were more likely to evaluate that person stereotypically if their self images had been threatened by negative feedback.
Park & Rothbard (1992)
- formation of stereotypes -
Aim: To see if members of the sororities would demonstrate the out-group homogeneity effect.
Method: 90 participants from 3 sororities from a uni. The sororities were chosen because they weres imilar to one another in terms of proximity and values. a questionnaire was conducted and the girls were asked to rank their own sorority and an out-group sorority on ten dimensions. Some of the dimensions were strictness, being well-dressed, physical attractiveness, economic status, etc. The girls were ask to rank their own sorority and the other two in terms of how characyerstic each of the dimensions were for the group. The responses could range on 0-7 scale.
Results: girls in all three groups viewed their own members as being more dissimilar than the other girls thought they were, demonstrating the out-group homogeneity effect. The girls also all rated their own sororities as more favourable. Two of the sororities ranked the others with more unfavourable characteristics.
Conclusion: the presence of the out-group homogeneity effect leads to the formation of stereotypes/generealizations about the other group. It also supports the social identity theories explanation of how belonging to a group can lead to in-group favouritism, possibly as a result of wanting to boost one’s self-esteem and positive social identity.
Steele & Aronson (1995)
- effects of stereotypes -
Aim: To see how sterotype threat affects African American’s test performence
Method: 114 participants black and white, male and female, uni undergards. Divided into 2 conidtions: diagnostic and non-diagnostic). They were given a standardized test of verbal abilities (similar to SAT) and told it was either diagnostic of intellectual ability (stereotype threat) or test of problem-solving ability. The test was 30 mins and was difficult enough to be at the upper limits of the participants abilities.
Results: in the diagnostic condition, black participants performed worse despise doing just as well as white participants in the non-diagnostic conidition. There was no significant difference betwee male and female participants.
Conclusion: This suggests that stereotype threat had an impact on their performence.
Odden & Rochat (2004)
- observational study on traditions, enculturation , sct -
Aim: To observe the development of cultural norms, specifically the behaviour of line fishing and conceptual undersating of rank and hierarchy, in Samoa
Method: an observational longitudinal study (25 months) of 28 children in one Samoan village. In Samoan clture, adults tend to have a non-interventionist approach to their children, believing that children can learn important skills and values on their own. Thus, this culture is provided a unique opportunity to assess the role of observational learning. Observations were of the children’s behaviour over 25 months, and at the end of the study, the children completed a multiple choice test that tested their knolwedge of the Samoan society.
Results: The children were not taught how to fish due to limited equipment, but they observed the adults. when they were 10, they began borrowing fish equipment (without supervision) and by 12 most were capable fishermen. The test demonstrated that most children had a basic understanding of the concepts, rites, and rituals of their society, despite not being explicitly taught these. They were able to learn the norms of their culture siply by observing and overhearing the conversations of others.
Conclusion: Observational learning plays a significant role in enculturation. It is possible for children to learn the values, norms and behaviours of their culture simply by observation and imitation.
Kulkofsky et al. (2011)
- survey for cultural infleunce on behaviour and cultural dimensions -
Aim: The researchers studied 5 countries - china, germany, turkey, UK, USA - to see if there was any difference in the rate of flashblub memories in collectivistic and individualistic culture.
Method: 274 middle class adults from 5 different countries. They were given 5 minutes to recall as many memories as they could of public events in their lifetime. They were then given a memory questionnaire from this list of events, which included questions of what they remembered about when they had experienced the event (ex. Who were you with, when did you hear, where did you hear, how, etc.) they were also asked to answer questions about the importance of the event to them personally. All questions were provided in the native language of the participants.
Results: it was found that in collectivistic cultures, like china, personal important and intensity of emotion played less of a role in predicting flashblub memories, compared with more individualistic cultures that place greater emphasis on an individuals involvement and emotional experiences. Because focusing on the individuals own experience is own de-emphasized in the Chinese context, there would be less rehearsal of the triggering event compared with partisipants from other cultures - thus a lower chance of developing a flashbulb memory. However, it was found that if the event was of national importance, then there was no significant difference in the creation of flahblub memories.
Conclusion: personal importance and intensity of emotion played less of a role in predicting flashblub memories, compared with individualistic cultures that place greater emphasis on an individuals personal involvement and emotional experiences.
Fagot (1978)
- naturalistic observation/interviews for enculturation -
Aim: To observe parental reactions to behaviour that wasn’t deemed appropriate for the child’s gender, according to the american culture at the time.
