Research on Social Judgement Theory

by Matt Sweeney

The Social Judgment theory was developed by Muzafer Sherif and outlines what happens in the head after we hear a message. Sherif is a social psychologist from turkey, who received his degrees from Harvard and Columbia Universities. The theory states that after hearing a message, one immediately judges where it ranks on an attitude scale in one's mind. Sherif states that this judgment happens instantly after hearing a message. The theory describes how we immediately weigh a new idea with attitudes, which are already present in our heads. In order to better understand and describe Sherif's theory, I read an article in the Communication yearbook #6 entitled Social Judgment theory, by Don Granberg. The article was extremely useful in the understanding of the theory.

The article gives an in depth history of the theory, which was formulated in 1961. Sherif recognized that the thought process of new ideas fell into three zones. The first zone is known as the latitude of acceptance. Latitude of acceptance is identified in Granberg's article as "consisting of the alternatives regarded by the receiver as basically acceptable."(Granberg 1982) He goes on to explain that within the latitude of acceptance, there will be one position that represents a receiver's actual position on the subject, this position is the most acceptable and comes the closest to that person's actual point of view. The second zone is that of the latitude of rejection. The latitude of rejection consists of opinions, or options that a person finds totally unacceptable. Granberg describes the latitude of rejection as being an option that is regarded as totally unacceptable or undesirable. The final zone is the known as the latitude of noncommitment. This zone can be described as indifferent. That is to say, that the option the receiver has been given falls neither in the latitude of acceptance, nor the latitude of rejection. In layman's terms, the latitude of noncommitment states that the receiver is undecided about the option or idea with which he or she has been presented.

The next item in the theory that Sherif addresses is ego-involvement. Ego involvement is defined in Em Griffin's textbook A First Look at Communication Theory as referring to how crucial an issue is in our lives. (1991) He describes ego-involvement as addressing questions such as is it important? Is it central to our well being? Does our attitude on the matter go a long way in defining who we are? Granberg identifies ego-involvement as being a central, integrating concept in Social Judgment Theory. (1982) Sherif explains that according to the social judgment theory, a wide latitude of rejection entails a high amount of ego-involvement. In regards to persuasion, Sherif describes the process of the theory in two steps. The first step happens when people receive a message and immediately evaluate it in comparison to their own attitudes or positions on the topic. This step is describing the perceptual stage of social judgment. The second step entails receivers adjusting their attitude in favor, or against the message that they just heard.

Sherif claimed that we use our own anchored or pre-existing attitude as a comparison point when we receive a new message. Griffin illustrated this point exceptionally well in his text. He used the example of three buckets of water. The bucket on the left had freezing cold water, the middle is room temperature, and the bucket on the right contained very hot water. You were to put each of your hands in the two outside buckets for a period of time, then put them both in the middle bucket. Your left hand would tell you that the middle bucket contained warm water, while your right hand would tell you that the middle bucket was cold. This is described by Sherif as the contrast effect. In essence, the contrast effect explains the fact that if a person is hot for an idea or message, a warm message will seem cold. (Griffin 1991) Sherif's idea of social judgment-involvement serves as a connection between ego-involvement and perception. This idea states that people with a high level of commitment to an idea will have a larger latitude of rejection. This means that any idea that does not fall in their latitude of acceptance will seem farther from their anchor position than it actually is. Griffin defines contrast as a perceptual distortion that leads to the polarization of ideas. (1991) He goes on to explain that this only occurs when the message falls somewhere in their latitude of rejection. Assimilation, on the other hand, is the opposite. It involves stretching an idea towards the receiver's anchor so that it appears that the sender and the receiver share the same point of view. This occurrence takes place when the idea falls within the receiver's latitude of acceptance. According to the theory, once we have received a message, considering that it is in our latitude of acceptance, we will adjust our attitude to slightly to better accommodate the new idea. Sherif failed to describe how much movement towards the new idea would be made, but he did state that the greater the discrepancy, the more the receiver of the message would adjust his or her attitudes.

When applying Sherif's theory to instances, in which the sender wishes to persuade, there are three things to take into account:
A highly credible speaker can stretch the receiver's latitude of acceptance.
Ambiguity can often serve better than clarity. This allows the sender to appeal to a larger number of receiver's latitudes of acceptance.
There are some people who are dogmatic on every issue, meaning that they have an extremely wide latitude of rejection.(Griffin, 1991)

Overall, I felt that the article was very useful in comprehension of theory. It not only gives a detailed history of the theory, but it also explains it in an easily understood manner. Granberg offered his own interpretations of the theory as well, which made it easier to understand. In addition, Griffin's examples (the bucket example) illustrated the areas that were a little more difficult to understand.


To check out a related research report by one of my peers click here . This link will take you to the Relational Dialectics research report done by Arienne Longstreth.


Granberg, Donald (1982). "Social Judgment Theory." pp. 304-329.

Communication Yearbook #6. Sage Publications. Griffin, Em (1991). A First Look at Communication Theory. pp.

195-204. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.