Social judgment theory (SJT) is a persuasion theory proposed by Muzafer Sherif and Carl Hovland (1961).
Please note: This is an overview of the social Psychology term. The author has focused this use of SJT in the social psychology theory. However, there is another standpoint which is from Judgement and decision making. See Hardman (2009) Chapter 2.
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Arising out of the socio-psychological tradition, SJT is a theory that focuses on the internal processes of an individual's judgment with relation to a communicated message. SJT was intended to be an explanatory method designed to detail when persuasive messages are most likely to succeed. Attitude change is the fundamental objective of persuasive communication. SJT seeks to specify the conditions under which this change takes place and predict the direction and extent of the attitude change. In sum, the researchers strove to develop a theory that addressed the following: a person's likelihood to change his/her position, the likely direction of his/her attitude change, a person's tolerance of other positions, and the level of commitment to his/her own position (Sherif, Sherif, & Nebergall, 1965). The SJT researchers claimed that expectations regarding attitude change could be based on the message receiver's level of involvement, the structure of the stimulus (i.e., how many alternatives it allows), and the value (credibility) of the source.
SJT arose from social psychology and was based on laboratory findings resulting from experiments. These experiments studied the mental assessment of physical objects, referred to at the time as psychophysical research. Subjects were asked to compare some aspect of an object, such as weight or color, to another, differing object. The researchers discovered that when a standard was provided for comparison, the participants categorized the objects relative to the aspects of the standard. For example, if a very heavy object was used as the standard in assessing weight, then the other objects would be judged to be relatively lighter than if a very light object was used as the standard. The standard is referred to as an "anchor". This work involving physical objects was applied to psychosocial work, in which a participant's limits of acceptability on social issues are studied (Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif et al., 1965). Social issues include areas such as religion and politics.
The judgment process and the comparisons involved in it mediate attitude change, although the causal nature of the judgment process on attitude change is harder to determine (Kiesler, Collins, & Miller, 1969). A judgment occurs when a person compares at least two stimuli and makes a choice about them. With regard to social stimuli specifically, judgment processes incorporate both past experiences and present circumstances (Sherif, 1963). Sherif et al. (1965) defined attitudes as "the stands the individual upholds and cherishes about objects, issues, persons, groups, or institutions" (p. 4). Researchers must infer attitudes from behavior. The behavior can be in response to arranged or naturally-occurring stimuli (Nebergall, 1966; Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif et al., 1965). True attitudes are fundamental to self-identity, are complex, and thus can be difficult to change.
One of the ways in which the SJT developers observed attitudes was through the Own Categories Questionnaire. This method requires research participants to place statements into piles of most acceptable, most offensive, neutral, and so on, in order for researchers to infer their attitudes. This categorization, an observable judgment process, was seen by Sherif and Hovland (1961) as a major component of attitude formation. As a judgment process, categorization and attitude formation are a product of recurring instances so that past experiences influence decisions regarding aspects of the current situation. Therefore, attitudes are acquired (Sherif et al., 1965). Experience, knowledge, and emotion dictate these choices.
All social attitudes are not cumulative, especially regarding issues where the attitude is extreme (Sherif et al., 1965). This means that a person may not agree with less extreme stands relative to his/her position, even though they may be in the same direction. Furthermore, even though two people may seem to hold identical attitudes, their "most preferred" and "least preferred" alternatives may differ. Thus, a person's full attitude can only be understood in terms of what other positions he/she finds acceptable (or not) in addition to his/her own stand (Nebergall, 1966). This continuum illustrates a crucial point of SJT, referred to as the "latitudes of acceptance, rejection, and noncommitment". These latitudes compose, respectively, a range of preferred, offensive, and indifferent attitudes. The placement of positions along the continuum hinges on the anchor point, usually determined by the individual's own stand (Sherif & Hovland, 1961). Therefore, one's attitude on a social issue cannot be summed up with a single point but instead consists of varying degrees of acceptability for discrepant positions.
These degrees or latitudes together create the full spectrum of an individual's attitude. Sherif and Hovland (1961) define the latitude of acceptance "as the range of positions on an issue ... an individual considers acceptable to him (including the one 'most acceptable' to him)" (p. 129). On the opposite of the continuum lies the latitude of rejection. This is defined as including the "positions he finds objectionable (including the one 'most objectionable" to him)" (Sherif & Hovland, 1961, p. 129). This latitude of rejection was deemed essential by the SJT developers in determining an individual's level of involvement and thus his/her propensity to attitude change. The greater the rejection latitude, the more involved the individual is in the issue and thus is harder to persuade. In the middle of these opposites lies the latitude of noncommitment, a range of viewpoints where one feels primarily indifferent.
These latitudes dictate the likelihood of assimilation and contrast. When a discrepant viewpoint is expressed in a communication message, if it falls within the person's latitude of acceptance, the message is more likely to be assimilated or viewed as being closer to person's anchor, or own viewpoint, than it actually is. When the message is perceived as being very different from one's anchor and thus falling within the latitude of rejection, persuasion is unlikely due to a contrast effect. The contrast effect is what happens when the message is viewed as being further away than it actually is from the anchor. Messages falling within the latitude of noncommitment, however, are the ones most likely to achieve the desired attitude change. Therefore, the more extreme stand an individual has, the greater his/her latitude of rejection and thus the harder he/she is to persuade.
It was speculated by the SJT researchers that extreme stands, and thus wide latitudes of rejection, were a result of high ego-involvement. According to the 1961 Sherif and Hovland work, the level of ego-involvement depends upon whether the issue "arouses an intense attitude or, rather, whether the individual can regard the issue with some detachment as primarily a 'factual' matter" (p. 191). Religion, politics, and family are examples of issues that typically result in highly involved attitudes; they contribute to one's self-identity (Sherif et al., 1965).
The concept of involvement is the crux of SJT. In short, Sherif et al. (1965) speculated that individuals who are highly involved in an issue are more likely to evaluate all possible positions, therefore resulting in an extremely limited or nonexistent latitude of noncommitment. High involvement also means that individuals will have a more restricted latitude of acceptance. Because discrepant positions are less tolerable when a person is highly involved, more messages will fall into the latitude of rejection, which under this condition is wider. According to SJT, messages falling within the latitude of rejection are unlikely to successfully persuade. Therefore, highly involved individuals will be harder to persuade per SJT (Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif et al., 1965).