Social impact theory Flashcards
(14 cards)
What is the basic principle of SIT?
Why some people conform to normative pressure
What is normative pressure?
The influence of others that makes us act like them to be accepted by them
What are the three factors which affect the likelihood to conform?
Strength, immediacy and number
Who is the ‘target’?
The person being influenced
Who is the ‘source’?
The influencer
What is strength?
How close the relationship is between them
What is immediacy
How physically close they are
What is number?
How many targets and sources there are
What is the multiplicative effect?
Explains how increasing strength, immediacy and number can increase social impact significantly - but there is a limit to this
What is law of diminishing returns?
Limit of impact of sources - e.g adding 1 person to a group of 3 is more impactful than adding 1 person to a group of 1000
What is division of impact?
The number of targets that need to be influenced affects how impactful the source is - impact is divided between the group so each individual feels less responsible to do something
What did Latane and Darley find?
One lone person was more likely to help someone in need compared to a group of people - authority figure has a diminished capacity to influence someone if they had a group of allies
Strengths
- Research evidence - Latane and Darley - one person more likely to help someone in need than a group of people
- Application - useful for deciding how many students should be in a classroom to create biggest impact on their education
Weakness
- Validity - research shows that immediacy doesn’t have as great an impact as strength or number - Hofling - unknown doctor gave instructions to a nurse which asked her to administer a lethal dose of a drug to a patient - even though immediacy was low, 90% nurses still obeyed
