Obedience: Social Impact Theory Flashcards
What are the main priniciples of Social Impact Theory?
Sources and Targets
Strength, Immediacy and Number
Multiplicative and Divisional Effect
The Law of Diminishing Returns
Who developed the Social Impact Theory?
Latané (1981)
What is a source?
The person doing the influencing
E.g. the police controlling a crowd
What is a target?
The person being influenced
E.g. the crowd
What is the formula that Latané used to represent his theory?
Impact on the target = f(SIN)
Social impact is a function of strength (S) multiplied by immediacy (I) and number (N)
What does strength mean in relation to the social impact theory?
Strength is the perceived power of the source and the messages that they convey.
What does immediacy mean in relation to the social impact theory?
Closeness of the source and the target in terms of space and time.
What does number mean in relation to the social impact theory?
How many sources are present during the interaction
What is the multiplicative effect explained by?
The lightbulb effect, the brightness is affected by:
The strength of the bulb (100 watts compared to 70 watts), how far away the bulb is away from the wall (immediacy) and the number of bulbs.
How is social impact reduced using the divisional effect?
Social impact is reduced if there are more targets than sources (impact is divided by number of targets so the impact on each person is reduced:
Impact on target = f(1/SIN)
What is the law of diminishing returns?
When the source group is bigger than three it has lessening influence.
In a source group bigger than 3, each additional person has less of an influencing effect.
Latané didn’t mean that a group of 53 people would be less powerful than a group of three - instead, adding the 53rd person to a group of 52 has less an impact than adding a third person to a group of 2.
What is a strength of the social impact theory?
It is supported by research evidence.
Sedikides & Jackson (1990) zoo study.
They studied zoo visitors and their response to being told not to lean on a railing. Testing the strength, immediacy and the divisional effect (size of the visitor group).
58% obedience when source dressed as a zoo keeper compared to 35% when dressed in a t shirt and shorts.
61% obedience when in the same room compared to 7% in a different room.
60% when in groups of two or three compared to 14% in groups of five or six.
Who found that immediacy may not be key in social impact (weakness of the theory)?
Hofling et al (1966)
They arranged for an unknown doctor to telephone 22 nurses and ask them to administer an overdose of an unknown drug.
95% of the nurses obeyed even though the doctor was not present.
How can social impact be applied to the real world?
Political leaders could increase their influence using strength, immediacy and number.
Strength - adopt a strong and persuasive persona.
Immediacy - connect with voters face to face rather than tv.
Number - address smaller groups rather than large crowds to avoid divisional effect.
