Social

AS Level Approaches – Social

1. Overview

The social approaches in AS Level Psychology examine how individuals think about, influence, and relate to others. These approaches provide frameworks for understanding phenomena such as conformity, obedience, attitudes, prejudice, and group dynamics.

2. Core Theories and Models

• Social Cognition – Focuses on how people process, store, and retrieve information about social situations. Key concepts include schemas, heuristics, and the self‑reference effect.
• Attribution Theory – Explores how people explain the causes of behaviour. Includes the fundamental attribution error and the actor‑observer bias.
• Social Identity Theory – Proposes that a person’s self‑concept is derived from perceived membership in social groups, leading to in‑group favouritism and out‑group discrimination.
• Social Learning Theory – Argues that behaviour is acquired through observation, imitation, and reinforcement. Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment is a classic illustration.
• Conformity and Obedience – Studies such as Asch’s line judgment task and Milgram’s shock experiment demonstrate the power of normative and informational social influence.

3. Comparison of Social Approaches

Approach	Key Focus	Primary Methodology	Strengths	Limitations
Social Cognition	Mental processes underlying social behaviour	Experimental tasks measuring reaction times, memory recall	Links cognition with observable behaviour; explains bias formation	May overlook emotional and situational factors
Attribution Theory	How causes of behaviour are inferred	Scenario‑based questionnaires, vignette studies	Clarifies systematic errors in judgement	Relies on self‑report; cultural variability often ignored
Social Identity Theory	Group membership and self‑concept	Laboratory group‑formation tasks, field surveys	Explains inter‑group conflict and prejudice	Complexity of real‑world group dynamics can be reduced in labs
Social Learning Theory	Observational acquisition of behaviour	Observational studies, modelling experiments	Integrates cognitive and behavioural perspectives	Difficulty isolating observational learning from reinforcement
Conformity & Obedience	Social influence on behaviour	Controlled experiments (e.g., Asch, Milgram)	Demonstrates powerful effects of group pressure	Ethical concerns; ecological validity questioned

4. Evaluation of Social Approaches

1. Ecological \cdot alidity – Laboratory experiments (e.g., Milgram) provide clear causal evidence but may not reflect everyday social contexts.
2. Cultural Generalisability – Many studies are conducted in Western, educated, industrialised, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies, limiting cross‑cultural applicability.
3. Ethical Considerations – Deception and stress in obedience studies raise ethical issues; modern research must balance insight with participant welfare.
4. Integration with Biological Perspectives – Social approaches often treat behaviour as purely cognitive or environmental, overlooking neurobiological contributions.
5. Predictive Power – While models like Social Identity Theory explain group phenomena, they sometimes lack precise quantitative predictions.

5. Suggested Diagram