Abstract
A recent theory of social impact (Latané, 1981; Latané & Nida, 1980) has been shown to be increasingly important in the fields of interpersonal influence and group behavior. Social impact is defined as
any of the great variety of changes in physiological states and subjective feelings, motives and emotions, cognitions and beliefs, values and behavior, that occur in an individual, human, or animal, as a result of the real, implied or imagined presence or actions of other individuals. (Latané, 1981, p. 343)
This theory describes social impact in terms of social force fields that impinge upon us, pushing us to think or behave in a particular way. These social forces have been equated to physical forces that govern the transmissionof light, sound, gravity, magnetism, etc. For example, the amount of light that falls on a table top is a function of the strength of the lights that shine on the table, their distance from the table, and the number of lights that are present. In an analogous way, the social impact felt by an individual should be a function of the strength, immediacy, and number of source persons that are present. Thus, these three elements, or descriptions, of source persons should all directly effect the social force felt by a target person.
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Jackson, J.M. (1987). Social Impact Theory: A Social Forces Model of Influence. In: Mullen, B., Goethals, G.R. (eds) Theories of Group Behavior. Springer Series in Social Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4634-3_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4634-3_6
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