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Social Judgement Theory

Introduction

Social Judgement Theory (SJT) maintains that when a message is obtained, the receiver

of the message immediately shapes a judgment on the topic. The person then classifies the

opinion into one of the three categories referred to as attitude zones (Griffin, 2009). When people

receive messages, they use their classifications of judgment to judge the message; thereby, as

people assess received messages, they decide which category of latitude it belongs. There are

three latitudes to classify persons’ attitudes; latitude of acceptance, which comprises the

information one finds acceptable and pleasing and worthy of consideration; latitude of rejection,

comprising information one finds objectionable and latitude of non-commitment ideas neither

objectionable nor acceptable (Griffin, 2009). A case of social judgement theory is where one

may imagine that he can alter his friend’s mind to a given degree, and he can concentrate on

showing the individual how misplaced his ego-involvement in the subject is.

People incline to alter received information to fit their classes of judgment. Thereby,

when a piece of information is bestowed with persuasion denotations falling inside latitudes of

acceptance and is closer towards a person’s “anchor,” individuals can assent as well as acclimate

this novel message and establish a novel position. The nearer the message is to one’s own

anchor, the more immediately accepted and comprehended to be the primary position. Equally, if

the information is far away from the anchor, it will be rejected (Ramos Salazar, 2017). Ego-

involvement also is a factor accounting for the final impact of the message received. Ego

involvement denotes the importance of a particular topic in a person’s life. A person’s ego-
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involvement impacts the scope of their latitudes; the extent of this latitude is established based

on the involvement degree a person has with that particular topic. If a person does not care about

a subject, they usually have a broad latitude of non-commitment, and the opposite is true

(Griffin, 2009). SJT holds that minor to moderate incongruities between a person’s anchor

opinions and the one promoted cause people to change, whereas significant discrepancies will

not. This denotes that for persuasion to happen, the discrepancies between the advocated position

and the anchor are so minor to moderate that juxtaposing will not happen, permitting the

contemplation of the communicated information (Griffin, 2009).

For instance, STJ is commonly used in advertising. Advertising messages are designed

lure or induce consumers to purchase services or products. The manner to which customers see

and understand an advert’s message has the power to establish the manner upon which the

consumers shall react towards the advert (Ramos Salazar, 2017). Because persuasion focuses on

seeking the most effective manner of influencing the recipients’ behavior and attitudes towards

the message, advertisers’ designs advertising messages in a manner that the messages fall more

towards the customer’s latitudes of acceptance, and less on latitudes of rejection and non-

commitment. This guarantees that the customers interpret the messages positively.

Research Review

The following two research articles will be used to illustrate how SJT is implemented in

media networks and education sectors and the implications of these implementations.

In their study, Lim et al. (2019) utilizes fake news on university students to evaluate the

function of ego-involvement and how it impacts their trust in fake news to test H1: the more

significant the participant’s ego involvement regarding the topic, the least possible they might be

to trust the persuasion of bogus articles regarding the same topic. To this end, the research aims
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at answering the research question: “is there an interaction impact between discrepancy and ego-

involvement in forecasting trust in bogus news?” (Lim et al., 2019). An online survey involving

120 student participants from public universities in Singapore was conducted to find the results

that indicated that H2 was rejected since the contrary was discovered; a higher participant’s ego-

involvement in the topic considerably projected a greater belief in the persuasion (Lim et al.,

2019). Moreover, an interaction between discrepancy and ego involvement in persuasion was not

discovered.

Example

My neighbor is a Trump supporter and have been attempting to persuade me for a while

to join him in supporting Trump’s opinions. As a Trump support, he is more likely to accept

Trump’s messages as there are more than likely within his latitude of acceptance. However, since

my liberal stance is important to me, I have already decided what I think is the correct position

(against conservative views), then structured my self-concepts around my liberal position. Thus,

I have the truth and anything else that does not represent liberal mindset is wrong. Since I am

ego-involved in this issue, my latitude of rejection towards Trump’s opinions and messages gets

larger and my latitudes of non- commitment and acceptance get smaller.

