Social Judgment Theory

Question 1

What is social judgment theory?

Answer 1

the effectiveness of persuasion depends on how the respondent perceives the position advocated

Question 2

What are the two steps involved in attitude change?

Answer 2

1. receiver makes a judgment about the position advocated

2. There’s an attitude change

Question 3

In what three categories is a position judged? How can you attain them?

Answer 3

to be acceptable, non-commital, objectionable

through ordered alternatives questionnaire

Question 4

Ordered questionnaire

Answer 4

Includes questions from one extreme to another. += acceptable, ++= most acceptable, x= objectionable, xx= most objectionable

Question 5

Judgemental latitudes

Answer 5

a person’s response to a position

Question 6

Latitude of acceptance

Answer 6

range of positions person finds acceptable, including most-acceptable and acceptable position

Question 7

Latitude of rejection

Answer 7

range of positions person finds objectionable, including most-objectionable and objectionable

Question 8

Ego-involvement and 3 of its characteristics

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Is ego-involvement issue specific?

Answer 9

yes

Question 10

Predicted relationship between size of judgement latitudes and ego involvement

Answer 10

It’s predicted that, as ego involvement increases, size of latitude of rejection increases, and LNC and LA decrease

Question 11

known group procedure

Answer 11

doing a procedure on a group of people whose characteristics/ beliefs you already know

Question 12

How is the known group procedure used to validate size of LR (in ordered alternatives questionnaire) as measure of ego involvement?

Answer 12

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)

Question 13

Own-categories procedure

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

Describe how ego involvement influences own-categories procedure

Answer 14

1. 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
2. Influences distribution of statements
   - higher ego involvement has 2 piles, with many wrong answers
   - low ego involvement distributes cards evenly

Question 15

Messages advocated in LA, LR, LNC most likely to produce X attitude change.

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

What is discrepancy

Answer 16

difference between communicator’s advocated position and receiver’s position

Question 17

Relationship between discrepancy and attitude change

Answer 17

• increasing discrepancy means increasing favorable attitude change

Question 18

Give an example of a message advocating in LA, LR, LNC

Answer 18

• 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

Question 19

How should advocators approach those with high ego involvement?

Answer 19

They should take series of steps to persuade

Question 20

Perceptual effects

Answer 20

concern the judgement of what position is being advocated by a member

Question 21

Perceptual displacement

Answer 21

displacement away from or toward the person’s opsition

Question 22

contrast effect

Answer 22

a type of perceptual effect, when perceiver perceives message to be farther away from her position

Question 23

assimilation effect

Answer 23

a type of perceptual effect, when perceiver perceives message to be closer to her position

Question 24

Relationship between ego involvement and assimilation and contrast effects?

Answer 24

Ego involvement magnifies assimilation and contrast effects.
- high ego involved person contrasts concepts more than low ego involved person

Question 25

How do assimilation effects reduce the effectiveness of persuasive messages?

Answer 25

• 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

Question 26

How do contrast effects reduce the effectiveness of persuasive messages?

Answer 26

x

Question 27

Confounded

Answer 27

two variables are confounded when they are put together in a way so we can’t untangle their separate effects

Question 28

Separate the different properties of ego involvement

Answer 28

• 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)

Question 29

What are we concerned about by using ego-involvement as a measure? what are the concerns about social judgement theory?

Answer 29

• 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.

Question 30

Correlation

Answer 30

relationship between two variables