Social Judgment Theory
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Social Judgment Theory proposes that people evaluate messages based on their existing attitudes or "anchor points" on issues. Messages are judged as falling within a latitude of acceptance, rejection, or non-commitment. The more ego-involved people are in an issue, the more strongly anchored and less open to persuasion their attitudes tend to be. For effective persuasion, messages need to fall just within the latitude of acceptance rather than rejection to avoid a "boomerang effect" and promote gradual attitude change over time.
Social Judgment Theory
- 1. SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY Muzafer Sherif
- 2. Attitudes Attitudes are “predispositions to respond” made up of what people think, feel, and intend to do” Attitudes can be positive or negative towards given issues but not all issues are of equal importance to people, and attitudes are not always reflected in behavior
- 3. Three Attitude Zones For Shafic, attitudes are clusters of beliefs People compare messages with their present point of view, and their existing points of view are greatly influenced by group membership Messages fall into ranges of attitude or latitudes of: Acceptance Rejection or Non-commitment (undecided, no opinion)
- 4. Ego-Involvement The more that one has invested in an issue, position, stand, opinion etc. the more “ego-involved” one is, and the more one’s attitude is ANCHORED. Ego-involvement refers to how crucial an issue is in our lives, central to our well-being, a preoccupation in our thoughts, defining who we are
- 5. High Ego-Involvement People who have high ego-involvement in an issue tend to have: nonexistent latitude of non-commitment wide latitude of rejection black and white views about the issue extreme positions, passionately held little tolerance for diversity
- 6. Being Persuaded Involves (1) hearing the message and evaluating where it falls in relation to one’s own (ANCHORED) position (judgment) (2) adjusting one’s attitude toward or away from the message
- 7. CONTRAST AND ASSIMILATION Contrast occurs when one sees a message in the latitude of rejection as falling further away from one’s anchored position than it really is. A persuasive message that falls into the latitude of rejection, therefore, “boomerangs.” Assimilation occurs when one sees a message in the latitude of acceptance as falling closer to one’s anchored position than it really is.
- 8. Maximum Influence Max influence achieved when persuasive message falls just within receiver’s latitude of acceptance. Effective persuasion is often a gradual process consisting of small movements. It is also social . Messages from highly trusted, credible people stretch latitude of acceptance. Ambiguous messages may have more chance of falling into latitude of acceptance Most dramatic/enduring attitude changes occur with changes in reference group Some people are dogmatic on most issues
- 9. Critique Ethical issues Most research fails to find boomerang effect and suggests simply that as messages fall more into latitude of rejection they become less persuasive Strong implications for public speaking Theory does not deal much with people with low involvement other than to say they have high latitude of non-commitment and see more grays. Other sources suggest that they may be more open to persuasion on issues about which they do not know much