05. Social Impact Theory

Question 1

What can social impact theory be applied to?

Answer 1

Social impact theory can be applied to obedience, but looks in general at the functioning of individuals in the presence of others, not obedience specifically.

Question 2

Who came up with social impact theory?

Answer 2

Latane (1981)

Question 3

What is group polarisation?

Answer 3

When the ideas and attitudes of a group tend to be more extreme than those of the individuals in the group.

Question 4

What did Latane find that social force is a combination of?

Answer 4

-Strength
-Immediacy
-Number

(The likelihood someone will respond to social influence will increase with these three elements)

Question 5

What did Latane argue that every person is? (Potentially both at once)

Answer 5

-A source (legitimate authority)
OR
-A target (person receiving order)

Question 6

What mathematical formula can be used to calculate the likelihood that a person will respond to social influence?

Answer 6

Impact= f(SIN)

Social impact is a function of Strength x Immediacy x Number of sources

Question 7

Define strength (S)

Answer 7

How much power you believe the person influencing you has and the power of the message they convey. (Eg status, authority, age, charisma)

Such as: Milgram’s ordinary man variation.
Lab coat cements authority.

Question 8

Define immediacy (I)

Answer 8

How close the source is to the target, eg how close the group are to you at the time or the influence attempt. Physical or psychological factors will affect immediacy (proximity, or close friend vs stranger).

Such as: Milgram’s telephone instruction variation.
Experimenter in room exerts more authority.

Question 9

Define number (N)

Answer 9

How many sources are present during the interaction, eg number of people there are in the group, will determine the level of human interaction.

Question 10

What is the multiplicative effect?

Answer 10

Latane uses it to explain how increasing the strength, immediacy and number of sources can significantly increase the social impact.

Question 11

What is the law of diminishing returns?

Answer 11

Latane suggests that once the source group is larger than 3, each additional person has less of an influencing effect.

Question 12

What are divisional effects?

Answer 12

They occur when there are more targets than sources and it is predicted that there would be lower obedience as the impact is divided by the number of targets.

They explain the idea that social impact is reduced if there are more targets than there are sources- the impact is divided by the number of targets and therefore the impact on each person is diminished.

This is represented by a different formula:
Impact on target=
f(1/SIN)

Question 13

Define diffusion of responsibility.

Answer 13

A person is less likely to take responsibility for an action in the presence of a group.

Question 14

Define bystander effect.

Answer 14

Where individuals do not offer help to a victim when other people are present.

Question 15

Describe the supporting research for social impact theory- Sedikides and Jackson (1990)

Answer 15

Investigated in a field experiment at NY zoo how obedient visitors would be when told not to lean on the railings.

Strength- Found obedience declined from 58% when a zoo keeper gave order compared with 35% when dressed as an ordinary person.

Immediacy- Obedience was 61% when person was in same room yet 7% when visitors went into an adjacent room.

Divisional effect was tested on different group sizes. 1 or 2 visitors showed 60% obedience compared with only 14% when there were 5 or 6 visitors in a group.

Question 16

Describe the refuting research, Hofling et al (1966).

Answer 16

Hospital field study, found that nurses prepared to follow orders on the phone from a confederate doctor to administer an overdose of a drug to patients which were not on approved list.
95% started to administer the drug (they were prevented from doing so). Hence although the doctor was not immediately present (immediacy was low) the nurses obeyed without question.

Question 17

Describe research that can support the law of diminishing returns (Berkowitz, Bickman and Milgram, 1969)

Answer 17

Between 1 and 15 confederates (sources) congregated on the street and craned their necks to look up at the sixth floor of the university building.

Results: Number of passers-by (measure of impact) who stopped and craned their necks to look up were recorded by Milgram. Increasing the number of confederates craning their neck (N) increases the number of passers-by (measure of impact) who imitated their actions.

Conclusion: The effect of higher N eventually levels off as the number of passers-by (impact) who stopped to look, grew smaller, relative to the size of the confederate group (N).

Question 18

Describe research that can support divisional effects (Latane and Darley, 1968)

Answer 18

Stated a lone person is more likely to help someone in need compared to a group of people as there is a diffusion of responsibility.

Two conditions:
-In alone conditions, 85% of participants went out and reported the seizure.
-When there were 4 bystanders, only 31% reported the seizure.

This shows that the more targets there were the less the impact, as people are more likely to help if there is no one else around (bystander effect).

Question 19

Describe research from Milgram’s variation studies that can be used to support divisional effects.

Answer 19

Milgram repeated original procedure but added 2 confederates into room with the teacher, who were ordered to refuse to continue with the experiment.

Results:
-One confederate stopped at 150V and the second at 210V
-Obedience rates drops from 65% to 10%

Shows we are effected by other individuals around us as opposed to when we are on our own (divisional effect).

Question 20

How can social impact theory be usefully applied?

Answer 20

The US Christian Evangelist Billy Graham. Hypothesis was Billy Graham would make more converts in front of smaller audiences. Latane researched the number of people who responded to Graham’s appeal for converts and found that when audiences were small, people were more willing to sign cards allowing local vicars to contact them later. This demonstrates diffusion of responsibility.

Question 21

How can social impact theory be negatively applied?

Answer 21

Could be used to prevent people from expressing themselves freelu (eg Hong Kong riots) by using excessive force to over power the number of protestors.

(Mai Lai massacre)