Method: 24 families, half for each gender. toddlers and parents were observed in their homes over a 5-week period using an observation checklist containing 46 seperate child behaviours and 19 seperate parental reactions.
Results: parents reacted significantly more favorably to the child when the child engaged in gender-appropriate behaviour and were more likely to give negative responses to gender inappropriate behaviours. in the follow-up interviews with the parents, it was found that the parents perceptions of their interactions with their children did not correlate with what was observed by the researchers, indicating that this is not a concious behaviour.
Conclusion: the process of enculturation in terms of reinforcing gender roles and behaviour may operate at a levelt hat parents are simply unaware of but which may be entrenched in the culture.
Berry et al. (2006)
-structures questionnaires for acculturation -
Aim: To investigate how well immigrant youth adapt to their new cultures, and whether this is related to acculturation strategies.
Method: Near 8000 participants (5500 immigrant youth and 2500 national youth) with 26 different cultural backgrounds, aged 13-18. Structured questionnaires with a wide range of variables related to acculturation and adaptations. Answers were a rating on a scale of 1-5 in response to statements based on agreement. Psychological adaptation determined by questions such as ”I am satisfied with my life.” and sociocultural adaptation by questions such as ”I feel uneasy going to school in the morning.”
Results: By analyzing gathered data, 4 main trends were discovered: immigration profiles. Integration profile, national profile (assimilation), ethic profile (seperation), diffuse profile (mix of seperation, assimilation, marginalisation). No difference in adaptation between immigrant and national youth, within immigrant youth differences depending on strategy. Boys had slightly better psychological adaptation, girls sociocultural.
Conclusion: The trends match theorized accultratuion strategies.
Miranda & Matheny (2000)
- questionnaire for acculturation stress -
Aim: To investigate which factors in the lives of Latino immigrants in the US would decrease the level of assulturative stress.
Method: a random sample of 197 participants that were spanish-speaking american immigrants. The participants completed a questionnaire and tests to assess family cohesion, level of acculturation, acculturative stress, and coping strategies for stress.
Results: It was found that immigrants with effective coping strategies, good proficiency in English, and a strong family structure were less liekly to experience acculturative stress. In addition, immigrants who spent a longer tim ein the US were less likely to demonstrate this tress and ashowed a higher level of acculturation.
Conclusion: Supports that acculturative stress is influenced by multiple factors and that there are ”many protective factors that may influence the extent to which an individiual acculturates and the effect this wil have on mental health”
Berry (1967)
- natural experiment with independent measures design for cultural dimensions -
Aim: To investigate whether rates of conformity were higher in individualist or collectivity cultures.
Method: Focused on 2 societies with subsistence-level economies based on daily needs for food and shelter: The Temne from Sierra Leone and the Inuit from Canada. He then applied the Asch paradigm to both groups.
Results: It was found that conformity was higher in collectivity Temne culture. In theory, this happens ebcause an agricultural economy demands a higher degree of cooperation and therefore conformity, while a hunting-fishing economy does not - its not only possible, but prefferable, to do it alone.
Conclusion: Level of economic independence may shape social norms and this in turn may impact behaviours like conformity.
Tajfel (1970)
- experiment for minimal group paradigm -
Aim: To see whether intergroup discrimination would occur based on being put into different groups.
Method: 48 boys aged 14-15. They were asked to rate 12 paintings from two different abstract expressionist painters. They werent aware of which painting was painted by who. They were then randomly allocated into groups and told that it was done based on their preference of artist. Each boy was given the task to award points to 2 other boys - one from in-group and one from the out-group. The only infomration given was code numbers and the name of the group of the 2 ways they were supposed to award. There were two systems of point allocation used: the point scores for each boy were and had to sump up to 15 / if a boy chose a high value for the member of their in-group, it would give a higher profit to the out-group. If they gave mid-range, both groups would get the same point, if they gave a low point to their -ingroup, the other group would only get 1 point.
Results: 1st: boys generaslly awarded more points to the mmebers of their in-group. 2nd system: boys were willing to give their own team fewer points to maximize point difference between the groups. This was surprising - it meant that boys left the study with fewer points.
Conclusion: people have a natural tendency to favour their in-group. Despite the meaningless nature of the groups, participants identified with their respective groups and created positive social identity through their in-group points. ”A minimal group is all that is necessay” - shows that inter-group conflict isn’t required for discrimination to occur.
