4.1 Outline principle that define the sociocultural level of analysis and explain how these principles may be demonstrated in research

4.1 Outline principle that define the sociocultural level of analysis and explain how these principles may be demonstrated in research

Principle 1: Human beings are social animals with a basic need to belong.

This means that they are motivated to have important relationships with other people.

Baumeister and Leary (1995) assert that humans are motivated to form and maintain interpersonal relationships and human culture is, to some extent, adapted to enable people to satisfy the psychological need to live together.

Howarth (2002) performed focus-group interviews with adolescent girls in Brixton to study how the girls described and evaluated themselves. She found that they had a positive view of “being from Brixton” which contrasted the view of people living outside Brixton. This can be seen as an example of creating a positive “social identity” based on group belonging.

Principle 2: Culture influences human behaviour.

This means that humans create and shape culture and they are influenced by their culture. Cultural norms provide general prescriptions for behaviours that are expected in a given culture or society.

Berry (1967) investigated how conformity may be related to culture. He used a modification of the Asch experiment (see unit 4.8) with adults from two different cultures: the Temne culture of Sierra Leone, who rely on agriculture for survival, and adult Inuits from the Baffin Islands in Canada, who live on hunting and fishing. Temne people have to cooperate in order to grow a successful crop to feed the community, so they learn conformity and compliance from an early age. The Inuits must be able to track and hunt animals and fish on their own, so children in this culture learn independence. Berry found that Inuits were almost non-conforming whereas the Temne showed a high degree of conformity.

Principle 3: Humans have a social self which reflects their group memberships.

Group memberships give rise to social identities (ingroups) and comparison with other groups (outgroups). This might lead to bias in information processing (stereotyping) and discrimination.

Tajfel and Turner (1979) studied the social identity theory (SIT) that suggests that group-based social identities are based on categorization into ingroups (a group to which one belongs) and outgroups (a group to which one does not belong). Ingroups are generally seen as more positive than outgroups and ingroup favouritism is common. The outgroup is generally seen in a more negative light (outgroup negative bias).

Tajfel (1970) suggested the minimal group paradigm. He performed experiments with boys who were randomly divided into two groups. They were told that it was based on their estimation of dots or preference for paintings but in reality it was totally random. The boys just believed that they had been grouped according to their estimation and preference for paintings to award points to members of the groups; they consistently demonstrated ingroup favouritism by awarding more points to members of their own group. The experiments showed that a kind of social identity can be established even as a consequence of a minimal and unimportant task.