Key Issue
For the key issue you had a choice of issues including:
One example of presenting a key issue is shown below. You must ensure you can describe the issue as well as explain it using your knowledge from social psychology.
One key issue from social psychology is understanding why people obey to inflict harm to others in war situations.
The Rwanda genocide occurred between April and June 1994 and resulted in the death of 800,000 Rwandans in 100 days. Those who were killed were mostly Tutsis – killed by the Hutus. The genocide was sparked when the Rwandan president, a Hutu, was killed when his plane was shot down. A French judge blamed the attack on the leader of the Tutsi rebel group, which he strongly denied. However within hours violence began across the city and did not end until 3 months later.
This key issue is important to understand in society to help prevent situations such as this from happening again.
Explaining the issue
Agency theory can explain why this atrocity occurred. The Hutus and the Tutsis would have had recognised leaders who would have been ordering the actions such as the killing of the rival tribe. This means that many of the Rwandans would have seen these leaders as their authority figure and been in the agentic state where they simply followed the orders. They may have experienced moral strain and felt uncomfortable carrying out the actions, however done so as they believed it was for the greater good, e.g. the Hutus may have believed they were doing the right thing to seek revenge for the death of their president.
Social Identity Theory can also explain this behaviour. Both groups would have been categorised into an in group and seen the other tribe as their out group. There were also some differences in identity between the Hutus and the Tutsis, and each had identity cards to show which tribe they belonged to. In order to make their own group look better they would have wanted to put down the other tribe, this is social comparison, and in this key issue lead to violence and death.
Evidence to support agency theory comes from Milgram who found 65% of pp’s would give shocks to another person when ordered to do so. This relates to how the Hutus may have followed orders of a tribe leader to harm the Tutsis. However this study was a lab experiment, and may not relate to real life situations such as Rwanda, as pp’s may guess that in an experiment shocks are not real and therefore may have only have given the shocks because of demand characteristics.
Evidence to support SIT comes from Sherif who found that when groups of boys at summer camp found out about another group, prejudice occurred, resulting in name calling. This became discriminatory when they met in competition, with the Rattlers burning the Eagles flag. This study has high ecological validity as it was a field experiment and the boys did not know they were in an experiment so acted naturally. This relates to Rwanda as it shows that when two groups exist alongside each other prejudice and discrimination occurs.
However, a weakness of SIT is that it states simply belonging to a group leads to prejudice and that many groups can live alongside each other in harmony. In this case violence could be due to the realistic conflict theory. The Hutus and the Tutsis had a long running conflict, which fits into this explanation that suggests prejudice occurs when there is competition.
SIT also provides a solution to conflict between the two groups. The common in group identity model suggests that by forming one big in group with a common goal, conflict can be reduced. This could be done in Rwanda by ensuring a president for both tribes is elected, and that the tribes join together as one group.
For the key issue you had a choice of issues including:
- The Rwandan Genocide
- Abu Ghraib
- Jonestown
- Football hooliganism
- My Lai Massacre
One example of presenting a key issue is shown below. You must ensure you can describe the issue as well as explain it using your knowledge from social psychology.
One key issue from social psychology is understanding why people obey to inflict harm to others in war situations.
The Rwanda genocide occurred between April and June 1994 and resulted in the death of 800,000 Rwandans in 100 days. Those who were killed were mostly Tutsis – killed by the Hutus. The genocide was sparked when the Rwandan president, a Hutu, was killed when his plane was shot down. A French judge blamed the attack on the leader of the Tutsi rebel group, which he strongly denied. However within hours violence began across the city and did not end until 3 months later.
This key issue is important to understand in society to help prevent situations such as this from happening again.
Explaining the issue
Agency theory can explain why this atrocity occurred. The Hutus and the Tutsis would have had recognised leaders who would have been ordering the actions such as the killing of the rival tribe. This means that many of the Rwandans would have seen these leaders as their authority figure and been in the agentic state where they simply followed the orders. They may have experienced moral strain and felt uncomfortable carrying out the actions, however done so as they believed it was for the greater good, e.g. the Hutus may have believed they were doing the right thing to seek revenge for the death of their president.
Social Identity Theory can also explain this behaviour. Both groups would have been categorised into an in group and seen the other tribe as their out group. There were also some differences in identity between the Hutus and the Tutsis, and each had identity cards to show which tribe they belonged to. In order to make their own group look better they would have wanted to put down the other tribe, this is social comparison, and in this key issue lead to violence and death.
Evidence to support agency theory comes from Milgram who found 65% of pp’s would give shocks to another person when ordered to do so. This relates to how the Hutus may have followed orders of a tribe leader to harm the Tutsis. However this study was a lab experiment, and may not relate to real life situations such as Rwanda, as pp’s may guess that in an experiment shocks are not real and therefore may have only have given the shocks because of demand characteristics.
Evidence to support SIT comes from Sherif who found that when groups of boys at summer camp found out about another group, prejudice occurred, resulting in name calling. This became discriminatory when they met in competition, with the Rattlers burning the Eagles flag. This study has high ecological validity as it was a field experiment and the boys did not know they were in an experiment so acted naturally. This relates to Rwanda as it shows that when two groups exist alongside each other prejudice and discrimination occurs.
However, a weakness of SIT is that it states simply belonging to a group leads to prejudice and that many groups can live alongside each other in harmony. In this case violence could be due to the realistic conflict theory. The Hutus and the Tutsis had a long running conflict, which fits into this explanation that suggests prejudice occurs when there is competition.
SIT also provides a solution to conflict between the two groups. The common in group identity model suggests that by forming one big in group with a common goal, conflict can be reduced. This could be done in Rwanda by ensuring a president for both tribes is elected, and that the tribes join together as one group.