Enculturation
IB Psychology· Sociocultural approach· 14 min read
1. Core concept
Enculturation is the process of learning and absorbing the norms, values and behaviours of your OWN (first) culture as you grow up. It happens largely through observation and imitation of the people around you — parents, elders, peers — often without any formal teaching. Through it, children come to share the expectations of their culture, from everyday manners to gender roles. It is how a culture is passed from one generation to the next.
2. Key studies
IB Psychology answers must be supported by named studies. Learn these to cite as evidence:
Odden and Rochat (2004)
Years of fieldwork in a Samoan village found that children acquired complex skills and social knowledge mainly by observing adults, with little or no direct instruction. — Shows enculturation working through observational learning — children absorb their own culture's practices largely by watching.
Gockeritz, Schmidt, and Tomasello (2014)
Five-year-olds not only learned arbitrary new social norms but transmitted them to others and treated them as binding. — Shows the transmission side of enculturation — children take on their culture's norms and actively pass them on.
3. Evaluation (AO3)
Strength — naturalistic, cross-cultural evidence — In-context fieldwork shows enculturation as it really happens, and the same observational learning appears across very different cultures.
Limitation — hard to isolate — Enculturation overlaps with biological maturation and with deliberate teaching, so it is difficult to prove that observation alone produced a given behaviour.
4. Scope
5. Common Pitfalls
Wrong move:
Enculturation and acculturation are the same thing, and their research can be used interchangeably.
Why:
A frequently penalised misconception in IB Psychology exams.
Correct move:
Enculturation = absorbing your OWN/first culture (usually in childhood). Acculturation = changing after contact with a DIFFERENT/second culture (e.g. after migrating). Use enculturation studies only for enculturation questions.
Going deeper
- Models of acculturationacculturation is the contrasting process (change after contact with a new culture) and is routinely confused with enculturation (SOC_8).
- Social learning theorythe observation-and-imitation mechanism behind enculturation is social learning theory (SOC_10).