SOCIAL IMPACT THEORY

SOCIAL IMPACT THEORY

As noted earlier, the impact of a social presence on a person results from "social forces" that include the size, immediacy, and strength of the social influence (Latané 1981). Social Impact Theory forwards three principles that define its functionality. First, the theory posits that the impact of a social presence's social forces increases as a power function such that the greatest influence will arise when the social presence is large (vs. small), is in close (vs. far) proximity, or is high (vs. low) in source strength (Latané and Wolf 1981). The second principle addresses the relationships between the social forces and suggests that the influence of a social presence is a multiplicative function of the forces with the greatest impact occurring when there are several people in close proximity and in high source strength. Finally, the third principle states that a social presence's influence is an inverse function of the number of targets, proximity, and source strength; the impact of the social forces will be divided between the targets. Our research focuses on the ideas inherent in the first two principles. We begin our conceptual development by outlining the importance of social size relative to consumers' emotions and behaviors.

Social Size. Social Impact Theory proposes that as the size of a social presence increases, it should have an increasing impact on one's emotions and behaviors. First, research on stage fright has supported this prediction by showing that an increase in audience size results in participants experiencing more negative emotions (Jackson and Latané 1981; Latané and Harkins 1976). Similarly, research on crowding has found that an increase in the number of people present decreases participants' feelings of comfort and increases their negative affect (Griffitt and Veitch 1971; Langer and Saegert 1977). Thus, an increase in the size of a noninteractive social presence is expected to increase consumers' negative emotions and decrease positive emotions.

Second, in general, people have a pervasive desire to be viewed in a positive light (Leary and Kowalski 1990), and to achieve this desire, they regularly engage in impression management behaviors. In fact, consumers will go to great lengths, such as lie (Sengupta, Dahl, and Gorn 2002) or purchase certain products (Leigh and Gabel 1992), to impress others. Thus, we expect that an increase in social size, which results in more people to impress (Schlenker and Weigold 1992), will translate into an increased tendency for consumers to manage their impressions.

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