Sociocultural approach to understanding behaviour

Sociocultural approach to understanding behaviour

• The individual and the group

  • Social identity theory: Social identity theory refers to the way someone thinks about themselves and evaluates themselves in relation to groups. Social identity theory posits that a person's sense of who they are is based on their membership of social groups.

  • Social cognitive theory: Social cognitive theory suggests behaviour is modelled by other members of a group and acquired through observation or imitation based on consequences of a behaviour.

  • Stereotypes: A stereotype is a generalized and rather fixed way of thinking about a group of people.

• Cultural origins of behaviour and cognition

  • Culture and its influence on behaviour and cognition: 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 characterized by different norms and conventions.

  • Cultural dimensions: Cultural dimensions refer to the values of members of a society living within a particular culture. They include: individualism/collectivism; uncertainty avoidance; power/distance; masculinity/femininity; long term/short term; time orientation; indulgence/restraint.

• Cultural influences on individual attitudes, identity and behaviours

  • Enculturation: Enculturation is the process by which people learn the necessary and appropriate skills and norms in the context of their culture.

  • Acculturation: People may change as a result of contact with other cultures in order to assimilate with a new culture.

• The influence of globalization on individual attitudes, identities and behaviour (HL only)

  • The influence of globalization on individual attitudes, identities and behaviour: For all three topics in the sociocultural approach, and with reference to research studies, HL students should study the following: how globalization may influence attitudes, identities and behaviour; the effect of the interaction of local and global influences on behaviour; methods used to study the influence of globalization on behaviour.