Discuss the influence of social factors on childrens awareness of gender roles

Discuss the influence of social factors on children’s awareness of gender roles (24 marks) Parents, peers and the media are all social factors that affect children’s awareness of gender roles. The influence of parents and peers can be explained in terms of social learning theory. Parents and peers are role models for children, they observe the behaviour of the model and then imitate it later on, and this behaviour is learnt. Same-sex models are usually sought out by children therefore females copy females, males copy males, and therefore they learn gender stereotyped behaviour for their gender. This becomes internalized into their idea of their gender role. Parents are the first social role model for children. This means that a male would usually copy their dad’s behaviours, since they seek out same-sex models. Operant conditioning is used by parents to reinforce their gender role, by gender appropriate behaviour getting rewarded with attention or praise, this action will then be repeated to get further rewards. Peers are also social role models for children. Peers, often in school, self-assess each other’s behaviour on its gender appropriateness. This is usually followed with verbal comments praising gender appropriate behaviour and rejecting inappropriate behaviour. For instance, a girl may wear a dress, and get praised and complimented it is pretty, but if she

  • Word count: 935
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Outline and Evaluate Explanations of Conformity

Outline and Evaluate explanations of conformity The Dual Process theory outlines two believed explanations of why humans conform, namely normative influence and Informational influence. Normative influence is a form of social influence where a person changes their behaviour in order to fit in with a group. It usually involves compliance where the change in behaviour is public but not private due to the fact the person’s internal feeling or opinion is not altered, yet externally and publically it has. A fictitious example of this would be a person conforming by claiming to have the same music preferences as their group of friends, but privately they dislike their friend’s music taste. This opinion does not change privately despite the fact it appears to publically. Informational influence is another form of social influence where people change their behaviour based upon the desire to be right. This also involves turning to others who are regarded as well informed in order to pick up on cues for socially acceptable behaviour. This usually involves internalisation, however unlike normative influence, the change in behaviour happens both privately and publically. This is the result of a person converting their existing view to new one in order to have the correct view and this view then becomes part of the individual’s belief system in the long term. An example of this

  • Word count: 772
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Outline and evaluate explanations of obedience

Outline and evaluate explanations of obedience There are several proposed explanations of obedience that can be separated into two sub categories, situational factors and individual factors. Legitimate authority is one explanation of attachment and it refers to the people that appear to have power or authority. For instance, a person wearing a uniform may seem to have authority and for this reason a person may choose to obey them as shown in Bickman (74). Bickman directly tested the effect of a uniform in his field experiment in New York in which he asked passersby to pick up a piece of litter, stand the other side of a stop side or give a stranger money. Half of the time the person giving the order was dressed in a security guard’s uniform and the rest of the time in street clothes. This idea can also be applied to settings, if a setting seems formal and gives the impression of legitimacy then it is speculated obedience levels will increase as demonstrated in Milgram’s study in combination with some of the variations of his study. Another explanation of obedience is when there are buffers present. If there are buffers there are aspects of the situation that protect people from having to deal with the consequences of their actions. For instance in Milgram’s experiment, the participants were placed in different rooms to the learners that they were administering the

  • Word count: 789
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Discuss explanations of the maintenance of relationships

Discuss explanations of the maintenance of relationships: There are two main theories explaining the maintenance of relationships. The first is the social exchange theory. This claims that for the individual, the best result from a relationship would be to make a profit; for this to occur, there must be minimum costs and maximum reward. The principle of operant conditioning applies in this theory. If something is rewarding, e.g. companionship and sex, we pursue and value it. Yet on the other hand if something is costly, e.g. financial investment and opportunities missed, then we avoid it as we would avoid punishment. In terms of relationship profit, the rewards in a relationship must exceed or outweigh the costs. The less profit, the more chance there is that the relationship with terminate. Thibaut and Kelley introduced two comparison levels against which an existing relationship can be evaluated. These enable an individual to judge the ‘value’ of a current relationship against previous and future relationships. The comparison level is a comparison between the current relationship and what we have been used to in the past or believe is appropriate in the current relationship. If the reference relationship compares favourable, the person is motivated to stay in the relationship. The comparison level for alternatives is concerned with the benefits of possible alternative

  • Word count: 1055
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Outline and evaluate research into the influence of culture on romantic relationships

Outline and evaluate research into the influence of culture on romantic relationships: There are many observed cultural differences in romantic relationships. These can be attributed to the type of society individuals live in, individualistic or collectivist, both with very different ideas about how individuals should live and what their priorities should be. Such embrace different types of relationship, involuntary or voluntary, permanent or impermanent. In addition in different cultures different things are valued within relationships and they are formed, maintained and ended for different reasons. In collectivist cultures there has been much evidence to suggest many marriages are involuntary. Udry 74 stated that the traditional system for mate selection in such cultures is by arranged marriage. Qureshi (91) identified 3 types of arranged marriage, planned, chaperoned and joint venture. Kurian (91) through his research, demonstrated how common arranged marriages are in collectivist cultures. He found that a majority of marriages in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are arranged. Certain attitudes towards marriage were also found in collectivist cultures. For instance, Sprecher et al wanted to find out whether people from different cultures would marry somebody that had all the qualities they desired but whom they did not love. Participants from Russia were

