Social Judgment Theory Research
By Kindra Krebs
Source
Sherif, Carolyn. Attitude and Attitude Change; the social jugment-involovement approach. Philadelphia: Saunders. 1965
What is the social judgment theory?
The social judgment theory is a theoretical perspective most closely associated with Muzafer Sherif and Carl Havland. The central idea of social judgment theory is that attitude change is mediated by judgmental processes and effects used to persuade people. This web page offers a summary to a research article on social judgment theory entitled "Social Judgment Theory".
Judgements of Alternative Positions on an Issue
On any given persuasive issue, there are likely to be a number of different positions or points of view available. Consider, for example, some different possible stands on an issue such as legalizing marijuana: One might think that all marijuana use should be illegal, or that its use should only be permitted for medical reasons, or marijuana should be legalized for everyday use. A person is likely to have varying beliefs of these different positions- a person will likely find some of the positions acceptable, some of the positions objectionable, and some neither particularly acceptable nor unacceptable. Since, from a social judgment theory point of view, the person's reaction to persuasive communication on this topic will depend on: the person's judgment of the position the message advocates and it is important to be able to assess persons' judgments of the various possible positions. The assessment procedure offered by social judgment theory is known as the Ordered Alternatives Questionnaire.
The Ordered Alternative Questionnaire
An Ordered Alternative Questionnaire provides the respondent with a set of statements, each representing a different point of view on the issue studied. The statements chosen represent a range of positions on the issue- from the extreme view on one side to the extreme view on the other. In completing this questionnaire, the respondent is asked initially to indicate the statements that are acceptable to the respondent, the one statement that is most objectionable to the respondent, and the other statements that are unacceptable.
These responses are used to define the respondent's judgmental latitudes on that issue. The range of positions that the respondent finds acceptable is said to form the respondent's latitude of acceptance, the positions that the respondent finds unacceptable constitute the latitude of rejection , and the latitude of noncommitment is formed by the positions that the respondent neither accepts nor rejects. By understanding these latitudes it will permit one to understand the individual's reactions to persuasive messages on that issue.
The Concept of Ego-Involvement
Social judgment theory proposes that there is a systematic source of variation in the structure of these judgmental latitudes: ego-involvement. Ego-involvement is referring to someone's being "involved with an issue." Thus, a person might be said to be ego-involved when the issue has personal significance to the individual, when the person's stand on the issue is central to his or her sense of self, when the issue is important to the person, when the person intensely holds a given position, when the person is strongly committed to the position, and so on. Ego-involvement is issue-specific. A person might be highly involved in one issue (legalizing marijuana) but not involved in another (such as abortion). Ego-involvement is not a personality characteristic such that one person who is highly involved in one issue will also be highly involved in other issues.
Ego-involvement and extremity of most preferred positions are distinct concepts. This means that to be ego-involved in an issue is not the same thing as holding an extreme position on the issue. For example, one might take an extreme position on the issue without being highly ego-involved. Social judgment theory does suggest that ego-involvement and position extremity will be related- the more extreme positions on an issue will tend to be more ego-involved in that issue.
Own Categories Procedure
Several different techniques have been devised for assessing the degree of ego-involvement a person has in a given issue. The measure ego-involvement, the "own-categories" procedure was derived. Participants are provided with a large number of statements on the topic of interest, and are asked to sort these statements into however many categories they think necessary to represent the range of positions on the issue. Those participants who were presumable highly involved created fewer categories than did low involvement participants. These results suggest the use of the own-categories procedure as a way to measure ego-involvement. Aside from measuring ego-involvement, the social judgment theory can be described using assimilation and contrast effects.
Assimilation and Contrast Effects
Social judgment theory says that the receiver's reaction to a given persuasive communication will depend on how he or she assesses the point of view it is advocating. This implies that, in reacting to a persuasive message, the receiver must decide what message is being sent. Social judgment theory suggests, that in reaching this judgment, the receiver may be subject to perceptual distortions termed "assimilation and contrast effects". Assimilation and contrast effects are perceptual effects concerning the judgment of what position is being advocated by a persuasive message. An assimilation effect is said to occur when, "the receiver perceives the message as advocating a position closer to his or her own position than it actually does; that is, an assimilation effect involves the receiver minimizing the differences between the message's position and the receiver's position". A contrast effect is said to occur, "when the receiver perceives the message as advocating a position further away from his or her own positions than it actually does; thus a contrast effect involves the receiver's exaggerating the difference between the message's position and the receiver's position". From this an attitude change can attempt to be made.
Attitude Change
The basic principle offered by social judgment theory is this: communication that is perceived to advocate a position that falls in the latitude of acceptance or the latitude of noncommitment will produce attitude change in the advocated direction, but communication that is perceived to advocate a position that falls in the latitude of rejection will produce no attitude change. For example, more favorable attitude change is produced when the message is perceived to fall within the latitude of acceptance than when it falls outside it. As receivers become increasingly involved in an issue, their latitudes of rejection presumably grow larger. Thus, with any one influence attempt, a persuader facing a highly involved receiver may be able to advocate safely only a small change; obtaining substantial change from the highly involved receiver may require a series of small steps over time.
My thoughts on the Article
I think that the social judgment theory offers a lot of concepts and principles useful for persuasive tactics. Although, I think that ego-involvement is not well defined. The notion of ego-involvement contradicts itself in its definition of being the person's stand on an issue being central to the person's sense of self, importance of the issue to the person, the issues relevance to the person, and the degree of commitment the person has tot he position. For example, I can think an issue is important, but I can also not take a stand on that issue and have it not affect my ego-involvement. I can also have a belief on an issue even though the issue is not important to me. On the other side, an issue could not have any relevance to me, but I could take a strong stand on that position. I just don't see how the social judgment theory can say that one has to have an extreme position on an issue for one to have ego-involvement. I would recommend this article to anyone who is doing research on social judgment theory. It was very informative and easy to comprehend.
Links To Other Web Pages
Here is a link back to Stephanie'sSocial Judgment Theory title page.
Here is link to Social Judgment Theory where the Brunswik Society, an informational association of researchers who are interested in understanding and improving human judgment and decision making discuss the theory.
This page was revised by Kindra Krebs on March, 10 1999.