Bibb Latané
Professor Bibb Latané is the author or co-author of more than 140 articles and chapters and a book about his research on bystander intervention in emergencies, social impact and group influence, the causes and consequences of “social loafing,” and other topics. His book "The Unresponsive Bystander" (with John Darley) was given a featured retrospective review in Contemporary Psychology.
According to a recent study, he is the third most frequently cited psychologist in social psychology textbooks, and several terms coined by him (“bystander intervention,” “social loafing,” and “social impact theory”) appear in the Larousse Grande Dictionnaire de la Psychologie and the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Psychology. Other areas of research concern stage fright, tipping in restaurants, sex differences in sociability, social comparison, and social attraction in animals. While doing theory-based programmatic research, Latané is an eclectic methodologist using social surveys, computer simulations, and laboratory and field experiments, and publishing in such venues as Physical Review A and the Readers Digest as well as the major psychology journals.
Latané has twice won the Behavioral Science Award given by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for work on bystander intervention in emergencies and on social loafing. He is also the recipient of the career research awards given by the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, as well as James McKeen Cattell and Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowships.
Primary Interests:
- Attitudes and Beliefs
- Culture and Ethnicity
- Ethics and Morality
- Evolution and Genetics
- Group Processes
- Helping, Prosocial Behavior
- Interpersonal Processes
- Persuasion, Social Influence
- Political Psychology
Research Group or Laboratory:
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Bibb Latané's Social Impact Theory Explained
Books:
Journal Articles:
- Harkins, S. G., & Latané, B. (1998). Population and political participation: A social impact analysis of voter responsibility. Group Dynamics, 2(3), 192-207.
- Jackson, J. M., & Latané, B. (1981). All alone in front of all those people: Stage fright as a function of number and type of co-performers and audience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40(1), 73-85.
- Latané, B. (1981). The psychology of social impact. American Psychologist, 36(4), 343-356.
- Latané, B., & Nida, S. (1981). Ten years of research on group size and helping. Psychological Bulletin, 89(2), 308-324.
- Latané, B., Williams, K., & Harkins, S. (1979). Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(6), 822-832.
- Nowaka, A., Szamreja, J., & Latané, B. (1990). From private attitude to public opinion: A dynamic theory of social impact. Psychological Review, 97(3), 362-376.
- Williams, K., Harkins, S. G., & Latané, B. (1981). Identifiability as a deterrant to social loafing: Two cheering experiments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40(2), 303-311.
- Wolf, S., & Latané, B. (1983). Majority and minority influences on restaurant preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(2), 282-292.
Courses Taught:
- Introduction to Human Science
Bibb Latané
Center for Human Science
212 Vance Street
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27516
United States of America
- Phone: (919) 942-1230