Key terms

• Sociocultural Approach

  it assumes that humans are social animals that have a need belong and that culture influences behaviour
• memory


  the process of encoding, storing and retrieving information
• Secondary socialisation


  the larger community, extend family, friends and the media influence our adherence to norms and behaviour
• social cognitive theory


  behaviour is learnt through observation of others
• primary socialisation


  the child learns basic rules and norms of living in his/her group. this is usually through family members, who teach children things like saying 'please' and 'thank you
• normative conformity


  conforming because you want to be 'liked' and 'fit in
• informational conformity


  conforming because you genuinely think someone is correct
• social groups


  two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity
• social identity theory


  an individual's sense of 'self' is derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group
• Enculturation

  The process of socialization that helps a person to acquire social norms, values, behaviours, language and other tools of their own culture.
• Conformity


  A type of social influence involving a change in belief or behaviour to fit in with a group. For example, dressing the same, listening to the same music etc.
• ingroup


  "Us"-people with whom we share a common identity
• outgroup

  "Them"-those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup.
• social comparisons


  Comparison your ingroup to your outgroup in order to boost your self-esteem e.g. 'Tonbridge are so annoying
• Cultural dimentions


  refer to trends of behaviour in a culture. So, while one culture might behave in a certain way, this may be completely different to somewhere else.
• stereotypes


  A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing
• acculturation


  The process of adopting the cultural traits or social patterns of another culture. Processes that occur when different individuals or groups of people meet and exchange aspects of their culture or live abroad for example.
• culture


  The set of ideas, beliefs, attitudes and traditions that we share with large groups of people and gives us a sense of identity
• cultural norms


  These are the rules which indicate the expected behaviour in a group.
• individualism


  Identity is defined by personal characteristics (e.g. individual choices and achievements).
• collectivism


  Identity is defined more by the characteristics of the collective groups to which one belongs
• illusory correlation


  The phenomenon of perceiving a relationship between variables even when no such relationship exists