social impact theory essay plan

• social impact theory AO1

  . we are influenced by the actions of others, their behaviour, and how we feel and act in response

  . source = person doing the influencing

  . target = person being influenced

  . there are social forces which affect the social influence exerted:

  - strength = the perceived power of sources and their messages, affected by age, status and relationships between source and target

  - immediacy = the closeness of the source in terms of space and time, affected by physical or psychological barriers to communication

  - number = how many sources are present

  . the psychosocial law says that the SIN can have a multiplicative effect on the target - as it increases so does the social impact they have

  . division of impact = the No of targets being influenced affects the impact of the source - the more targets the weaker the impact
• social impact theory AO3 strength

  . scientific

  . allows us to objectively measure and quantify factors which are important to obedience, allows us to manipulate these values to predict obedience = allows empirical testing and more reliable conclusions

  . CA: giving variables a 'scale' may oversimplify them and their effect as there may be other factors within them that would influence someone's behaviour

  . So What: despite this, the objective measures allow replicability and so higher reliability meaning the theory can be applied to situations and provide an empirical approach to studying obedience
• social impact theory AO3 weakness

  evidence

  . Hoflings experiment where nurses were given instructions to give a very large does of medication to a patient over the phone but obedience was still high = says immediacy doesn't impact obedience = goes against theory

  .CA = strength of source was strong which may have outweighed impact of immediacy

  . So What: still shows how individual factors may not affect obedience so goes against Lanates principles affecting social influence = doesn't support theory