social impact theory Flashcards
intro.
Latanē proposed a theory of social impact as being a model that conceives of influence from other people as being the result of social forces. It predicts that obedience will increase with increasing strength, immediacy and the number of influence in a group.
social forces and targets
P- The likelihood that a person will respond to social influence will increase with: strength (how much power you believe the person influencing you has), Immediacy (how recent the influence is from a minute ago in person, to an email sent last week) and numbers (the more people putting pressure on you to do something, the more social force they will have.
E- In Milgram’s variation 7, he wanted to test whether the relationship between the ppt and experimenter would have consequences on obedience, by having the experimenter speak to him through a phone in a different room, decreasing the proximity. Results showed how obedience rates fell to only 9/40 ppts complying to the 450v, concluding the less proximity, the easier it is to resist the experimenter.
E- Milgram used the same procedure in all studies, so ant change in result would be as a result of changing the Iv, allowing us to establish and easy causal relationship, increasing internal validity.
Psychosocial law
P- This principle specifies to nature of the relation between the size of a group and its social influence. It predicts that as the number of social forces increases, overall social influence also increases, but at a declining rate.
E- Berkowitz, Bickman and Milgram (1969) conducted a study that demonstrates this reduction in social impact. Between 1-15 confederates congregated on the street and looked up at the sixth floor of a building. Videos were analysed and number of passers by who stopped were counted. They found increasing the. number of confederates did increase the number of passers by imitating their actions, however grew smaller relative to the size of confederates beyond a certain level.
E- This is a reliable study as it was video recorded and analysed. Therefore it can be rewatched and looked over my multiple different researchers, increasing inter-rater reliability. however is not certain in predicting what might happen when two equal groups impact on one another, therefore isn’t able to apply to all cases.
multiplication vs division of impact
P- this principle states suggests that the number of targets who are influenced affects the impact on the source.
E- Latanē (1981) gives a number of examples of social impact. an interesting one involves Billy Graham (US Christian televangelist). His hypothesis was that billy Graham would make more converts in front of small audiences. Latanē researched the numbers of people who responded to Grahams appeal for converts and found that with smaller audiences, people were more willing to sign cards allowing local vicars to contact them later, demonstrating devision of impact.
E- social impact pays a lot of attention to the characteristics of the person giving the orders but not so much the person receiving them, for example there may be personality types that are particularly compliant or rebellious, therefore decreasing external validity of this research due to the effect of individual differences.
conc.
The model is reductionist as it does not take into account other explanations of obedience. For example, social learning theory would suggest that we become obedient through imitating our parents obedience. therefore can only be seen as a partial explanation of obedience. However this theory has useful predictive power due to the mathematical formula of I = f (SIN). therefore more accurate predictions can be made to help society control members in society in terms of obedience, giving predictive validity.
strength
status, legitimacy of authority and age.
The strength of impact is greatest when the person is seen as an expert- e.g dressed in a lab coat.
immediacy
proximity and distance.
impact is also greatest when there is physical proximity between the source and the target but also immediacy in the relationship such as an instruction being given by a friend rather than a stranger.
number
number of sources (people who provide the influence, making you follow orders) and targets (those who are influenced, following the orders).
Impact of the instruction is greater if a lot of people are in agreement as it would lead to change in attitude in an individual. or impact of instruction is greater if there is a smaller number of targets.
Latanē’s equation to work out the social impact
I = f (SIN)
