PSYC FPX 3540 Assessment 1 Theories Application Exercise

Name of concept or theory: 

Social Cognitive Theory 

Summarize the concept/theory. Put it in your own words. 1-4 sentences. Use APA style in-text citations.

Social cognitive theory compartmentalizes date and categorizes it for easy access and understanding.  It focuses on personal, behavior and environmental factors. It gives an automatic response to in-built belief system depending upon race, gender, age and skin color etc. The theory suggests that from an early age, children observe and learn. They set their preferences and become familiar with similar attributes, this makes them fear the unknown (Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2020).

 This form of diversity creates negative atmosphere and generate complex stereotypes in community for different groups. The behavioral and environmental factors create a ripple effect in mind which leads to prejudice. The four elements create a pattern for racism and discrimination. The attention to certain behavior then retaining it by seeing consequences of those actions, then they adopt it and lastly the person is motivated by any sort of appreciation (McLeod, 2016).

Real World Example. Describe an example of what this concept/theory would look like in daily life.

This is true that human beings perceive things as a whole instead of its constituent parts. No matter how much racism, prejudices and discrimination is being discussed, there is still ingrained thought process that gives preconceived notion about colored people around me.

Talking about Asian prejudice, I have seen the preconceived notion to be so dominant that there comes no research before judgment. For instance, recent global pandemic Covid-19 spread virus along with rumor that Chinese are responsible for global pandemic. This stereotype leads to hostility towards Chinese immigrants living in America. The social-cognitive theory suggest that observation is first step towards behavior, the world knows that Covid-19 spread through China (Abdullah, 2019). Even a reality show named America Got Talent, a Chinese comedian performer addressed different stereotypes regarding Chinese people, products and disease. She apologized humorously about generating a global pandemic while making clear that she was in America the whole time (“I Was Made in China” – Funniest EVER AGT Audition?! | Australia’s Got Talent 2022, n.d.)

This shows how a single look can lead to automatic process of negative judgment, in this case Chinese race and existing global pandemic. The social-cognitive theory is also applicable in terms of motivation; as motivation is goal oriented, the pandemic chaos led people observe and then accept that Chinese are responsible for pandemic (Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2020). To make the Covid-19 understandable it needed someone to be accountable and, in this case, Chinese race became victim and suffered racial discrimination. (Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2020)

Name of video:

White Like Me

Provide a brief summary of the video. Use 3-4 sentences.

This documentary is by Tim Wise who was inspired by a book named Black Like Me in which a white man painted and colored himself black to see how people would treat him and was surprised that black community is not treated as second but tenth level citizen (Watson, 2011). In this documentary, the struggle for colored people from the time of civil right moments till present discussed. Tim drew parallels between white man privilege and oblivion to colored man struggle and inequality in political, social and educational system. 

The documentary started with discussion of Tim’s motivation to talk about racism in contemporary time as he discussed his early childhood in black school. The video discussed anti-apartheid movement and David Duke’s presence as a white supremacist, member of Ku Klan and neo Nazist (Pride, 1993). He also discussed white privileges that are so easily accessible to them. History revealed that America’s constitution that introduced Naturalization Act was basis for racism, then Barack Obama came as first black man too run presidency for America (Nationality Act of 1790, 2019). It was a historic, exemplary moment for many but on the other hand the slogans like kill him, terrorist, treason was loud to clear that America still has to go a long way ahead. 

The documentary highlighted the correctional control was vastly consisted of black community. The crime rates were not surged but drug war made black people at suspicious end while white man robbed believing he would not be suspected. White Americans also started to feel Reverse Discrimination believing that all welfare programs are unfairly advantageous to black people and they are deprived because of them (What Is Reverse Discrimination? | Swartz Swidler, n.d.).The video clearly showed that there was a conservative side that believed talking about racism increases it and color blind society is the solution. He concluded the documentary by giving a practical approach of color consciousness instead of color blindness, so that people may coexist while accepting all aspects and not highlighting one to discriminate them (Kanopy – Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries, n.d.).

Apply the Concept/Theory. Describe how the concept/theory explains what was depicted in the video. Use 3-4 sentences. Use APA style in-text citations.

The documentary goes back to the time when black were slaves and were working in agricultural or domestic service work. The slavery and uncivilized black were observable factor for all white community, this is basic element of social cognitive theory. The notion of incompetency, incapability was related to black folks, and this was the reason that 46 presidents were all white men until Barack Obama took oath of presidency. The polarization effect between Democratic and Republicans was depicting racial elements in protests (Alvernia University, 2018). The supporter of Obama’s party still chose not to give him vote was solely depending on racist behavior. 

Stereotype base mentioned in theory through the idea of compartmentalization and overgeneralization is evident in video content. The cognitive aspect of theory suggests that individual’s personal believes leads to certain choices (Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2020). In this video it was evident that conservative Americans who were disapproving welfare programs that support black community were actually concerned about losing what they believed truly belonged to them. The raise voices saying they need their country back, they want America back etc. 

The social cognitive theory’s idea of motivation lies on rewards. The idea of Reverse Discrimination is motivated by the explicit privileges as mentioned in documentary under policies like Social Security Act, Federal Housing Act and GI bills that all majorly and mostly benefit white Americans and now due to the efforts of eliminating racial differences those privileges are asked to be shared (What Is Reverse Discrimination? | Swartz Swidler, n.d.).   

APA Style Reference List (include all in-text citations).

Abdullah, S. M. (2019). Similiarity Artikel:Social Cognitive Theory : A bandura thought review published in 1982-2012. Journal PSIKODIMENSIA, 18(1), 85–100. http://eprints.mercubuana-yogya.ac.id/id/eprint/16382/

Alvernia University. (2018, May). Group polarization in social psychology | Alvernia Online. Alvernia Online. https://online.alvernia.edu/articles/group-polarization-social-psychology/ 

David, E. J. R., Schroeder, T. M., & Fernandez, J. (2019). Internalized Racism: A systematic review of the psychological literature on racism’s most insidious consequence. Journal of Social Issues, 75(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12350 

Greenwald, A. G., & Lai, C. K. (2020). Implicit social cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 71(1), 419–445. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010419-050837 

Kanopy – Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries. (n.d.). Www.kanopy.com. https://www.kanopy.com/en/capella/mylists/customplaylists/5421548 

Landman, T. (2020). Measuring modern slavery: law, human rights, and new forms of data. Human Rights Quarterly, 42(2), 303–331. https:/doi.org/10.1353/hrq.2020.0019 

McLeod, S. (2016). Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html 

Nationality Act of 1790. (2019). Immigration History. https://immigrationhistory.org/item/1790-nationality-act/ 

Pride, R. A. (1993). The emergence of David Duke and the politics of race (review). Southern Cultures, 0(1), 123–126. https://doi.org/10.1353/scu.1993.0015 

Schunk, D. H., & DiBenedetto, M. K. (2020). Motivation and social cognitive theory. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 60(1), 101832. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.101832 

Watson, B. (2011, October). Black Like Me, 50 Years Later. Smithsonian; Smithsonian.com. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/black-like-me-50-years-later-74543463/ 

What Is Reverse Discrimination? | Swartz Swidler. (n.d.). Swartz-Swidler. Retrieved February 7, 2023, from https://swartz-legal.com/employment-law-resources/what-is-reverse-discrimination/ 

“I Was Made In China” – Funniest EVER AGT Audition?! | Australi a’s Got Talent 2022. (n.d.).