Highlights two types of people for social influence; Source (provides influence) target (those influenced)
Number – the number of sources will increase influence. The law of diminishing effect states number is affective till a great amount of people is present, one more will not affect the target.
Strength – the strength of a source (position, authority, power) is more likely to put higher social status on you. The stronger the source the more influence they have.
Immediacy & proximity- psychological, social & physical prox will impact influence, the closer someone is the more influence they will have.
Multiplication affect has an affect up to a point on the target. The more sources there are for targets the better the impact. Division affect occurs when there are more targets in a room than there are sources meaning the influence isn’t as strong.
Group polarisation – groups with extreme ideas & attitudes than the individual in the group have more influence effect on the individual. This is to give the group a sense of identity.
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Milgram ordinary man – less obedience when the ordinary man with no sense of authority gave the orders. Obedience dropped to 20% – shows that the strength of a source can affect how targets are obedient
Telephonic instructions – authority figure gave the ppts instructions over the phone resulting in drop of obedience to 20.5% – showing a lack of proximity of an authority figure decreased the influence on the source. Application – the theory explains our obedience due to factors such as number of sources influencing the target and the strength of these in terms of social status and authority along with proximity – helps explain football hooliganism as we are surrounded many rebellious peers and the number would influence the targets. |
Low eco V – Milgram’s work has taken place in artificial environments such as Yale university where everything is controlled – behaviour may not be natural or reflect natural obedience
Low task V – because the task involved giving a learner a shock volt from 15-450v – lacks mundane realism as it is not an everyday task Different theory – agency theory suggests that our mind sets change from autonomous state to an agentic state when we are given orders – this theory does not recognise pre-dispositional factors and only on situational. Reductionist – breaks down complex human behaviour into small concepts like number of sources, strength of the sources and the immediacy – ignored the role of other factors such as emotions and personality. |