Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Social strengths and weaknesses - Coggle Diagram
Social strengths and weaknesses
Realistic conflict theory
Strengths
Can be used to explain events of hostility and prejudice even when there is no real reason as long as there is perceived competition for limited resources
Can be used to reduce hostility through superordinate goals - like jigsaw classrooms - have to be mutually benefical and unachievable without cooperation
Weaknesses
Does not account for individual differences like culture - some cultures may be less likely to have prejudice if they are more of a collectivistic culture which involves looking out for people and so they are less likely to get into competition over perceived limited resources
It isolates competition as the key feature for hostility and therefore is reductionist because does not account for any scenarios where there is no perceived competiton
Agency theory
Strengths
Can be used to explain huge events of blind obedience like the holocaust which means its applications are useful because it shows the importance of having a democratic political body with checked power
Holistic because it explains the emotional process that people go through in the agentic shift to explain how people become blindly obedient
Weaknesses
Does not account for individual differences especially culture and personal experience - someone is much less likely to be obedient if they have a personal experience that affects the situation
Milgram's studies does not completely back it up since in Milgram the people who showed moral strain where the ones being obedient which questions the agentic shift
Social identity theory
Strengths
Holistic since it includes the emotional response where people link their self esteem to the group that they are a part of and includes that process within the explanation of prejudice
it is backed up by Tajfels minimal group studies and is well explained by it since it shows how people get connected to groups and need them to lose out to feel as though they were winning making the theory credible
Weaknesses
Does not account for why groups that are not relevant to each other hold prejudice towards each other - for example it explains why two rival football teams hold prejudice but not why say a football team and cricket team hold prejudice against each other
It does not explain how different personalities may affect peoples prejudice towards others and how some may have a heightened sense of prejudice whilst others have a lower sense.
Social impact theory
Strengths
Explain the way the different situational factors affect obedience so we can predict levels of obedience showed by people dependent on the scenario
Has useful applications like being able to increase day to day obedience towards police in prisons or teachers in schools because they an increase their strength by uniform etc.
Weaknesses
Reductionist because uses an equation to predict obedience which is an extremley complex behaviour since it reduces it all down to an equation and does not include the emotional process within it.
Treats people as passive receptors of orders and does not acknowledge agency or individual characteristics that will affect obedience