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Social Judgement Theory

By: Carolyn Sherif, Muzafer Sherif, Carl Hovland

Social Judgement Theory (SJT)


This theory suggests that understanding a persons attitude or point of view will help you to determine how they will feel and act in a circumstance where they are being persuaded. Understanding the persons attitude consists of knowing what their preference is on the subject, knowing what things they may accept, and having an idea of what things they would reject on the subject.

The theory helps us to better approach those we are trying to influence or convince of something, like when is the right time to do it. We must also remember that we must have an idea of their attitude and where they stand, along with what things they may accept and what things they may reject. Also it teaches us some factors that could make it easier or harder to persuade the target.

Anchor Point
This is our preferred stance on a specific topic. The anchor point is where the person is most satisfied at.

Attitudes
These are predisposition to respond made up of what people think, feel and intend to do. Attitude can be negative or positive towards given issues but not all issue are of equal of importance to people, and attitudes are not always reflected in behavior.

Three areas of Attitude


Latitude of Acceptance - this is a range of ideas that a person finds acceptable. Anything that a person would let slide.

Three areas of Attitude


Latitude of Rejection is the attitudes for which you are intolerable about. The ideas which you are against, or you disagree with. Attitudes in this range are usually ones that you know the person wont put up with. They are also the hardest to change.

Three areas of Attitude


Latitude of Noncommitment -this is the range of ideas for which you have no opinion on. The ideas that you dont care for are in the latitude of non commitment.

Ego-Involvement refers to how crucial an issue is in our lives, central to our well-being, a pre-occupation in our thoughts defining who we are.
Highly ego-involvement- they have a more intense and passionate stance.

Contrast and Assimilation


Contrast effect or also know as Boomerang effect happens when we hit the message into the
latitude of rejection. Since it may the opposite of where the persons anchor point is, the message will be perceived as even farther away from the latitude of acceptance than it really is. The person will overestimate how far this message is from their stance and in turn, they will disregard the message and will strongly reject it, even more so than they would have if we would have made the message fit into their latitude of non commitment or latitude of acceptance.

Assimilation effect is the opposite, if we make a message fall into the persons latitude of acceptance then they may perceive it as closer to their anchor point than it really is. The person minimizes how far their position is from our persuasive message. Therefore they are easier to persuade.

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

In summary, Social Judgement deals with understanding attitudes, different factors that influence the attitudes, what the types of latitudes are, where you may want your message to land, and what effects your persuasive message may have.

The End.
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