Prejudicial norms can spread rapidly through social impact dynamics of strength, immediacy, and number.

Evidence

When people are not sure how to behave, the conflict between inner and outer norms can be particularly vexing. However, it might not take much social prompting to assure people that their prejudices are justified, or even to create prejudicial norms to begin with. For example, dynamic socialimpact theory specifies how social norms can spread rapidly through a culture (Latané, 1996; Nowak, Szamrej, & Latané, 1990). According to this model, people develop their opinions in large part through their interactions with others. Furthermore, beliefs are determined through the “force” or “impact” of others, where the force is itself a function of the strength (for instance, how persuasive an individual is), the immediacy (that is, how far away in space someone is), as well as the number of the others in the environment who hold the belief. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1909

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines dynamic social impact theory and its three force parameters — strength, immediacy, and number.