obedience: social impact theory Flashcards
who came up with the idea of social impact theory?
Latane
define what is meant by ‘social impact’
This refers only to the effect that real or imagined people can have on our behaviour. The person doing the influencing is the ‘influence’ and the people who are influenced are the ‘targets’.
What are the three social forces?
Strength, immediacy, and numbers.
How is social force created?
It’s generated by persuasion, threat, humour, embarrassment and other influences.
Define strength in SIMPT
How much power you believe the person influencing you has. For example, if the person has rank in an organisation, their orders will have more strength.
Define immediacy in SIMPT
How recent the influence is and how close to you, from an order a minute ago from you boss standing right next to you (very immediate) to an email you received from your boss last week (not very immediate)
Define numbers in SIMPT
The more people who put pressure on you to do something, the more social force they will have. For example, in Milgram’s study and variations he found that obedience was lower when the authority figure was absent (#7) or was perceived to have less strength (#13). Latane also suggests a mathematical equation to work out social impact (i) in situations, i = f (SIN) where S, I, and N are strength, immediacy and numbers.
What is meant by psychosocial law?
The idea that the first source of influence has the most dramatic impact on people, but that the second, third, fourth, etc sources generate less and less social force.
What is meant by the divisions of impact?
Social force is spread out between all the people it is directed at. If all the force is directed at a single person, that puts a huge pressure on them to conform or obey. By if the force is directed at two people, they only experience half as much pressure each (diffusion of responsibility: feeling less personal responsibility when there are multiple people). Latane’s equation for this: i = f (1/SIN)
What are the two types of impact?
Multiplication of impact and division of impact
What is meant by multiplication of impact?
The size of the sources indicates the strength of the source. The closeness to the target indicates immediacy. The number of rings around target shows the amount of influence exerted. All created by the three social forces.
What is meant by division of impact?
The source has reduced effect because the impact is now divided between several targets. The closer the tiger to the source, the less influence because of the target’s impact on the source.
Supporting evidence of SIMPT: Bassett & Latane
They found that participants would assign nearby fictitious vents in a newspaper more columns inches than faraway events, supporting immediacy as a factor affecting obedience.
Supporting evidence of SIMPT: Milgram, Bickman & Berkowitz
They showed passers-by would crane their neck and gawk as more confederates looked up to a sixty-floor window, showing that number of sources could affect obedience.
Supporting evidence of SIMPT: Sedikides & Jackson
Conducted a field experiment at a New York Zoo where visitors were asked not to lean on a railing. Researchers manipulated the strength of the source by dressing a confederate either as a zookeeper (58% obedience) or in a T-shirt and shorts (35% obedience). Obedience also declined when visitors were further away from the person making the request (61% when in same room, 7% in an adjacent room) - tests immediacy. Divisional effect was also tested - obedience was greater in a smaller group of one or two visitors (fewer targets, 60%) compared with a group of five or six (more targets, 14%)
