Describe social impact theory as an explanation of ...



Describe social impact theory as an explanation of obedience (6)Latane’s social impact theory suggests that levels of social influence in various social situations can be predicted using mathematical equations. He explains that the person doing the influencing, or in the case of obedience, giving the orders, is called the source and the person who is being influenced to carry out the orders is called the target. He says that three features will help to predict whether the target will obey or not. He uses the equation i=f(SIN) to explain this where i - the impact, (whether they obey) is a function of strength multiplied by immediacy multiplied by number. He says sources differ in strength according to how much social power they have for example, they may be seen as an expert. Immediacy refers to how close the targets and source are in terms of times and space and finally number refers to the idea that the more sources there are, the greater the impact. He calls this the multiplicative effect and explains this using the light bulb analogy. He says the higher wattage light bulbs (strength) create a brighter light, when these bulbs are placed nearer to the wall, the light projected will be more intense as they move away they will become dimmer, (immediacy) and he says that if you add more bulbs (number) the overall light will be brighter. However he also talks about the “law of diminishing returns” saying that as numbers increase beyond a certain level the percentage difference in impact decreases. Finally he refers to the divisional effect, saying that the influence of a source is shared out between the number of targets and therefore one source will have a greater impact when there is only one target but when there are five targets for example, the impact is diffused amongst the group.Evaluate social impact theory as an explanation of obedience (6)One strength of social impact theory as an explanation of obedience is that it successfully explains the results of Milgram’s studies where by the experimenter Mr Williams (the source) brought about high levels of impact (obedience) in the participants due to his strength as a legitimate member staff at Yale (expert) however when strength was reduced (as in variation 10 the rundown office building and also when an ordinary man acted as the experimenter in variation 13) the impact or level of obedience also went down from 65% to 48% and only 20% respectively. Also in the disobedient stooges variations where the participants believed they were a member of a group of three targets, their level of obedience was reduced when the other “teachers” refused to continue. Latane’s theory successfully explains this finding using the divisional effect, i.e. the more targets the less impact. Also in the variation where he reduced the immediacy between the experimenter and the participant by having the orders given over the phone, the level of impact/obedience was also diminished from 65% to 20.5%(22.5% Milgram made a mistake in his own calculations in the 1963 paper!)) as predicted by the theory.Some people such as Orne and Holland would argue that Milgram’s study lacks ecological validity due to the fact that the task was outside of the usual experience of the participants (e.g. giving electric shocks to a stranger was a strange task for them and the unusualness of the request may have affected the level of impact). This means social impact theory may not be as useful in predicting levels of impact in everyday life situations.This said, other research, with greater ecological validity has demonstrated that strength, immediacy and number are important factors in predicting levels of obedience in real life settings. For example the theory is supported by Sedikides and Jackson who demonstrated in their study at the Bronx Zoo that man in a zoo keeper uniform brought about higher levels of compliance with his request not to lean on a railing in the tropical bird house than a man dressed as an ordinary visitor (58% compared with 35%) and this is important because it shows that the strength of the message was affected by the social power held by the source. Similarly, it was observed that obedience to the request declined from 61% when the source was right there with the visitors to only 7% as visitors moved away and into the adjoining “Shore Birds” room, and this is important because it demonstrates that immediacy was also an important factor in predicting obedience. Lastly is was noted that their was less compliance to the requests as the number of visitors in the target group increased e.g. when there was only one or two visitors obedience was 60% whereas when they were in a group of 5-6, obedience was reduced to just 14%, again demonstrating that Latane was correct with regard to his thoughts about the divisional effect. As previously noted this is strong support for the theory as the standardised procedure means the study is replicable although it was conducted in a real life setting (field experiment) and therefore levels of control could not be as strict as in laboratory setting, for example sometimes people did not moved into the expected room. Also, the natural setting of the zoo and the fact the participants do not know they are in study and are covertly observed means that the findings should have greater ecological validity.A further strength of social impact theory is that it accurately predicts research findings that other theories have failed to explain. For example, in Sedikides and Jackson (1990) the they also manipulated the wording used by the source so that he either gave a high strength message (Excuse do not lean on the rail” or a low strength message “Excuse I would like to ask you not to lean on the rail”) and it was found that people were more compliant in the high strength condition. This is in direct contrast with the theory of Psychological Reactance (Brehm, 1966) which states that when people sense that their freedom of choice is threatened, restricted, or eliminated, they will be compelled to engage in behaviours that restore freedom. This theory suggests that, high-strength messages especially when made by high strength authority figures will lead to less compliance than low-strength messages, due to the apparent restriction of personal liberty and although it may explain some experimental findings, such as those presented by Pennebaker and Sanders (1976) who investigated compliance with anti-graffiti signs in public toilets, it seems that reactance theory does not explain behaviour in all situations, especially those where the authority figure is physically present or where there is a probability of his/her imminent return. The addition of immediacy in social impact theory is therefore a strength over reactance theory, which may predict behaviour well but only in some circumstances, and particularly, possibly for only certain individuals, with particular personalities, e.g. high need for personal control.It should be noted that this is a common theme in the range of situational theories of obedience and is a weakness shared with agency theory. Both agency theory and social impact theory failed to predict the behaviour of some of the individuals in Milgram’s studies, where people were for defiant even when the experimenter was immediately present (1963) however it could be argued that these individuals did not perceive the source as a “strong” source, for example the minister who dropped out as XX volts said when one has one’s ultimate authority in God, this trivialises man’s authority, suggesting that for him