Social Impact Theory

Social impact theory puts that the real, implied, or imagined presence of others can cause cognitive, emotional, value, behavioral, and other psychological changes of an individual. The theory was created in 1981 by American psychologist Bibb Latané, who held that groups, large-scale subgroups, small-scale subgroups, individuals in the subgroup, and group members can influence each other.

Latané uses three equations to quantify the social impact perceived by individuals. The first one describes the overall impact of multiple sources on the individual when the individual is in a multiperson situation, where the strength, immediacy, and number of sources play a role. Among the three factors, strength refers to all factors that make a person or a group influential, including status, power, and ability; and immediacy refers to the temporal and spatial distance between the source and the impacted. The second equation deals with the complicated relationship between the number of sources and...