The author proposes a theory of social impact specifying the effect of other persons on an individual. According to the theory, when other people are the source of impact and the individual is the target, impact should be a multiplicative function of the strength, immediacy, and number of other people. Furthermore, impact should take the form of a power function, with the marginal effect of the Nth other person being less than that of the (N -l)th. Finally, when other people stand with the individual as the target of forces from outside the group, impact should be divided such that the resultant is an inverse power function of the strength, immediacy, and number of persons standing together. The author reviews relevant evidence from research on conformity and imitation, stage fright and embarrassment, news interest, bystander intervention, tipping, inquiring for Christ, productivity in groups, and crowding in rats. He also discusses the unresolved issues and desirable characteristics of the theory.

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A computer simulation modeled the change of attitudes in a population resulting from the interactive, reciprocal, and recursive operation of Latane's (1981) theory of social impact, which specifies principles underlying how individuals are affected by their social environment. Surprisingly, several macrolevel phenomena emerged from the simple operation of this microlevel theory, including an incomplete polarization of opinions reaching a stable equilibrium, with coherent minority subgroups managing to exist near the margins of the whole population. Computer simulations, neglected in group dynamics for 20 years, may, as in modern physics, help determine the extent to which group-level phenomena result from individual-level processes.The computer simulations reported in this article were designed and conducted by Andrzej Nowak and Jacek Szamrej at the University of Warsaw with support from a grant on social pathology under the direction of Janusz Grzelak from the Institute of Resocialization and Social Prevention.

Male undergraduates found themselves in a smoke-filling room either alone, with 2 nonreacting others, or in groups of 3. As predicted, Ss were less likely to report the smoke when in the presence of passive others (10%) or in groups of 3 (38% of groups) than when alone (75%). This result seemed to have been mediated by the way 5s interpreted the ambiguous situation; seeing other people remain passive led Ss to decide the smoke was not dangerous.