How do culture and group membership shape identity, prejudice and intergroup relations?
Explain the influence of culture on behaviour, social identity, prejudice, discrimination and strategies to reduce intergroup conflict.
A focused answer to the WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4 dot point on culture and community. Covers individualist versus collectivist cultures, Tajfel's social identity theory, prejudice and discrimination, Sherif's Robbers Cave study, and strategies to reduce intergroup conflict.
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What this dot point is asking
This Unit 4 dot point asks you to explain how culture and group membership influence behaviour, how prejudice develops, and how intergroup conflict can be reduced.
Culture and behaviour
Culture is the shared values, beliefs, norms and practices of a group transmitted across generations. A widely used dimension (Hofstede) distinguishes:
- Individualist cultures value personal goals, independence and individual achievement (for example, many Western nations).
- Collectivist cultures value group goals, interdependence and harmony (for example, many East Asian and Indigenous communities).
Cross-cultural research warns against ethnocentrism (judging other cultures by the standards of one's own) and an emic approach (studying behaviour from within a culture) is preferred over an etic approach that imposes outside categories.
Social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner)
Henri Tajfel and John Turner's social identity theory proposes that part of our self-concept comes from the groups we belong to. The theory has three processes:
- Social categorisation: classifying people into in-groups (us) and out-groups (them).
- Social identification: adopting the identity and norms of the in-group.
- Social comparison: comparing the in-group favourably against out-groups to maintain self-esteem.
Prejudice and discrimination
Prejudice is a negative attitude toward members of a group (an attitude, with affective, behavioural and cognitive elements). Discrimination is the negative behaviour or action based on that prejudice. Stereotypes are the cognitive component, the generalised beliefs about a group. Prejudice can arise from social identity processes, competition for resources, and learned stereotypes.
Reducing intergroup conflict (Sherif's Robbers Cave)
Muzafer Sherif's Robbers Cave study divided boys at a summer camp into two groups (the Eagles and the Rattlers). Competition for limited resources rapidly produced hostility and prejudice between the groups. Simply bringing the groups together did not reduce conflict; what worked were superordinate goals, shared aims that required both groups to cooperate (such as fixing the camp water supply).
This supports the contact hypothesis (Allport): intergroup contact reduces prejudice best when groups have equal status, common goals, cooperation, and the support of authorities.
In the exam, name Tajfel for social identity, Sherif for superordinate goals, and Allport for the contact hypothesis, and distinguish the attitude (prejudice) from the behaviour (discrimination).