no human source would compel him to go against what he felt was morally wrong as the source simply was not perceived as having “strength” perhaps. Similarly Paul, the real Hotel manager portrayed in film Hotel Rwanda, found strategies that enabled him to remain defiant towards the orders of the Interhamwe official despite their strength in numbers, their immediacy and their apparent strength not least due to be armed, (coercive power). This defiance demonstrated that individual differences which are possibly dependent upon specific experiences in childhood, for example, may being influence the extent to which we are able to resist social impact.In conclusion it might appear that social impact theory is a rather reductionist account, meaning that it over simplifies the complexities of predicting behaviour in social situations whereby people can be targets as well as sources at the same time for example, and where features such as strength are not possible to measure objectively as the y depend entirely on aspects of the specific targets with regard to how the source is categorised (e.g. as an in or outgroup member for example). It is also likely the features such as immediacy may be differentially affected by culture, meaning that people from some cultural background may find it easier to be defiant even when an arguably strong source is immediately present whereas people from cultures which are high on Hofstede power-distance dimension, are likely to be more obedient when faced with an immediate authority figure as they accept power inequalities in society a lot more and are therefore far likely to be influenced by people they perceive as “strong” and “immediate” whereas people from countries which re lower on their acceptance of social inequality may behave in different ways, e.g. showing the impact in the face of sources with more social power and strength even when they are face to face for example. They may also be more likely to show reactance as described in Brehm’s theory see above, activity disregarding orders as they do not accept why some people are elevated to positions of power for reason they may perceive as unjust or arbitrary. This means that social impact theory may be ethnocentric in it’s outlook due to the lack of recognition of the importance of cultural factors in determining social impact in similar social situations.Evaluate social impact theory as an explanation of obedience (8)Latane says that the amount of impact or this case obedience can be predicted using mathematical equations. He refers to the person doing the influencing as the source, in the case of the Milgram studies this would Mr Williams the experimenter and the person being influenced is the target. In the Milgram studies this is the participant and the impact will be measured by whether they obey orders or not and the verbal and physical behaviour shows which suggest how they think and feel about what they have done. Latane says that the equation i=f(SIN) can be used predict the target’s behaviour where i is the impact and he says this is a function (f) of strength times immediacy times number. He says strength is dictated by the amount of social power a source has, immediacy refers to closeness to the target in terms of time and place and number refers to how many sources are present. He calls this the multiplicative effect and uses the light bulb analogy to explain that the higher the wattage of bulb (strength), the brighter the light (more impact), the closer to the wall the bulb, the brighter the light and the more bulbs there are the more intense the light; when all these features are put to together the impact increases yet further although he uses the law of diminishing returns to suggests that simply adding more and more sources does increasingly less to alter the amount of impact. He also refers to the divisional effect, which explains that the more targets there are for every source, the less the impact as the impact is shared between the number of people. One strength of social impact theory is it is supported by studies such as Milgram where the strength of the experimenter as arguably a professor of Yale increased the Pps likelihood of obeying, where the strength was reduced by doing the study in a run-down building, obedience dropped from 65% to 48% and when an ordinary man gave the orders instead of Mr Williams the obedience also dropped as the theory would predict to 20%. Immediacy was also an important factor as when orders came by phone obedience/impact dropped to 22.5% and also when there were more targets in the disobedient stooges variation the divisional effect can be seen as there is less obedience despite the source being immediately present. These findings are important as they clearly show that strength, immediacy and number are important elements in predicting levels of obedience and they support the divisional effect.Some psychologists would argue that the findings of this study are not ecologically valid due to the artificial task of shocking an innocent man however the study Sedikides and Jackson returned similar findings on a natural setting of a zoo where people did not know they were being observed and the request was not to lean on the rail in the lagoon room in the tropical bird house. This is strong evidence for the theory as even in this field experiment (which as stronger ecological validity) and good reliability due to the standardised procedure, we still see support for the theory. Despite this research evidence, there is evidence against the theory in that some people remain defiant even in the face of immediate strong sources such as Paul in Hotel Rwanda who when faced with an Interhamwe officials backed by other armed militia men he still managed to bargain with them and be defiant to their requests. Similarly, the minister who refused at XX voltage in Milgram’s study said his ultimate authority was in god suggesting that some people may not always perceive certain sources as strong and Latane fails to recognise in this rather reductionist account that social situations are complex in that people can be targets and sources at the same time and they also may perceive each other in ways that are not predictable based upon their own individual differences or personality traits which mean that a source who many people would consider to be strong is not perceived by the target as strong and therefore the behaviour predicted by the model is not what is actually seen in real life. Reactance theory by Brehm suggests that some people actually rebel against strong messages which try and control their behaviour and although Sedikides and Jackson’s study seems to go against this alternative theory suggesting social impact theory is a better explanation it seems that personality and cultural differences have a role to play in predicting behaviour and social impact theory does not account for this. For example, the theory could be seen as ethnocentric as it does recognise that people from cultures seen as high on the power distance dimension (Hofstede) may be affected more by strong, immediate sources than people from cultures that are low on this dimension such as Austrians as compared with say the Chinese.In conclusion, social impact theory may be seen as a useful predictor of behaviour which could help society to recognise when destructive obedience might be more likely however it is oversimplified and reductionist and ignores important personality and cultural factors as important determinants of social impact and/or obedience. ................
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