Dynamic Social Impact

摘要本课程将社会视为一个由相互作用的个体组成的非线性动态系统，探讨个体影响过程如何导致群体在时间上进化为自组织实体。属性的变化(例如；社会影响理论是一种简单但非常普遍的社会影响理论，它可以通过社会影响过程的交互、互惠和递归操作来模拟空间分布的个体（情绪、态度、习惯）。令人惊讶的是，可以预测从这些微观层面过程的运作中出现一些宏观层面的现象，包括具有稳定多样性的动态平衡，立场的不完全极化导致少数群体成员相互保护而不受多数人的影响，以及人们在不同问题上的立场变得相关的趋势。就像在其他复杂系统中一样，这些自组织的倾向被随机性的引入所强化。实证研究将确定实验室和现实群体是否表现出预测的自组织迹象。在中国的一个工业城镇进行实地研究将产生有关社会空间性质和与工作和住房有关的态度的空间格局的信息。通过电子邮件进行的个体互动的纵向研究将记录极化、聚类和相关性的存在，并确定改变社会空间的几何形状对维持多样性的影响。这项研究将有助于理解个体心理过程和社会结果之间复杂的相互作用，从家庭和其他小团体到组织、社区甚至国家。本研究中发展的概念和程序应适用于理解习俗、价值观和信仰的地区差异的历史发展，情绪、规范、生活方式和行为的社会决定因素，无论是建设性的还是不适应的，以及诸如社会运动、民族情绪和公众舆论等难以捉摸的现象。这种方法将社会心理学与复杂自组织系统的跨学科研究结合起来，并将为物理学、经济学和生物学的相关工作做出贡献和借鉴。最后，实证研究将有助于预测在工作群体和社会中越来越多地使用电子通信的后果。＊＊＊

9411603 Latane ABSTRACT Conceiving society as a nonlinear dynamical system of interacting individuals, this program of research will explore how individual influence processes lead to the temporal evolution of groups into self-organized entities. Changes in the attributes (eg.,moods, attitudes, habits) of spatially distributed individuals resulting from the interactive, reciprocal, and recursive operation of social influence processes can be modeled by social impact theory, a simple but very general theory of social influence. Surprisingly, several macro-level phenomena can be predicted to emerge from the operation of these micro-level processes, including dynamic equilibria with stable diversity, an incomplete polarization of positions resulting in coherent clusters of minority members protecting each other from exposure to majority influence, and a tendency for people's positions on different issues to become correlated. As in other complex systems, these tendencies toward self-organization are accentuated by the introduction of randomness. Empirical research will determine whether laboratory and real groups show the predicted signs of self-organization. Field studies in a factory town in China will produce information about the nature of social space and the spatial patterning of work- and housing-related attitudes. Longitudinal studies of individuals interacting via e-mail will document the existence of polarization, clustering, and correlation and determine the effects of varying the geometry of social space on the maintenance of diversity. This research will contribute to understanding the complex interaction between individual psychological processes and social outcomes in groups ranging in size from families and other small groups to organizations, communities, and even nations. Concepts and procedures developed in this research should be applicable to understanding the historical development of regional differe nces in customs, values and beliefs, social determinants of moods, norms, life styles, and behaviors, both constructive and maladaptive, and such elusive phenomena as social movements, national mood, and public opinion. This approach aligns social psychology with the interdisciplinary study of complex self-organizing systems, and will contribute to and draw on related work in physics, economics, and biology. Finally, the empirical research will contribute to predicting the consequences of the increasing use of electronic communication in work groups and society. ***