  • Word count: 589
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Eating Disorders

Eating disorders. Preoccupation with body shape and weight is very common in many cultures. The desire to be slimmer and created a highly profitable diet industry in the western world, selling nutritional advice, exercise regimes and appetite-reducing drugs. Up to 90% of women have been on a diet at some time in their lives. The vast majority of dieters do not go on to develop the potentially dangerous relationship with food seen in eating disorders. However, it is perhaps not surprising that these disorders have primarily affected females. Doctors descriptions of patients with eating disorder were made as far back as the seventeenth century. Symptoms and diagnosis of anorexia nervosa. Anorexia usually develops over a period of time, often after dieting. The onset of symptoms can also follow a time of personal stress, such as being bullied at school. The term anorexia nervosa means loss of appetite for nervous reasons. However term is misleading, as most sufferers do retain an appetite for food, which they rigorously attempt to control through starvation, over-exercising, vomiting and the excessive use of laxatives. Physical Symptoms. The physical symptoms of anorexia nervosa are; * Extreme weight loss in adults, failure to gain adequate weight in relation to growth in children and teenagers. * Downy hair growth on the arms, back and face. * Poor circulation and

  • Word count: 3921
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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The Matching Hypothesis

Abstract My study aimed to test the matching hypothesis and see if there was a correlation between the ratings of physical attraction for real couples. In order to test this hypothesis an opportunity sample was used at a local shopping centre where willing participants were given a questionnaire which had 20 pictures of the opposite sex. They were asked to rate the physical attractiveness of the individuals on a scale of 1-10. The questionnaires comprised of males and females (from a real relationship) and also males and females that were randomly selected (fake couples - control group). Once the results had been collected they were analysed and then run through a statistical test to measure the strength of the correlation (rho) - Spearman's rank correlation test. The critical value of rho at a 5% level for a one tailed hypothesis with 10 pieces of data was 0.564. The observed value of rho for the correlation of the real couples in my study was 0.327. This number was lower than the critical value and as a result deemed insignificant. For this reason I decided to reject my alternative hypothesis and accept the null. This shows similar physical attraction is not the only decider when individuals are looking for a partner. Introduction Physical attractiveness is characterised by many things and it is very often the reason for the formation of relationships. An individual may

  • Word count: 5320
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Is sociology a science?

Is sociology a science? To answer the question of whether or not sociology is a science is entirely dependent upon the individual's definition of science. If the conventional definition of science is being referred to, that is, that science is knowledge ascertained by observation and experiment, critically tested, systematised and brought under general principles, then arguably to a certain extent sociology is scientific. However if science is socially instead of objectively defined, then although some sociology may have similar characteristics to natural science there is a significant difference in the method model used in each case. Medawar claimed science should be defined in terms of its method, stating that if a particular logic and procedure was followed then the subject could be considered a science regardless the subject matter. This would thus allow certain branches of sociology to be defined as a science, mainly those that are of a positivist approach and utilise quantitative research. Popper redefined and developed this view of science. He viewed science as being logical, useful and refutable. He believed scientific knowledge is built up using a continuing process of conjecture and disproval and there is no final truth but the most likely provisional explanation. It was due to his belief of this that he criticised Marxism for being unscientific, as it was

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Social learning theory

Describe and evaluate one social psychological theory of aggression- (24) There are 3 main types of aggression, pro-social, sanctioned and anti-social. Anti-social aggression does not benefit anyone, there are many theories which try to explain how being around others can cause us to act aggressively, such as the social learning theory. This theory is a behavioural theory which was developed mainly by Bandura. It is based on the principles of operant and classical conditioning. This theory claims that aggression, like all behaviour, is learnt from the environment. This occurs through a process called modelling- the individual observes someone behaving aggressively, and then imitates their behaviour. Certain factors make it more likely that we will imitate the aggression we see. We are more likely to imitate role models. A role model is likely to be an individual who is similar to us and who has desirable characteristics, for example we are more likely to imitate individuals of the same sex and who appear popular. An individual is also more likely to imitate a role model if they have low self esteem. We are also more likely to imitate a person's aggression, if we are vicariously reinforced. This is when we see someone getting rewarded for being aggressive (for example, a boy being congratulated by his friends for punching someone). We are more likely to remember

  • Word count: 1155
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Social psychology

Introduction Social psychology is the study of the individual and the way they behave according to those around them. Social psychology affects nearly every aspect of our everyday lives such as the way in which we form, develop and maintain our relationships with people ranging from our parents to our friends, family and co workers. There has been much research into social psychology, Such as the factors that contribute to the formation of a relationship. According to Rubin (1973) one of these factors is proximity. Rubin stated that the closer we are to somebody physically the more likely we are to form a relationship with him or her. This relates to situations where we are often in close proximity with the same person on people such as work or school. Seeing the same person or people in everyday situations such as work or school is also known as repeated exposure which Moreland and Beach (1992) said aids the formation of relationships because the more we see somebody the more we will like them. Repeated exposure also breeds familiarity, which is another factor that is needed for the formation of a relationship because if we become familiar with a person we will become more accepting of their ways. According to Newcomb another key aid to the formation of relationships is similarity because it becomes easier to form a relationship with someone we have something in common

  • Word count: 668
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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