Maintaining Diversity: Simulating the Role of Nonliniarity and Discreteness in Dynamic Social Impact

Dynamic social impact theory (DSIT) uses Latane’s (1981) individual-level theory of social impact to explain and predict the emergence of group-level phenomena as consequences of social influence among interacting people. An extensive program of social simulation has resulted in numerous recent articles and chapters reporting the emergence of several group-level phenomena as very general consequences of social influence among spatially distributed individuals (see the symposium in the fall 1996 Journal of Communication for an introduction and review of dynamic social impact theory, and Latane, 1996a; b; c; d; 1997 for discussions of the assumptions and implications of computer simulation of social processes).

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