Strengths
and Weaknesses of Social Judgment/involvement Theory
This theory has
several strengths compared with other consistency theories.
First, it realizes, and helps to explain, the role of
perception in persuasion. It seems obvious that two different
people may perceive a single message differently, and when
that happens, Social Judgment/Involvement theory can help
explain how and why this occurs. This means that this theory
can explain how perception (of messages) influences
persuasion. Second, there is a lot of empirical evidence, as
noted above, for a curvilinear relationship between
discrepancy and persuasion. The processes of assimilation and
contrast, and the latitude of rejection, all help explain why
this occurs. Third, there is considerable evidence that
involvement in the topic of a persuasive message plays an
important role in persuasion, and this theory makes use of
this concept.
This theory also has some limitations or weaknesses. First,
Sherif and Hovland (1961), in their initial formulation, limit
the effects of assimilation and contrast to messages in which
“the position in communication is susceptible to alternative
interpretations” (p. 149). Some messages take positions that
are fairly clear, and the audience has less leeway in
interpreting those messages, compared with more ambiguous
messages. They explain that “we would not expect that a
communication taking a clearly black or white stand on an
issue would be subject to such displacement” as assimilation
or contrast (p. 149).
Second, except for message position, Social
Judgment/Involvement theory ignores message content. There is
much evidence that several message variables, like evidence or
argument quality, affect persuasion. Social
Judgment/Involvement theory, like other consistency theories,
does not take into account any of these important message
variables. It is possible, for example, that a message that
falls in the latitude of rejection might not be rejected if it
has strong arguments for its position. Messages that are
extremely discrepant, at the far end of the latitude of
rejection from the listener’s own attitude may almost always
be rejected. However, some of messages that fall in other
parts of the latitude of rejection might be persuasive if the
messages are strong. Third, Social Judgment/Involvement theory
ignores the effects of source credibility, another factor that
can influence attitude change.
There are also some questions that can be raised about the
theory itself. It is not clear when a listener makes a
judgment about the position of a persuasive message. Is the
message judged before attitude change takes place, as
this theory assumes? It
is possible that the process is actually reversed. Messages
that are persuasive (that change a listener’s attitudes) may
then be perceived as falling into the latitude of acceptance.
The listener could think something like, “That message was
persuasive. It must have been near to my own attitude.”
On the other hand, messages that fail to persuade
people may, after they have failed, be judged to fall into the
latitude of rejection: “That message wasn’t persuasive at
all. It was really different from my own attitude.”
Some have raised the possibility that the latitudes aren’t
really specific to particular topics, but reflect a person’s
general persuasibility (Eagly & Telaak,
1992). People who
are relatively easy to persuade have wide latitudes of
acceptance, while those who are difficult to persuade have
wide latitudes of rejection. There are also questions about
how involvement is measured (O’Keefe,
1990). Is involvement
an indication of a topic’s importance?
Is it an indication of how often a topic is
encountered by an listener?
The common cold, thankfully, affects far more people
that malaria, but malaria is a more serious disease. Which
should be considered more involving?
Finally, there are questions about some of the research on
Social Judgment/Involvement theory. It is difficult (but not
impossible) to manipulate involvement. Studies by Sherif and
Hovland (1961) compared groups of people who were involved
with other groups who were uninvolved. Because they did not
randomly assign subjects to involved and uninvolved groups, it
is possible that those people who were in the involved group
differed in other ways from those in the uninvolved group. If
true, differences in attitudes between these two groups could
have been caused by their different levels of involvement --
as the researchers assumed -- but those differences could also
have been caused by other differences between the two groups.
As O’Keefe (1990) explained, “the high involvement
participants had more extreme attitudes than the
low-involvement participants,” which could mean that
differences between the groups were due to extremity of
attitudes rather than involvement levels (p. 40). Thus, more
research needs to be conducted to understand this theory.
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