social impact theory - social

• what does it suggest we are influenced by

  the actions of others and their behaviour
• what is a source


  the person doing the influencing
• what is a target


  the person being influenced
• what did latane develop

  social forces - formulations of different principles that result in more or less social influence being exerted in the target
• what are the three social forces

  strength, immediacy, number
• what is strength

  the perceived power/authority of the source and the messages they convey
• what can strength be affected by

  the socio-economic status, age, and nature of past of future relationships with the target
• what is immediacy


  the closeness of the source and target in terms of space and time
• what can immediacy be affected by

  physical of psychological barriers to communication
• what is number


  how many sources are present
• what is the psychosocial law

  S I N can have a multiplicative effect on the target and as the SIN of the sources increase, so does the social impact they can have on a target - but only up to a certain point
• what is division of impact stating

  there is a divisional effect of social impact
• what does division of impact rule

  the number of targets to be influenced affects the impact of the source - one source has less impact when trying to impact numerous targets
• what is division of impact seen in

  one of Milgram's variations - 2 peers rebelled against the instructor
• evidence for SIT


  Milgram's variations eg number 7 when instructions were given over the phone obedience dropped as immediacy was further
• what does this evidence give credibility to

  immediacy being an important factor in obedience
• evidence against SIT


  Hoflings (hospital nurses given instructions) ppts were directed over the phone but obedience was still very high which suggests immediacy doesn't have much impact
• counter argument for this point

  the strength of the source was very high which would have also affected obedience
• application


  can support destructive obedience in an everyday setting

  . can be applied to understand how people enhance their social influence eg politicians may aim to increase their influence by adopting strong and positive communication, reaching people face to face, and addressing smaller groups
• shortcomings


  ignores role of individual differences

  . elements of theory are difficult to measure and can be considered hypothetical so the whole study can be considered a hypothetical construct

  . doesn't take into account the role of nature and nurture - reductionist
• strengths


  scientific - allows us to objectively measure and quantify factors which are important in obedience (SIN) - these variables can be manipulated to predict what obedience levels will be like in different situations
• alternative theory

  . agency theory better than SIT at explaining obedience to an instruction that goes against their conscience

  .