Sociocultural concepts

Acculturation: The process by which someone comes into contact with another culture and begins to adopt the norms and behaviours of that culture.

Acculturation gaps: generational differences in acculturation and how this leads to conflict within the family.

Acculturative stress: a reduction in the mental health and well-being of ethnic minorities that occurs during the process of adaptation to a new culture.  It is often referred to as "culture shock."

Assimilation: when an individual abandons their original culture and adopts the cultural behaviours and values of a new culture.

Confirmation bias: when people tend to seek out or remember information that supports their currently held beliefs or expectations - and ignore information that contradicts these beliefs.

Cultural norm: a set of rules based on socially or culturally shared beliefs of how an individual ought to behave to be accepted within that group.

Cultural dimension: the trends of behaviour in a given culture which reflect the values of that culture.

Dispositional factors: individual characteristics that influence behavior and actions in a person - such as personality or temperament.

Emic approach: looking at behaviors of a group from the perspective of one member of that group.

Enculturation: the process of adopting or internalizing the schemas of your culture.

Etic approach: typically taken within cross-cultural psychology where behaviour is compared across specific cultures. Etic study involves drawing on the notion of universal properties of cultures, which share common perceptual, cognitive, and emotional structures.

Global culture: the culture that we come to learn and perhaps adapt to by contact with other cultures – via travel, working in international companies or through the media and social networking.

Globalization: the process of interaction and integration among people of different nations and cultures.

Illusory correlation: people see a relationship between two variables even when there is none.

Informational social influence: Also known as social proof - when people look to the actions of others in an attempt to determine how to behave in a given situation.

In-group bias: favoring members of one's in-group over out-group members.

Integration: When there is an interest in adopting the behaviours and values of a new culture, while still maintaining one's original culture.

Local culture: the culture that we grow up in and share with others in the same environment.

Marginalization: when it is not really possible to maintain one’s original culture, but because of exclusion or discrimination, it is not possible to assimilate into a new culture.

Normative social influence: when a person conforms to be liked or accepted by members of a group.

Salience: when one is highly aware of one of their membership to a social group.

Self-efficacy: one's belief in one's ability to succeed accomplishing a task.

Social comparison: a drive within individuals to gain accurate self-evaluations by comparing oneself to other people.

Social context: how someone reacts to something depending on their immediate social or physical environment.

Stereotype: a social perception of an individual in terms of group membership or physical attributes.

Stereotype threat: when worry about conforming to a negative stereotype leads to underperformance on a test or other task by a member of the stereotyped group

Vicarious reinforcement: our tendency to repeat or imitate behaviors for which others are being rewarded.