This is a compulsory theory so everyone learns it and the Examiner will expect you to know it in detail. While the Exam could ask general questions about the theory's ideas or evaluation, it could also ask specific questions, like, How does Social Impact explain genocide? or, What explanations does Social Impact Theory give of rioting? or, How can Social Impact Theory be used to make students obey their teachers? Make sure you can explain the STRENGTHS of this theory as well as the weaknesses.

KEY TERMS

Divisions of Impact

Psychosocial Law

S.I.N.

Social Force

Source

Target

LATANÉ (1981)
SOCIAL IMPACT THEORY EXPLAINS OBEDIENCE

This theory was developed by Bibb Latané (pronounced lah-tah-nay), an American psychologist who carried out famous studies into bystander apathy.

The theory is an attempt to produce an underlying law that explains a whole set of studies from the ‘60s and ‘70s, including Milgram and Tajfel, into how people conform to the group they are in, follow leaders and imitate each other.

This theory is significant for students in other ways:

• It underlies Milgram’s obedience study, which is a mandatory study for the Social Approach.
• It expands on Social Identity Theory, which suggests that people instinctively fall into ingroups and react negatively towards outgroups.
• It illustrates features of the Social Approach, since it shows how decisions that people think are personal to them are actually expressions of their group identity and social pressures
• It ties in to your Key Question in Social Psychology, since it helps explain prejudice and how to reduce it
  

THREE LAWS OF BEHAVIOUR

Latané argues that every person is potentially a “source” or a “target” of social influence – sometimes both at once. He thinks there are three rules or laws at work.

1. Social Force

This is a pressure that gets put on people to change their behaviour – if it succeeds, that is Social Impact. Social force is generated by persuasion, threat, humour, embarrassment and other influences. Social force is made up of Strength, Immediacy and Numbers:

1. Strength: This is how much power you believe the person influencing you has. For example, if the person has rank in an organisation, their orders will have more Strength
2. Immediacy: This is how recent the influence is and how close to you, from an order a minute ago from your boss standing right next to you (very immediate) to an email you received from your boss last week (not very immediate)
3. Numbers: The more people putting pressure on you to do something, the more social force they will have

• Notice how this applies to Milgram’s study and variations. Milgram also found obedience was lower when the authority figure was absent (variation #7) or was perceived to have less strength (variation #13)
• Latané suggests a mathematic equation to work out the Social Impact (i) in any situation. This is i = f (SIN) where S, I and N are Strength, Immediacy and Numbers.

2. Psychosocial Law

This is the idea that the first source of influence has the most dramatic impact on people, but that the second, third, fourth, etc sources generate less and less Social Force. For example, being watched by one other person can make you feel awkward, but being watched by two doesn’t make you twice as awkward. Increasing the audience to a hundred or even a thousand doesn’t increase the sense of pressure by as much as you would think.

• The same applies to authority figures. One teacher giving you an order generates a lot of Social Force but, if you resist, bringing in a second and a third teacher to repeat the order doesn’t double or triple the Social Force; bringing in the entire school staff won’t be all that effective.

3. Divisions of Impact

Social Force gets spread out between all the people it is directed at. If all the Force is directed at a single person, that puts a huge pressure on them to conform or obey. But if the Force is directed at two people, they only experience half as much pressure each. If there are ten of them, they only feel one tenth of the pressure.

• This is known as diffusion of responsibility – the more of you there are, the less personal responsibility each of you will feel.
• This applies to Milgram too because his other variations showed how obedience went down when the participant had a rebellious partner.
• Latané has an equation for this too: i = f (1/SIN)

RESEARCH INTO SOCIAL IMPACT THEORY
The findings of studies

Latané (1981) gives a number of examples of Social Impact. An interesting one involves the US Christian televangelist Billy Graham (see left). The hypothesis was that Billy Graham would make more converts in front of small audiences. Latané researched the numbers of people who responded to Graham's appeal for converts and found that when the audiences were small, people were more willing to sign cards allowing local vicars to contact them later. This demonstrates divisions of impact (also known as diffusion of responsibility).

Sedikides & Jackson (1990) carried out a field experiment in the bird house at a zoo. A confederate told groups of visitors not to lean on the railings near the bird cages. The visitors were then observed to see if they obeyed.

If the confederate was dressed in the uniform of a zookeeper, obedience was high, but if he was dressed casually, it was lower. This demonstrates varying Social Force, in particular S (Strength) because of the perceived authority of the confederate.

As time passed, more visitors started ignoring the instruction not to lean on the railing. This also shows Social Force, especially I (Immediacy), because as the instruction gets less immediate it has less impact.

Divisions of impact were also studied. Some visitors were alone but others were in groups of up to 6. The larger the group size, the more disobedience was observed.

APPLYING SOCIAL IMPACT THEORY (AO2)
Obedience in the real world

Different Kinds of Power

When it comes to obedience, a lot depends on whether you perceive the person giving the orders to be an authority figure or not.

French & Raven (1959) identified different types of authority:
(i) legitimate power (authority figures with high status),
(ii) reward power (those who have money or who can perform favours),
(iii) coercive power (people who can punish you),
(iv) expert power (people seen as knowledgeable), and
(v) referent power (people who belong to groups you respect).

This fits in well with Social Impact Theory because it explains the different reasons why a person’s orders may have Social Force. “Referent Power” also applies to Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory because it shows that orders coming from a member of our ingroup carry more Social Force than orders coming from an outgroup member. This is why a gang member might have more authority over a young boy than a teacher: the teacher has legitimate authority but the gang member might have reward power, coercive power and referent power because he can give the boy favours, he’ll hurt you if you cross him and the boy regards him as his ingroup.

