Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Social Impact Theory (Latane) - Coggle Diagram
Social Impact Theory (Latane)
Obedience is due to 3 reasons
Immediacy
When the source is immediate and there are no barriers, obedience is greater; telephone call would reduce obedience like in Milgram's
Numbers
The more people there are affecting the target individual, the more likely for them to obey. However this may be reduced by the law of diminishing returns.
Strength
The more 'powerful' or 'prestigious' the authority figure(s) is seen the more likely they'll be obeyed
Strengths
It has supporting evidence
Milgram's study.
Immediacy = in the telephone variation (variation 7), obedience dropped from 65% to 22%, showing that the physical absence of the authority figure significantly reduces obedience
This suggests SIT is valid explanation of obedience.
It's applicable
The formula i = f(SIN) can be used by the police to predict the level of impact created by social force eg. the impact the immediacy and number of uniformed police officers would have compared to plain clothed officers at a football riot
Therefore SIT is useful to society in increasing obedience to reduce violence
Weaknesses
There are contradicting theories
Agency theory contradicts SIT because it suggests that obedience is influenced by individuals switching from the autonomous state to the agentic state in order to avoid moral strain to avoid taking responsibility for behaviour
This lowers the validity of the theory as there are alternate explanations
It's reductionist because it ignores the role of individual differences in obedience
Eg. Authoritarian personality trait suggests that those higher on this scale are more likely to obey
Therefore SIT is reductionist as it reduces obedience down to situational factors, ignoring personality, so its less valid