Unit 1 Social And Cognitive

Social Pychology is the way in which people affect one another. This might be because of the social situation that we find ourselves in, e.g. at school, work etc. The social situation can also be deemed as the result of the influences individuals have on us, as well as different groups of people and the wider culture in society. The group of people can be as small as a single family, even though the term 'culture' could refer to a larger part of the society, e.g. the community or the ethnic origin. Our culture may also affect our attitudes to a certain group of people in the society. To add to this we can look into obedience which leads to the Agency Theory which includes the Agentic and Auonomous State.

The Agentic state means working on behalf of somebody who has some sort of authority over us who will also take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. E.g. a teacher will have authority over a student because if they misbehave in a lesson then it might be that they have to come to a detention, therefore they will not misbehave because they would not like to have a detention.

This is when a person does something out of their own free will. For example, a person might smoke because they feel the need to rather than somebody who has told them to smoke. As well as this they might also be fully aware of the consequences of their behaviour because of which they will have to take responsibility for their own behaviour rather than the authorative figure.   

Moral Strain is what a person feels when they are told to do something which goes against their own morals and values. An example, is the participants who took part in Milgram's study who continued to shock an innocent victim because of the prods given to them. All of the participants were experiencing moral strain as they were clearly stressed as they were laughing nervously.

The in - group of a person is the group in which they belong. For example, the form which you are in. Other than this, in order to have high self - esteem people of the in - group will see themselves more favourably than members of the out - group.

The out - group is the group which a person does not belong to. For example, the form which you are not in. As well as Sherif who found that when competition was introduced to two groups of people/ boys they favoured the group which they were in more than the out group.

Social Categorisaton is when you put yourselves and others into groups. For example, you could put into groups people who have black hair and who only wear black clothes into a group which is known as goths. Or people who wear glasses as geeks.

Social Identification is when individuals take on group norms, values and culture. This includes wearing the same coloured T - shirt as your favourite football team or maybe the scarf which represents the same team.

This is when you compare your group to another group. This would be in order for a person to have higher self - esteem by comparing their in group to the out group. As a result if you put the out - group down then it will raise the self esteem of the members of the in - group. An example, could be by comparing the success of your favourite football team to a football team which you do not like.

Quantitative data uses numbers and various data which is found into categories so it is easy to identify trends. Qualitative data however produces in - depth and rich data which is harder to put into trends. To add to this a strength of using quantitative data is that it is quick and easy to carry out and it can be part of both primary and secondary data.  Howvever, a weakness of this is that a person might be subject to choosing just one of the two answers whereas they might want to choose an option which isn't available.

Further a strength of qualitative data is that it can be presented with valid information when compared to other data. However a weakness is that it is very time - consuming and it may be harder to repeat.

Qualitative data refers to in - depth information which is beneficial when doing semi - structured interviews as then you can use open questions. On the other hand quantitative data uses numbers which can be gained from closed questions.

Qualitative data also is harder to put into categories as qualitative data is normally used when people are asked their opinions about somethng. Whereas quantitative data is used when numbers are referred to. Such as the number of people who may have answered yes or no to a question which they have been asked.

Moreover, quantitative data produces reliable information as the questions can be asked a numerous amount of times and similar results will be found. However this is not the case for qualitative data as it well be valid and not reliable because it can be applied to the real world.