Notes from chapter 4.1 in my IB HL Psychology textbook! All about the Sociocultural Level of Analysis, culture, attribution, norms, stereotypes, and whatnot.

1. Sociocultural Level of Analysis
Sociocultural Cognition

2. Principles of the SCLA
1. Human beings are social animals and we have a
basic need to “belong”
– As the individual is affected by being part of a group, the
individual can also effect behavior in the group
1. Culture influences behavior
– Culture: norms and values that define a society
– Study of culture may help us to better understand and
appreciate cultural differences

3. Principles of the SCLA
3. Because humans are social animals, they have a
social self
– People do not only have an individual identity, but also a
collective or social identity
• i.e. When JFK died, all Americans mourned like he was a family
member
– Important to the definition of who we are and are determined
by groups such as family, community, club, or nationality
4. People’s views of the world are resistant to
change
– World view: the way the world is understood; how it is supposed to
work, why it works the way it does, what values are essential

4. Impact of Culture
• Helps to shape our world view
• Instills values which are passed down from
generation to generation
• The sense of self is developed within social
and cultural concepts

5. Research Methods at the SCLA
• The GOAL is to see how people interact with each
other
• The majority of research today is more qualitative than
quantitative
• Important that studies are as realistic as possible with
high ecological validity
– Research is naturalistic (“as it really is”)
• Use participant observation, interviews, focus groups,
etc
– Descriptive data can’t be used for explaining cause and effect
relationships 

6. Participant Observation
• How SCLA psychologists try to “see the world
through the eyes of the people being studied”
• When researchers immerse themselves in a
social setting for an extended period of time
and observe behavior
• Overt observation: When participants know
they are being observed
• Covert observation: When participants don’t
know they are being observed

7. Participant Observation
• Overt operations require the researcher to gain the
trust of the group
• Covert operations are sometimes used with groups
that would be hostile to an outsider observing their
behavior, or who would not be open/honest
because of the illegality of their actions
– Deceitful with undisclosed intentions
– No obtained informed consent
– Difficult to take notes; data can be distorted by memory
– Interviews cannot be carried out

8. Attribution Theory
• Attribution: How people interpret and explain
causal relationships in the social world
• Humans have a need to understand why things
happen
– i.e. looking for reasons as to why someone would be late
for a date
• People may have different ways of attributing
causes to events
– Evans-Pritchard and the Azande: doorway eaten by
termites collapsed and killed several people; they
blamed it on witchcraft

9. Attribution Theory
• Originates from Fritz Heider’s The
Psychology of Interpersonal Relations
• When people try to understand behavior
they are acting as naïve psychologists
• People make inferences about intention and
responsibility from observing other people’s
actions

10. Attribution Theory
• Actor-observer effect: People make different
attributions depending on whether they are
performing it or observing it
• When people discuss their own behaviors, they
tend to attribute it to situational factors
– Situational factor: something to do with external
factors; caused by environment or circumstance
• When observing another’s behavior, they tend to
attribute it to dispositional factors
– Dispositional factor: Something to do with personal
(internal) factors

11. Errors in Attributions
• People are more likely to explain another person’s
actions by pointing to dispositional factors, rather than
to the situation
• Fundamental attribution error: When people
overestimate the role of dispositional factors in an
individuals behavior
– They underestimate situational factors!
– As people gather information by observing others, this often
leads to illogical conclusions
– i.e. an actor who plays kind and loving roles will be seen as
kind and loving
• Folks attribute these characteristics to his personality
(dispositional) rather than his job as an actor (situational)

12. Fundamental Attribution Error
• Common because people tend to think of
themselves as adaptable, flexible, and
changing
– Do not like to think of themselves as a “Type”
• Don’t have adequate information on others to
make a balanced decision, so they attribute
behavior to disposition
• Placing the blame on the individual is common
in western culture
– People are held responsible for their actions

13. Self-Serving Bias (SSB)
• When people take credit for their successes
– Attributing them to dispositional factors
• Dissociate themselves from their failures
– Attributing them to situational factors
• Lau and Russel (1980)
– Football teams’ wins caused by internal factors
(i.e. being in good shape, practice)
– Football teams’ losses caused by external
factors (i.e. weather, injuries, fouls)

14. Self-Serving Bias (SSB)
• We use SSB to protect our self esteem
• If we expect to succeed and do, we attribute
it to skill and ability
• If we expect to succeed and do not, we
attribute it to bad luck or external factors
• A means of self-protection

15. Miller and Ross (1975)
• We usually expect to succeed at a task
• If we expect not to do so well and do not, we
attribute it to dispositional factors
• If we expect to fail and succeed instead, we
attribute it to external factors (and luck!)
• People who are severely depressed tend to make
more dispositional attributions (blaming
themselves) for feeling miserable

