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SAQ marking: cultural dimensions

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  • SAQ marking: cultural dimensions

Below you will find four sample SAQs for the question: Describe one cultural dimension with reference to one relevant study.

For each of the samples, refer to the rubric to award marks 1 - 9. After each sample, there is a predicted grade as well as feedback on the strengths and limitations of the sample.

SAQ rubric

SAQ Sample 1

Berry did a study on whether or not our culture influences our level of conformity. There are two cultural dimensions.  The first one, individualistic culture, encourages freedom and personal achievement. The second one, collectivistic culture, focuses on family, community and interdependence. Conformity is an act of behaving according to the norms of a group.

Berry did a naturalistic experiment.  This means that people were assigned to their conditions based on their culture - either collectivistic or individualistic. The participants came from three different cultures, where one was individualistic and the other two were collectivistic.  They were put into groups of people from the same culture, where one participant was a naive participant (blind to the goal of the experiment) and the rest were confederates (actors who were told how to behave before the experiment started). The groups were shown images of three lines of different lengths and a fourth line that had the same length as one of the three. The participants had to choose which line the fourth lie matched.  The confederates would sometimes answer incorrectly and the answer of the naive participant was recorded by the researchers.

The results showed that the naive participants from a collectivistic culture were more likely to conform to the confederates' wrong answers.  Berry concluded that this behaviour was to avoid rejection from their in-group of the same culture because they rely so heavily on the group.

234 words

There is a minimal description of the cultural dimension in the first paragraph.  Berry's study is not well described.  The study was a version of the Asch paradigm, but it did not use actual confederates and it was not a naturalistic experiment - it was a quasi-experiment. The study also had two individualistic cultures (Scots and Inuits) and one collectivistic (Temne). The procedure is not correctly described. The conclusion is not well stated but is conceptually correct.  The link could be more developed. 4 marks.

SAQ Sample 2

A cultural dimension describes the traits or way of functioning in different cultures.  One cultural dimension is a collectivist vs individualistic culture. A collectivistic culture is one that seeks unity and working together for growth, basically, the needs and benefits of the group outweigh the needs or benefits of the individual.  While in an individualistic culture the opposite occurs, showing a complete reverse of collectivistic culture.  A study by Berry on three different cultures looked at the role of these dimensions.

Three different cultures, Inuits, Scots and Temne were given a task.  The Inuits were the collectivistic culture while the Temne were the individualistic culture. The culture they were from was the IV while the success with which they were able to do the task was the DV - making it a lab experiment. Results showed the collectivistic culture was more successful at performing the task than the individualistic culture and the neutral culture - the Scotts.

The higher performance of the collectivistic Inuits shows how cultural dimensions play a role in our actions and abilities. The worse performance by the individualistic culture than the Scots showed also how the different types of cultures negatively affect our performance for a task.  This shows how cultural dimensions and the way a culture functions affects one's abilities and that collectivistic cultures have different strengths than individualistic cultures.

225 words

The response starts off ok, with a minimal description of the collectivistic aspect of the dimension, but then does not say anything about individualistic culture except that it is the "opposite." The study is not described in any detail and is very vague.  The final paragraph does not demonstrate any relevant understanding. 2 marks

SAQ Sample 3

Cultural dimensions are the differences in values or beliefs between cultures.  These are reflective of a society's culture, showing what it is they view as the most important. One such cultural dimension is a culture's tendency towards individualism vs collectivism. As the name suggests, collectivistic cultures are focused more on group success and interdependence within a community. There is less need for privacy and less importance is placed on individual freedom. This is in contrast to individualistic cultures which focus on personal success, freedom, independence and privacy.  The theory of cultural dimensions is that these cultural values impact behaviour.

One study showing the impact of cultural dimensions on memory was done by Kulkoffsky et al in their study of flashbulb memory. The researchers wanted to see if there was a difference between flashbulb memories in collectivistic and individualistic cultures. To carry out the study, Kulkoffsky gave a flashbulb memory questionnaire, based on the original questionnaire used by Brown & Kulik, to people from individualistic cultures like the US and collectivistic cultures like China. The participants were asked to recall a public event that took place in their lifetime -  like 9-11 or the death of a famous person.  The researchers found that there were fewer examples of flashbulb memories in collectivistic cultures for such events. In collectivistic cultures, there is less importance given to personal experience and the display of personal emotional responses is frowned on. This means that they spend less time talking to others about their personal experiences and therefore do not carry out the rehearsal that is important for the development of such vivid memories. So, although the collectivistic cultures may have strong memories of the event itself, they do not have flashbulb memories in which they remember what they were doing, whom they were with or how they personally found out about the event.  This study supports the idea that our culture can impact our behaviour and cognition.

305 words

The response has a good description of the dimension. The study is relevant and well described in terms of the aim, procedure and findings.  There is a link at the end of the response which explains what influence the cultural dimension had on flashbulb memory. 9 marks.

SAQ Sample 4

One cultural dimension is individualism vs collectivism. A study that investigates the influence of this dimension on conformity was done by Berry. Individualistic cultures are often associated with Western cultures, while the term collectivistic culture is often associated with the East. The difference between the two is mostly that individualistic cultures value personal achievement, while the collectivistic cultures value group achievement more. The collectivistic cultures have a stronger group identity.  In individualistic cultures, emotional connection is of more importance, where often in collectivistic cultures one's emotions and personal opinion are not expressed if it would be in conflict with the group. One other difference is the effect of the group on one's judgement and decision making. 

Berry used the Asch paradigm to investigate whether participants from the more collectivistic cultures were more likely to conform to what a member of their group thinks. In the original Asch study, the participants were presented with three lines and asked to see which one of the three lines match with a model line in terms of its length. Despite being an easy task, there were four confederates in the room and the aim was to test how a unanimous and incorrect response from the confederates would influence the participants' answers.  The same model was used for this study; however, instead of using confederates, the researcher hinted to the participants that other members of their culture had chosen a specific line.  The results were that the participants from the more collectivistic culture conformed to the false answer more than those from the individualistic culture. The researchers concluded that the I-C dimension influences one's level of conformity.

The study supports the idea that this cultural dimension is not only responsible for the way people behave around other members of their culture, but it also shapes the way the participants respond to the situation when alone, as none of the members of the culture was present during the experiment.  It also shows how the trust among collectivistic cultures may be stronger than individualistic ones.  

338 words

The description of the dimension is fairly well done. The study is appropriate and there is a satisfactory description. A better focus on the nature of the sample would make it stronger. The final sentence is not really supported.  6 marks.