Discuss how social and/or cultural factors affect one cognitive process.

Refer to the paper 1 section B assessment criteria when awarding marks.

The command term “discuss” requires candidates to offer a considered review of how social and/or cultural factors affect one cognitive process. As the concepts of social and cultural factors are arguably very much related, a distinction between the two is not necessary.

Candidates should give a considered review of the way in which social and/or cultural factors affect how people process information, for example, memory, thinking, perception, attention, decision-making or language.

Examples of appropriate factors include, but are not limited to:

• the effect of cultural norms and past experience on memory (Bartlett, 1932)
• the effect of social identity on formation of flashbulb memories (Luminet and Curci, 2009)
• the effect of schooling on encoding strategies (Cole and Scribner, 1974)
• the effect of cultural upbringing on memories of self (Wang, 2006)
• the effect of poverty on cognitive processing, in particular free recall tasks (Mani, 2013; Pollitt, 1995)
• the role of environmental factors on perception (Deregowski, 1972; Segall et al.’s carpentered world hypothesis, 1966).

Discussion of the cultural and/or social factors may include, but is not limited to:

• Methodological considerations
• Empirical support and contrary findings
• Application of empirical findings.

If a candidate discusses more than one cognitive process, credit should be given only to the first discussion.

If a candidate discusses only one social and/or cultural factor, the response should be awarded up to a maximum of [5] for criterion A and a maximum of [2] for criterion C.

Candidates may discuss a small number of factors in order to demonstrate depth of knowledge, or may discuss a larger number of factors in order to demonstrate breadth of knowledge. Both approaches are equally acceptable.