Introduction
In the social-cultural perspective, an individual is evaluated based on the social groups they belong to. Your AP® Psychology exam will require you to understand the basics of who founded this perspective, what it really means and how to diagnose different characteristics of this theory. You’ll want to consider different types of social groups that occur in society. These can include age groups, gender groups and many others.
Any group that restricts some individuals, including clubs or organizations, can also impact an individual. This means that belonging to a band, a gym, or a dance troupe can influence the way that you develop as well as religions and gender groups.
This perspective will be represented in you AP® Psychology exam through multiple choice as well as written questions. This means you’ll need to consider the way that this theory relates to other theories and also how it will impact different parts of life for any individual. It considers not just childhood but adult life as well since different social groups will come into the life of an individual at any aspect of their life. These groups can still impact your life even if you are an adult.
What is the Social-Cultural Perspective?
The social-cultural perspective considers the way that different individuals interact with their social groups and how these social groups influence different individuals and how they develop throughout their lives.
The social group can consist of any group that the individual is a part of. In fact, most people belong to a large number of different social groups. These include gender groups, racial groups, religions and more. For example, your peers can influence you in a dramatic way but so can your family, your social class and your ethnicity. Given all other characteristics exactly the same, a female will develop differently than a male. A wealthy female will develop differently than a poor female.
Different situations that you will find yourself in have a different impact on the way that you continue to develop. For example, as you grow from childhood into adolescence your social groups will affect you differently. Most find that family impacts the childhood of an individual more than peer groups. When you get older however, such as in adolescence, peer groups are more of an influence than family.
In the social-cultural perspective all of the groups that an individual belongs to will influence their future. Only by understanding the full impact of social groups and understanding every group that the individual is involved in will a psychologist be able to fully understand what that individual will do. This will allow you to understand the behaviors of an individual both in the past and in their future.
Who Founded the Social-Cultural Perspective?
Let’s get into an AP® Psychology review of this perspective to help you better understand what’s going to be on your exam. The social-cultural perspective was founded by Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist. Also known as the sociocultural perspective, this theory emphasized how a child would grow to become an adult and come to develop thoughts, behaviors and beliefs.
Vygotsky felt that children were born with different beliefs in their minds. However, those beliefs are subject to interpretation and change based on the groups that the individual belongs to and which groups they are raised into. His theory was based off of Piaget’s perspective concerning cognitive development.
This theory believed that the interactions of children into the world were the way that they primarily learned and developed. On the other hand, Vygotsky focused more on social interaction rather than singular interaction. By considering the differences between these two perspectives it is easier to understand the ways that children come to understand and complete different actions.
Examples of Social-Cultural Perspective
Example 1:
Megan grew up in the country. Her family has always raised animals and she is responsible for feeding the chickens every morning. The chickens get up early and they need to be let out of their pen before breakfast. She also needs to make sure that the eggs are gathered before she goes to eat her own breakfast. So every morning Megan gets up at 6 am because that’s when she needs to start her chores.
Eliza grew up in the city. Before she eats breakfast all she needs to do is get dressed. She hates getting up early and so often she doesn’t even get up until 7:30 am so that she can eat breakfast quickly and catch the bus at 8 am.
The two girls are the same age and they both have to go to school but they get up at different times of the day because of the way they were raised. They have different actions that need to be completed and they also have different interests. Eliza doesn’t like to get up early and she doesn’t need to, her social groups don’t require her to do so. Megan does like to get up early however and her social group definitely does require her to do it.
Example 2:
Peter is Catholic and grew up going to church every Sunday. He never misses a church service and makes sure that he prays before he eats any meal. His family has taught him this and they make sure that he continues to follow all of these traits. Even when his family is not present however, Peter continues to follow these same traits and continues to pray and attend church.
The traits that Peter follows began as something that his parents pushed him into. As he grew older however, he continued to carry out these traits. He did this because he was interested in what he had been raised into and he believed that it was something he wanted to continue. The social group he was raised in (Catholic) influenced his life and his behavior even as he grew older.
Example 3:
Andrew’s family puts a lot of emphasis on education. From the time he was able to read his family encouraged him to do so. They pushed him to study as much as possible and also made sure that he did his homework as quickly as possible. As a result, he was able to get excellent grades in all of his classes. As he enters college he is able to take his pick because he received excellent grades.
When he goes away to college he spends most of his time in his dorm room studying, even though his roommate tries to convince him to go out and party instead. His feelings about studying are influencing the way that he continues to live his life. This shows how the sociocultural perspective influences him.
More About the Social-Cultural Perspective in AP® Psychology
This perspective can influence everything that you do throughout your life. As you continue to grow your social groups will change. As a child you may have some friends and then you may have different friends as you get older. This means that your groups will influence you in different ways.
Understand the way that the social cultural perspective influences an individual as a child, an adolescent and an adult. This theory has still been found to be important and it’s found to be relevant as well. As a result of this theory, there is a better understanding of your way of thinking and looking at the world.
According to the social-cultural perspective the zone of proximal development is also extremely important. This zone is based on a distance between actual development level and potential development. These things help to understand better the way that the individual will develop in the future as well as how they have developed already.
Vygotsky believed that the human mind will continue to learn from others and learn from different groups that they are involved with socially no matter what else is happening in their life or even if they are rather isolated in their lives. Different cultures will influence in different ways simply because these cultures will have different important factors.
One culture may put emphasis on intelligence while another may put more emphasis on memorization. Because of these differences, the social cultural perspective will emphasize the most important aspects of each social group.
Conclusion
This AP® Psychology crash course evaluates the social-cultural perspective of development. The social-cultural perspective requires you to look at the upbringing that an individual has but also at their social groups. Every social group that an individual belongs to is going to impact the way that they develop and these groups are going to influence the way that they look at life. On the other hand, every group will impact the individual slightly differently.
As a result, an individual who is Catholic, African American and female will have a slightly different outlook on life than someone who is Protestant, African American and female. Each social group provides a different influence and those social groups will interact in different ways.
1. Social-cultural perspective considers the many different social groups that an individual belongs to and how those groups influence them throughout their life.
2. This perspective was founded by Lev Vygotsky as an emphasis on the theories of Piaget.
3. The zone of proximal development is an important aspect of this perspective.
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