Ego-invovlement towards Trump's

messages To this end,

Trump’s messages are

Greator involvement Less invovlement

unlikely to change my
Greater latitude of Higher latitude of
Smaller latitude of
rejection towards non-commitment
non-commitment
Trump's opinions towards Trump's
attitude towards him or

Less persuadable more persuadable his opinions

Aghbolagh et al., 2020). The study's findings for discrepancy and ego-involvement thereby

contradict what SJT intimate as they indicate that persuasion might be more successful on
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persons with more strong attitude views further from the opinions promoted in the information

(Griffin, 2009).

In his study, Elliott (2016) investigates how highly problematic topics could instigate

higher ego involvement and impact an instructor's reliability by using the topic of abortion to the

hypothesis that; H1: “leaners with higher ego-involvement on abortion will rate instructors who

deliver the information falling into their latitude of rejection as having considerably less

credibility in one or more of the primary dimensions than instructors delivering information

falling within the learners’ latitude of non-commitment or rejection” (Elliott, 2016).  A self-

report survey was conducted on 147 undergraduate students where findings confirmed H1 in that

irrespective of which situation the learners received, students receiving the information falling

within their rejection latitude regarded the instructor’s reliability as considerably lower than

those who received information that falling inside their acceptance non-commitment latitudes

(Elliott, 2016). 

Example

The study findings confirm my application in that messages invoking high ego-

involvement can impact the perceived meanings and credibility of the message source (Griffin,

2009).  For instance, since I have strong attitudes against smoking, a cigarette advertisement is

an extreme example. As a person whose opinions includes outlawing and banning tobacco use, I

have high ego-involvement in the topic which result in greater rejection latitude. Ego

involvements are operationalization of the strength of attitude. Possessing firmer attitudes against

smoking will thereby make it difficult when it comes to persuading me through advertisement of

tobacco products. This study informs me of my application of SJT in that under high ego
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involvement, the person receiving the message has less need for an external anchor, as their own

internal anchor functions as their point of reference for making a judgment.

Conclusion

SJT maintains that when a message is received, the receiver of the message immediately

shapes a position on the matter. SJT maintains that a person's position on a topic relies on three

things: their anchor, alternatives (latitude zones), and ego-involvement (Aghbolagh et al., 2020).

Lim et al. (2019) apply the SJT's ideas of ego-involvement, discrepancy to the settings of fake

news, and alterations. The study's findings contradict the consistent suggestions of SJT by

indicating that persuasion might be more successful in persons with strong attitude positions

further from the view advocated in the information. Elliott's (2016) study findings are consistent

with SJT theory in that a person’s ego-involvement impacts the scope of their latitudes. With the

information and insight derived from the above research literature, I have gained a profound

understanding of Social Judgement Theory and how it works in real life, particularly in

advertisements, fake news, and educational context. For instance, Lim et al.'s (2019) study

findings have a real-world implication for the continuous fight against bogus information.

Thereby multiple stakeholders, including social media users, media houses, and governments,

could utilize these findings to better establish and target bogus news persuasions to lessen belief

in them and thereby successfully stop the circulation of bogus stories on the news.
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References

Aghbolagh H. D., Zamani, M., Paolini, S., & Chen, Z. (2020). Balance seeking opinion

dynamics model is based on social judgment theory. Physica D: Nonlinear

Phenomena, 403, 132336.

Elliott, D. A. (2016). Social judgment involvement's effect on credibility: How offensive remarks

damage instructor credibility (Doctoral dissertation, California State University,

Fullerton).

Griffin, E. M. (2009). A first look at communication theory. McGraw-hill.

Lim, W. L., Mohamed, S., Hamsah, S. M., & Tan, J. C. K. (2019). Effectiveness of fake news

corrections using social judgement theory.

Ramos Salazar, L. (2017). Changing resistant audience attitudes using social judgment theory’s

“anchor” point perspectives. Communication Teacher, 31(2), 90-93.