Diffusion of Responsibility

Being part of a large group makes people feel anonymous and this reduces their feelings of responsibility. It might make them less likely to obey orders.

Latané & Darley (1968) carried out a famous experiment into this. Participants sat in booths discussing health issues over an intercom. One of the speakers was a confederate who would pretend to have a heart attack. If there was only one other participant, they went for help 85% of the time; this dropped to 62% if there were two other participants and 31% if there were 4+.

No one was giving orders in this study, but the rule “go and get help when someone collapses” is a sort of order that is present all the time in society. Following these sort of social rules is called prosocial behaviour and breaking the rules is antisocial behaviour. Social Impact Theory explains prosocial behaviour as well as obedience.

EVALUATING SOCIAL IMPACT THEORY (AO3)
CODA

Credibility

There’s a growing body of research supporting Social Impact Theory. In addition, the theory also makes sense of a lot of Classic studies from the ‘60s and ‘70s that used to seem unrelated – like Latané & Darley (1968) into diffusion of responsibility, Tajfel (1970) into intergroup discrimination and Milgram (1963) into obedience. In hindsight, all of these studies can be seen as looking at different aspects of Social Impact.

There have been more recent additions to Social Impact Theory. Latané et al. (1996) developed Dynamic Social Impact Theory to pay attention to how minorities and majorities influence each other, such as how people tend to change their views to match the group they are in but why they sometimes “stick to their guns”.

Objections

Social Impact pays a lot of attention to the characteristics of the person giving the orders but not much to the person receiving them. For example, there may be personality types that are particularly compliant (go along with anything) or rebellious. A person may be happy to go along with some sorts of orders but draw the line at others – such as orders that offend them morally or embarrass them socially.

A similar problem is that Social Impact Theory treats people as passive. It proposes that anybody will do anything if the right amount of Social Force is brought to bear on them. However, people sometimes obey orders while at the same time subverting them. An example might be Oskar Schindler who handed Jewish employees over to the Nazis during WWII while secretly helping many others to escape.

Differences

Milgram’s Agency Theory is very simplistic compared to Social Impact Theory. Milgram suggests we have evolved to go into an obedient mental state around anyone we recognise as an authority. There’s not much evidence for this in general. Social Impact Theory suggests many features of Agency Theory are true – that the strength (S) of the authority figure is an important predictor of how obedient someone will be – but there are other situational factors as well, like the numbers of people involved (N) and the immediacy (I) of the orders.

However, Agency Theory explains some things better than Social Impact Theory. For example, in Variation #10, obedience was lower in a run-down office compared to Yale University. Milgram explains this through the prestige of the setting adding to the authority figure’s status, but this is hard for Latané to give a mathematical value to. Similarly, Milgram has an explanation for the shaking and weeping his participants engaged in – moral strain. There’s no discussion of moral strain in Social Impact Theory, which views people as either obeying or disobeying and nothing in between.

Applications

The idea of a mathematical formula to calculate Social Impact is very useful. Latané believes that, if you know the number (N) of people involved and the immediacy (I) of the order and the strength (S) of the authority figure, you can calculate exactly how likely someone is to obey (i) using the formula i = f (SIN). This means you can predict whether laws will be followed, whether riots will break out and whether 9B will do their homework.

The theory suggests if you want to get people to obey, you need to direct Social Force at them when they are in small groups and ideally stop them getting together into large groups. This is why some repressive governments try to stop people using social media and gathering for public meetings. Because orders need to be immediate it is important to repeat them often and put them on signs, TV adverts and regular announcements.

EXEMPLAR ESSAY
How to write a 8-mark answer

Evaluate Social Impact Theory as an explanation of obedience. (8 marks)

• A 8-mark “evaluate” question awards 4 marks for AO1 (Describe) and 4 marks for AO3 (Evaluate).

Social Impact Theory is credible because studies back it up. (AO1) Sedikides & Jackson who gave orders to visitors at a zoo. Large groups of visitors were more likely to disobey, which shows division of impact.

The mathematical formula has a clear application. You could use it to work out exactly how likely someone is to disobey in any situation. (AO1) The formula i = f (SIN) can be used so long as you know how many people (N) are involved.

Social Impact Theory is much more complex than Agency Theory.  (AO1) It includes the different sorts of authority suggested by French & Raven, such a referent authority.

However, Agency Theory includes some things that Social Impact Theory ignores, such as moral strain. (AO1) Milgram explains why his participants cried and fainted, but Social Impact Theory only looks at how likely people are to obey, not how they feel about it.

Conclusion
Social Impact is a theory that covers a lot more than just obedience. It also explains diffusion of responsibility. This makes it a bit of a vague theory. It’s not a theory of obedience in particular, unlike Agency Theory.

Apply Social Impact Theory.

• A 4-mark “apply” question awards 4 marks for AO2 (Application) and gives you a piece of stimulus material. There's no need for a conclusion.

Derek wants to impress the bigger boys in his gang. He brings a knife to school to show to Troy and Vincent. His form teacher, Miss Earnest, spots the cigarettes in Derek’s pocket and tells him to hand them in. Troy and Vincent are in the classroom and Derek refuses. The other students wait to see what Miss Earnest will do next.

Using your knowledge of psychology, explain Derek’s behaviour and what Miss Earnest can do to make him follow her instruction. (4 marks)

Social Impact Theory would explain why Derek disobeys. It is because Miss Earnest has legitimate authority (according to French & Raven) but Troy and Vincent have referent authority (they are part of Derek’s ingroup) which cancels that out.

Miss Earnest needs to increase her strength (S). She could threaten to punish Derek (which is coercive authority) and to reward him if he obeys her (which is reward authority). She could explain to him about the dangers of knives (which might give her knowledge authority).