social impact

• What is the social impact theory ?

  
  

  States that social force changes peoples behaviour. Social force is made up of strength-power of person influencing , immediacy-how close person is to you and numbers- more sources putting pressure on the targets.

  Force is increased if it is directed at a single person putting pressure on them to obey which is known as diffusion of responsibility where the more targets the less influence there is.
• Supporting evidence for social impact theory

  Sedikides and Jackson 1990 field experiment in a zoo asking visitors to not lead on railing, obedience failed when dressed in a t shirt and shorts. This demonstrates varying Social Force, in particular S(Strength) because of the perceived authority of the confederate.

  Additionally, as time passed less more visitors started to ignore orders and lean on the railing because as the instruction gets less immediate it has less impact.
• Conflicting evidence for social impact theory

  Hofling- A doctor phones 22 nurses to overdose a drug that wasn't on the ward list and found 95% succeed. The source was absent but yet didn't make a difference in obedience
• Application of social impact theory

  Can be applied to politics gaining influence on voters- if the political leader speaks to a smaller group of targets the influencing effect will be larger especially considering if they work alone to combat the law of diminishing returns.

  Therefore, social impact theory can be applied to real life situations to encourage obedience in large groups of people that may benefit political campaigns