Social Judgment Theory Flashcards
What is social judgment theory?
the effectiveness of persuasion depends on how the respondent perceives the position advocated
What are the two steps involved in attitude change?
- receiver makes a judgment about the position advocated
2. There’s an attitude change
In what three categories is a position judged? How can you attain them?
to be acceptable, non-commital, objectionable
through ordered alternatives questionnaire
Ordered questionnaire
Includes questions from one extreme to another. += acceptable, ++= most acceptable, x= objectionable, xx= most objectionable
Judgemental latitudes
a person’s response to a position
Latitude of acceptance
range of positions person finds acceptable, including most-acceptable and acceptable position
Latitude of rejection
range of positions person finds objectionable, including most-objectionable and objectionable
Ego-involvement and 3 of its characteristics
person’s relationship to an issue
- can be personally involved in an issue
- issue is important to them
- they intensely hold the position, their position is important to their self-concept
Is ego-involvement issue specific?
yes
Predicted relationship between size of judgement latitudes and ego involvement
It’s predicted that, as ego involvement increases, size of latitude of rejection increases, and LNC and LA decrease
known group procedure
doing a procedure on a group of people whose characteristics/ beliefs you already know
How is the known group procedure used to validate size of LR (in ordered alternatives questionnaire) as measure of ego involvement?
in known groups where the majoirty of people are more ego involved in a topic, they have larger latitudes of rejection (as compared in the questionnaire)
Own-categories procedure
- used to measure ego involvement
- respondents sort issue relevant statements into categories of their own making, they decide how many categories there are and make them. In each category, cards reflect the same point of view
Describe how ego involvement influences own-categories procedure
- Influences number of categories
- higher ego involvement has more black and white approach, so fewer categories
- lower ego involvement can see specifics of statements better - Influences distribution of statements
- higher ego involvement has 2 piles, with many wrong answers
- low ego involvement distributes cards evenly
Messages advocated in LA, LR, LNC most likely to produce X attitude change.
- messages advocated in LA + LNC–> produce favorable attitude change in direction of point advocated
- message advocated in LR–> produce no attitude change or a boomerang attitude effect
What is discrepancy
difference between communicator’s advocated position and receiver’s position
Relationship between discrepancy and attitude change
- increasing discrepancy means increasing favorable attitude change
Give an example of a message advocating in LA, LR, LNC
- ego involved in being moderate, not having a preference between dogs or casts
- Emily tries to persuade me to being a dog person. because her persuasion is advocated to my LNC, i’m more inclined to be persuaded
- If I hate dogs, and dogs are in my LR, if emily tries to persuade me to be a dog person, I will either have no attitude change or a boomerang attitude effect- I’ll love cats
How should advocators approach those with high ego involvement?
They should take series of steps to persuade
Perceptual effects
concern the judgement of what position is being advocated by a member
Perceptual displacement
displacement away from or toward the person’s opsition
contrast effect
a type of perceptual effect, when perceiver perceives message to be farther away from her position
assimilation effect
a type of perceptual effect, when perceiver perceives message to be closer to her position
Relationship between ego involvement and assimilation and contrast effects?
Ego involvement magnifies assimilation and contrast effects.
- high ego involved person contrasts concepts more than low ego involved person
How do assimilation effects reduce the effectiveness of persuasive messages?
- assimilation effects cause perceiver message as closer to their position than it actually is. they think message is asking for less change than it actually wants
- if perceiver ends up giving persuader what they want, it’s still less than persuader wants
How do contrast effects reduce the effectiveness of persuasive messages?
x
Confounded
two variables are confounded when they are put together in a way so we can’t untangle their separate effects
Separate the different properties of ego involvement
- you can intensely hold a position even if it isn’t really important to you (earth is round)
- an issue can be important to you without being part of your self-concept (federal deficit)
- an issue can be personally relevant without being important to your self concept (parking)
What are we concerned about by using ego-involvement as a measure? what are the concerns about social judgement theory?
- lack of correlation between different ways to measure ego involvement: size of the latitude of rejection through ordered alternatives questionnaire, number of categories through own categories procedure. Even though we would think that these have a negative correlation, the correlation is 0 because each procedure is measuring different variables (like extremity of attitude). So there’s no relationship between categories and latitude of rejection.
- ego involvement measures are not correlated to the respondent’s perceived importance of an issue or their feelings toward an issue. Makes us wonder if our concept of ego involvement and measure of LR are good to judge. Ex- ice cream is deemed more important than heroin and SAT.
Correlation
relationship between two variables
