Dynamic Social Impact

9411603拉丁摘要将社会设想为一个相互作用的个人的非线性动力系统，这个研究项目将探索个人的影响过程如何导致群体在时间上演变为自组织实体。社会影响过程的交互、互惠和递归操作导致的空间分布个体的属性(如情绪、态度、习惯)的变化可以用社会影响理论来模拟，社会影响理论是一种简单但非常普遍的社会影响理论。令人惊讶的是，可以预测这些微观进程的运作将出现几个宏观层面的现象，包括稳定多样性的动态平衡、立场的不完全两极分化导致少数群体成员相互保护不受多数人的影响，以及人们在不同问题上的立场相互关联的趋势。正如在其他复杂系统中一样，随机性的引入加剧了这些自组织的趋势。实证研究将确定实验室和真实群体是否显示出预测的自组织迹象。在中国的一个工业城镇进行的实地研究将产生关于社会空间的性质以及与工作和住房相关的态度的空间模式的信息。对通过电子邮件互动的个人的纵向研究将记录极化、聚集和相关性的存在，并确定不同的社会空间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的复杂交互作用，这些群体的规模从家庭和其他小团体到组织、社区，甚至国家。本研究提出的概念和程序应适用于理解不同地区在风俗习惯、价值观和信仰方面的历史发展，以及情绪、规范、生活方式和行为的社会决定因素，包括建设性和不适应性，以及社会运动、民族情绪和舆论等难以捉摸的现象。这种方法使社会心理学与复杂的自组织系统的跨学科研究相一致，并将有助于和借鉴物理学、经济学和生物学的相关工作。最后，实证研究将有助于预测电子通信在工作小组和社会中越来越多地使用的后果。***

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. ***