Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Social Impact Theory - Coggle Diagram
Social Impact Theory
3 laws of behavior: Social force leads to social impact, Psychosocial law and Divisions of impact. Latane states that every person is potentially a source or a target of social influence. The source is the person influencing the target and the target is the one being influenced.
One effect of Social impact theory is Group Polarization. This is where an individual becomes more extreme in their views due to the fact that other people also have the same views. This influences them into believing they are correct in those views and therefore the overall group views become more extreme.
-
-
Social impact theory can be applied to any social behavior as it looks into the functioning of individuals in the presence of others.
Social force leads to Social impact. This is a pressure that gets put on people to change their behavior- if it succeeds it is Social Impact.
Social force is generated by persuasion, threat and other behaviors. This is made up of 3 things.
Numbers: The more amount of sources there are, the bigger impact and social force they will have on the target.
-
-
Social impact i is dependent on the function f, strength of the source S, immediacy of the source I and the number of people N
-
The idea that the first source of influence has the most dramatic impact on people, but the third, fourth and so on have less and less force.
One teacher giving an order generates a lot of social force, but if resisted, bringing a second and third teacher to repeat the order doesn't double or triple the social force. Being watched by 1 person makes you awkward, but being watched by 2 people doesn't double the awkwardness.
-
Social force gets spread out between all the people its directed at. If all the force is directed at one single person, that puts a huge pressure on them to obey- But if the force is directed at 2 people, they only experienced half the pressure.
This is called diffusion of responsibility. The more people there is, the less personal responsibility each person will feel.
SUPPORT: Milgram's research into obedience. He found that obedience rates were higher when the authority figure (S) issued commands in the same room (I) with only one target present (N) than when the authority was in a separate room.
OBJECTIONS: Pays a lot of attention to certain characteristics of the source, but not the target. There may be certain personality types that are more compliant than others. And immediacy is not important- Hofling et al (1966) did an experiment on 22 nurses working in hospitals, receiving a phone call from a 'Doctor' instructing them to give 20mg of Astrofen to a patient when the pills box stated a daily dosage of 10mg. 21 complied without hesitation. The doctor was not immediately present yet still had an affect on them.
DIFFERENT: Agency theory- Milgram's theory is very different compared to Social impact theory. He suggests we have evolved to go into an obedient state around anyone we recognize as authority. SIT suggests some of the features of agency theory like the strength is important but other situational factors don't.
APPLICATION: Political leaders increasing their influence by adopting a strong and persuasive style of communication, aiming to reach voters by face to face conversations and addressing smaller groups rather than large crowds.