Social Judgement Theory

Application and Critique

by

Chuck Lloyd and Lindsay Tozer

Muzafer Sherif, a psychologist associated with the University of Oklahoma, initially took the credit for the theory's development and testing even though it was his wife, Carolyn, who was the first author of the book describing the process. Muzafer, Carolyn, and a fellow theorist Roger Nebergall further developed the theory. The Social Judgement Theory explores how what we say and how we say it can affect the attitudes of those we are talking to.

Did you know that we weigh every new idea, or bit of information we receive, by comparing it to our present point of view? As we receive information, we immediately filter it into sections in our minds based on what we want to hear and what we don't want to hear.

There are also three latitudes which are used to determine a person's level of comfort during arguments.

Latitude of acceptance
Latitude of Non-Commitment
Latitude of Rejection

Ego involvement, the level at which we hold a particular issue, also plays a roll in decision making. If you are wanting to influence someone into making a particular decision, you need to be able to have a solid understanding of the relationship between ego involvement and the latitudes of acceptance, rejection, and non-commitment in order to appropriate the mental processes that occur when a person notices a message.

Links

For more information about this theory, you can:
click here to advance to the Application of this chapter written by Chuck.

or you can click here for my Critique.

information gathered from EM Griffen's "A First Look at Communication Theory," Chapter 15, pp' 195-204

this page created by Lindsay Tozer