Brian Gallagher Kate Simcox Communication Theory October 12, 2013 Social Judgment Theory Social judgment theory

of Muzafer Sherif, or social judgment involvement, is the perception and evaluation of an ideacomparing it with current attitudes (Griffin, 195). This theory is commonly used in persuasion. When hearing an idea or a message, one has three responses: the latitude of acceptance, the latitude of rejection and the latitude of noncommitment. The latitude of acceptance is what one finds reasonable, the latitude of rejection is what one finds unreasonable and the latitude of noncommitment is what one finds neither acceptable nor objectionable. Everyone has an ego-involvement, or the importance or centrality of an issue to a persons life (Griffin, pg. 195). One can have low ego-involvement or high ego-involvement; for example, someone who has wide latitude of rejection on an issue shows high egoinvolvement. Sherif explains the idea of contrast, which is judging messages further from ones anchor, or central belief of the idea. Sherif says people who have high interest on an issue have a wide range of seeing the idea as unreasonable, so when one hears a message that might be reasonable, they push the idea far out of their range so it would not even be considered. Assimilation, however, takes place when an idea is reasonable, not unreasonable. When one hears a message that is close to their anchor, a rubberband effect takes place that actually pulls the listener closer to the senders message, giving the perception that the receiver and the sender share the same belief on the message. Once one has judged a message as reasonable or unreasonable, they adjust accordingly. Sherif says, the persuasive effect will be positive but partial. We wont travel the whole distance, but there will be some measurable movement toward the speakers perceived position (Griffin, pg. 198). According to Sherif, if one judges the message to be within the latitude of acceptance, they will move toward the speakers opinion, but if the message is within the latitude of rejection, one will adjust their attitude away from what the speakers opinion is. Griffin says, the greater the discrepancy, the more the receiver will adjust their attitude. Although not much research is given on this concept, the boomerang effect could happen when the speaker gives a message targeted to one who has high ego-involvement. The speaker may actually drive them away further from the belief they tried to convey. In their article Ego-Involvement and Attitude Change: Toward a Reconceptualization of Persuasive Effect, Kenneth Sereno and Edward Bodaken research high and low ego-involvement and how attitudes can change toward messages. They sought to find if changes in opinion on an issue were possible with highly involved people. They made four hypothesizes for highly involved individuals; there would be a decrease in their latitude of rejection, increase in latitude of acceptance, increase in latitudes of non-commitment and/or insignificant changes on their most acceptable position (Sereno & Bodaken, pg. 158). The results confirmed hypothesis one, however more significantly in hypothesis three and four. The results in the experiment, which was to read the belief-discrepant message advocating elimination of draft deferments for college students, then to fill out a questionnaire, hoping to pinpoint the subjects central belief on the issue, showed that highly-involved people will respond according to what Sherif theorized in the social involvement theory. Someone who has high ego-involvement will find himself or herself less susceptible to accepting an idea that is in their latitude of rejection.

The critique of this theory is generally positive. Social judgment theory is an objective theory in the socio-psychological tradition, so it is practical and testable and it makes predictions of how people will respond to messages. It is quantitative research that offers explanations of how people will react to certain messages, but it does not adhere to peoples expectations. Also, this theory is very unclear about what happens to people when a message falls within their latitude of noncommitment. Sherif says that when a message falls in our latitude of acceptance or rejection, one will act accordingly, either adhering to the message or dismissing it, but it never says what happens when an individual has a lot of issues in the latitude of noncommitment. The latitude of noncommitment is the most important, in my opinion. Since it is an issue that is up in the air, that is where one can see the most swing on an issue because you are highly susceptible to go either way. Social judgment theory has moral implications. Griffin asks, in regards to politicians, is it all right for a message to be intentionally vague so that their message has broad appeal? (Griffin, pg. 202). Applying this theory is easy within a church context, because I believe this happens everyday. For a blatant example, my anchor for my belief in Jesus as my personal saviour is very strong, so for this issue, I would have very high ego-involvement. I would have very small latitude of acceptance and a wide latitude of rejection and probably no issue of noncommitement. It would take a lot for a Muslim to come in to my church and try to convince me that Jesus is not my saviour and that Allah is my God. But if that same Muslim came in to my church and tried to convince me that meditation and dwelling in a spiritual place is good for the soul, I would have a much different reaction. For this issue, my anchor is not as firm, therefore I have low egoinvolvement, so my latitude of acceptance would be a lot wider and their message could have more of an influence on me. I do believe that being still and meditating on scripture and through prayer is important, so it would be easier for him or her to persuade me, seeing as my latitude of noncommitment and acceptance would be large and my attitude of rejection would be small. In a more practical sense within a church, a pastor could use social judgment theory often. A pastors main goal is to give a message every Sunday and, for lack of a better word, persuade the congregation to submit to his or her viewpoint on the Bible. If a congregation is a much more conservative congregation, like a lot of the central Pennsylvania churches are, the pastor has to aim his messages close to the congregations anchor on spiritual issues, using metaphors like money, status and individualistic cultural relevancy since it consists of mostly middle class individuals. A pastor of a church in the impoverished, rural town of McColl in South Carolina, however, has to target his or her messages in a much different way, using metaphors like farming, long-suffering and community to send an effective message. The latitude of acceptance is very different in both contexts, so the speaker has to be aware of his audience in order to effectively send his message to the audience. The congregation in McColls latitude of rejection would be much bigger on issues of money and status since they would have low ego-involvement on the issue, whereas the wealthy churches in central Pennsylvanias latitude of acceptance on the same issue would be bigger, because they would have high egoinvolvement on the issue. Social judgment theory is a theory that aims to predict how one will respond to a persuasive message. It is a good tool to use in crafting messages to reach a specific audience because the most important thing social judgment theory aims to do is to help the persuader aim his or her messages in such a way that it will be accepted by the audience. To sum up the main point of social judgment theory: the closer the message is to the anchor of the one being persuaded, the easier it will be to persuade them.

Works Cited Griffin, Em. "Social Judgement Theory." A First Look at Communication Theory. 8th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2012. N. pag. Print. Sereno, Kenneth E., and Edward A. Bodaken. "Ego-Involvement and Attitude Change: Toward a Reconceptualization of Persuasive Effect." Speech Monographs 3rd ser. 39 (1972): 15158. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 13 Oct. 2013