16. Cultural Differences in SSB
• Kashima and Triandis (1986)
– Significant differences between Japanese and
American students
– Americans tended to attribute their success to
ability
– Japanese tended to explain their failures in
terms of their lack of ability
• This is modesty bias!
• Because of the more collective nature of many Asian
societies (draw self-esteem from group identity)

17. Social Identity Theory
• Assumes that individuals strive to improve
their self-image by trying to enhance their
self-esteem
– Based on either personal identity or various
social identities
• Boost their self-esteem through personal
achievement/affiliation in groups
• Indicates the importance of social belonging

18. Social Categorization
• Explains social phenomena such as:
– Ethnocentrism
– in-group favoritism
– stereotyping
– conformity to in-group norms
• Social identification may cause these
behaviors because social categorization can
create competitive behavior

19. Groups
• In-group: An individual’s group (“us”)
• Out-group: All others (“them”)
• Exhibit in-group favoritism and discrimination
against the out-group
• Individual maintains self-esteem by social
comparison
– The benefits of belonging to the in-group versus the
out-group
– Outcome of these comparisons influence self-
esteem

20. Tajfel in the 1970s
• Readily identifying with positive groups =
the establishment of positive distinctiveness
• Bond is formed between group members even
when randomly assigned
– Even without knowing each other previously
– See themselves as similar in attitude and behavior
• Willing to give higher awards to in-groups
• Out-group rated as less likeable (but was never
actually disliked)
– W/o competeition, social comparison alone doesn’t
produce negative outcomes

21. Social Identity Theory
• Limitations:
– Describes but does not predict human behavior
– The theory on its own is reductionist
• Fails to address the environment that interacts with
the individual’s “self”
• i.e. cultural expectations, rewards as motivators,
societal constraints (like poverty)

22. Social Representations
• Creator: Moscovici (1973)
• Definition: Shared beliefs and explanations
held by the society in which we live or the group
to which we belong
• Social representations are the foundation of
social cognition
– They help us make sense of our world and master it
– Also allow communication to take place between
members of a community
• They are cultural schemas that are
fundamental to the identity of the group
– Provide common understanding for communication

23. Adler (1990)
• Asked Russian mothers and American
mothers to describe “what it means for her
child to share something”
• Russian mother said: children playing
together with a toy at the same time
• American mother said: her children take
turns playing with the same toy

24. Stereotyping
• Stereotype: A social perception of an
individual in terms of group membership or
physical attributes
• A generalization that is made about a group
and then attributed to members of that group
– May be either positive or negative
• Form of social categorization that affects the
behavior of those who use the stereotype and
those who are labeled by the stereotype
• A result of schema processing

25. Stereotype Threat
• Occurs in situations where there is a threat
of being judged or treated stereotypically
• Fear of doing something that would
inadvertently confirm that stereotype

26. Steele and Aronson (1995)
• Aim: See the effect of stereotype threat on
performance
• Procedure: 30 minute verbal test described as
either:
– “genuine test of their verbal abilities”
– “laboratory task that was used to study how certain
problems are generally solved”
• First test  African Americans scored significantly
lower than European Americans
• Second test  African Americans scored higher than
those in the first test; same as European Americans
• Conclusion: Stereotype threat can affect the
members of almost any group if they believe in the
stereotype (can then harm the performance)

27. Spotlight Anxiety
• Stereotype threat turns into spotlight
anxiety
• Causes emotional distress and pressure that
may undermine performance
• Students under stereotype threat often
underperform
– This can naturally limit their educational
prospects
– i.e. Stereotype that men > than women at
mathematics observed by Spencer et al. (1977)

28. Formation of Stereotypes
• Tajfel argues it is a natural cognitive process
of social categorization
• Cambell (1967) sees two key sources of
stereotypes:
– Personal experiences with individuals and
groups
– Gatekeepers: The media, parents, other
members of our culture
• Stereotypes have some basis on some reality
– Grain of truth hypothesis: an experience with
an individual from a group will be generalized to the
group

29. Illusory Correlation
• Hamilton and Gifford (1976) argue that
stereotypes are the result of an illusory
correlation
– People see a relationship between two variables even
when there isn’t one
– False associations/overestimation
• Example of cognitive bias
– A person’s tendency to make errors in judgment based
on cognitive factors
• Confirmation bias supports these illusory
correlations
– People overlook information that contradicts the belief,
but pay attention to the information that supports it

30. Stereotype Thinking
• Confirmation bias makes stereotypical
thinking resistant to change
• Stereotypes can also be formed as a means
of taking on the in-group’s social
representation of the outgroup
– Individuals may conform to the group norms with
regard to the “other”

31. Social Desirability Effect
• Confounding variable in research
• Do people just pretend they don’t have
stereotypes for experiment to seem
“politically correct”?
• Researchers today are moving away from
self-report methods and looking for other
ways to remove the threat