Sociocultural cognition 4.1

 Outline principles that define the SCLA  Explain how principles that define the SCLA may be demonstrated in research through theories and studies  Discuss how and why particular research methods are used at the sociocultural level

 Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behaviour  Discuss two errors in attributions  Evaluate social identity theory making reference to specific studies  Explain the formation of stereotypes and their effect on behaviour

 Human beings are social animals and we have a basic need to “belong” ◦ Interrelationships with others contain biological and cognitive systems ◦ Relationship between individuals and the group are bidirectional

 Culture influences behaviour ◦ Norms and values that define society ◦ Increasing multiculturalism increases need to understand the effect of culture on behaviour to appreciate cultural differences

 Because humans are social animals they have a “social self” ◦ Canadian hockey team winning gold ◦ Princess Diana dying affected the whole population of UK as British colonies  Social Identity ◦ Family, community, club, nationality

 Peoples views of the world are resistant to change ◦ Culture shapes our world view ◦ Community instils values that are passed down through generations  Our sense of self is developed within social and cultural contexts

 How many groups do you belong to?  How important are these groups to your personal identity?  What needs do these groups fill in your life?

 Goal is to see how people interact ◦ Naturalistic research (as it is) ◦ Participant observation ◦ Interviews, focus groups ◦ Produces descriptive data so they cannot be used for explaining cause-and- effect relationships

 Overt: ◦ participant knows they are being watched ◦ Requires gaining the trust of the group ◦ O’Reilly (2000) and the Costa del Sol- life as an expat  Covert: ◦ Do not know they are being watched- deceit ◦ Drug users ◦ Not as reliable as notes taken after the fact- distortion

 How people interpret and explain causal relationships in the social world  People have different ways of attributing causes to events ◦ witch craft, god’s will, karma

 Actor-observer effect ◦ People make an attribution about behaviour depending on whether they are performing it themselves or observing somebody else do it ◦ Situational factors- external ◦ Dispositional factors- personal or internal factors ◦ When individuals give reasons for their behavior they give situational factors as causes ◦ When they observe others they attribute dispositional causes

 Fundamental attribution error ◦ When people place more importance on dispositional factors than situational factors when explaining the behaviours of others  George Clooney – kind and loving (dispositional) but really it is dependent on his film roles (situational)  Drug addicts are responsible (dispositional) not the poverty or mental illness (situational) ◦ Placing blame in the individual is common in Western societies

 Self-serving bias (SSB) ◦ People take credit for their successes, attributing them to dispositional factors ◦ Dissociate themselves from their failures as they are caused by situational factors  Protection of self-esteem (self-protection) ◦ Miller and Ross (1975)  Success = skill and ability  No success =bad luck or external factors

 Depressed people make more dispositional attributions  There are cultural differences in self-serving bias ◦ Japanese students explain failure in terms of lack of ability- modesty bias ◦ Chinese students were the same ◦ Asian societies derive self-esteem from group identity not individual accomplishments

 Henri Tajfel ◦ Individuals strive to improve their self-image by trying to enhance their self-esteem  Personal identity  Social identities ◦ Boost to self-esteem  Personal achievement or affiliation with groups

 Social categorization ◦ Cognitive process  Explains ◦ In-group favouritism, stereotyping, conformity, ethnocentrism  In-group ◦ Randomly assigned people will automatically think they are the in-group  Out-group ◦ The others (them)- not part of your group

 Social comparison ◦ The benefits of belonging to a group maintains self-esteem ◦ Team colors, insignia, worn after football victories ◦ Intergroup comparisons- bias towards your group positive distinctiveness

 Randomly selected groups of boys assigned to like either Kandinsky or Klee ◦ Boys identified with their group ◦ Willing to give higher rewards to member of their group ◦ Out-group was less likeable, but not disliked ◦ In the absence of competition, social comparison does not necessarily produce a negative outcome

 Does not accurately predict human behaviour ◦ Sometimes our individual personal identity is stronger that the group ◦ Using the theory in isolation is reductionist- it does not include the environment that interacts with “self” ◦ Cultural expectations, rewards and societal factors like poverty might play a more significant role than in-group identity

 Social representations- shared beliefs and explanations held by society or group  Foundation of social cognition  Make sense of the world in order to master it  Cultural schemas- fundamental to the identity of the group  Provide a common understanding for communication within the group  The opinions of a minority may influence those of a larger group

 A social perception of an individual in terms of group membership or physical attributes ◦ A generalization ◦ Positive or negative ◦ Affects the behaviour of those who hold the stereotype and those who are labelled ◦ Result of schema processing

 Steele and Aronson (1995) ◦ Same 30 minute verbal test ◦ One group told it was a genuine test of verbal abilities ◦ One group told it was a laboratory task used to study how problems were solved ◦ African Americans scored less than European Americans in the first scenario but more on the second scenario ◦ Believing a stereotype can make it real

 Causes emotional distress and pressure that may undermine performance  IQ stereotypes ◦ Girls bad at math ◦ Asians are very intelligent What are the negative effects of such stereotypes?

 Campbell (1967) ◦ Two key sources  Personal experience with individuals and groups  Gatekeepers- media, parents, other members of culture ◦ Grain of truth hypothesis  Experience with an individual will be generalized to the group  This theory has been criticized

 Illusory correlation ◦ see a correlation even when there is none ◦ Seek out of remember information that supports this relationship ◦ Confirmation bias  People overlook information that contradicts what they already believe  Pay attention to behaviours that confirm what they believe ◦ Social desirability effect is a confounding variable in research – people want to be politically correct

 Find two examples of stereotypes in the media ◦ Newspapers, magazines, books, products, posters, or films ◦ Bring the image to class and explain why the image represents a stereotype and why you think this image persists.