A Structural Theory of Social Influence
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Abstract. A measure of structural centrality is the second pillar of my approach to the social-influence process. In this process, actors weigh the opinions of others against their own opinion, and I assume that an actor's self-weight is a function of his or her structural centrality. In the present chapter, I support the stipulated linkage between an actor's self-weight and centrality, and I carry forward the structural operationalization of the theory with the definition of a type of centrality – the indegree of an actor in the network of interpersonal attachments – in terms of which the self-weight of an actor is formulated.
He had in him all the attitudes of others, calling for a certain response; that was the “me” of that situation, and his response is the “I.”
In classical theory, the collective other refers to the fixed consensus of opinion of other actors (a normative opinion) with respect to a particular issue. Social influence reduces to the special case of individuals who are confronted with a fixed consensus and who, therefore, are either deviants or conformists. For deviants, there is only one likely outcome – greater conformity to the normative opinion that will be more or less pronounced depending on the balance between the self and the other in the deviant actor.
The situation of a deviant in the midst of a fixed consensus is a special case of the present social influence theory.
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