Sociocultural approach to understanding behaviour flashcards

Topic 3: Sociocultural approach to understanding behaviour

What are the three processes of social identity theory?

Social categorisation (sorting people into groups), social identification (adopting the group’s identity) and social comparison (comparing the in-group with out-groups). Tajfel and Turner proposed the theory.

What did the minimal group paradigm (Tajfel et al., 1971) show?

Schoolboys divided into groups on trivial grounds gave more points to their own group, suggesting that mere categorisation is enough to produce in-group bias.

What did Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) find in the Bobo doll study?

Children who watched an adult behave aggressively towards an inflatable doll were more likely to act aggressively towards it than those who saw a non-aggressive model; boys imitated aggression more than girls.

What are the four processes of observational learning in social cognitive theory?

Attention, retention, reproduction and motivation, with motivation shaped by reinforcement, including vicarious reinforcement. Self-efficacy and reciprocal determinism also affect learning.

What is stereotype threat?

Anxiety about confirming a negative stereotype about one’s group, which can lower performance. Steele and Aronson (1995) found African American students did worse on a verbal test described as diagnostic of ability.

What is illusory correlation?

Wrongly seeing a link between two infrequent things, one way stereotypes form, as shown by Hamilton and Gifford (1976).

Individualism vs collectivism

Individualist cultures: people see themselves as independent and prioritise personal goals. Collectivist cultures: people see themselves as part of a group and prioritise group goals. It is one of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions.

What did Cohen and Nisbett (1996) find about the culture of honour?

White male students from the southern United States reacted more strongly to an insult than northerners, showing how cultural norms can shape emotion and aggression.

Enculturation vs acculturation

Enculturation: learning the norms and values of one’s own culture. Acculturation: change that happens when people from different cultures are in continuous contact.

What are Berry’s four acculturation strategies?

Integration (keep own culture and join the new one), assimilation (adopt the new, give up the old), separation (keep the old, avoid the new) and marginalisation (neither).

Emic vs etic approach

Emic: studies a culture from within, using its own concepts. Etic: applies concepts from outside, often Western ones, across cultures, risking cultural bias.

How is Paper 1 structured?

Three short-answer questions on the core approaches, then one essay chosen from three, one per approach, answered from that single approach with evaluation. It is worth 50% at SL and 40% at HL.