User:Emmaleighrose1992/sandbox

Attitude

SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY

Attitude
One major implication of Social Judgment Theory is that persuasion is difficult to accomplish, and that even a successful attempt at persuasion, will only result in minor changes in attitude. Successful persuasive messages are those that are targeted to the receiver’s latitude of acceptance but are completely different than their anchor position. An example of an unsuccessful message, could be defined as an attitude adjustment in the opposite direction from what the message advocates, meaning that the listener is driven away from the idea instead of being drawn to it; this phenomenon has come to be known in the social sciences as the boomerang effect. When attempting to persuade someone, and change their attitude, there are a few key concepts that are explained through social judgment theory that can help lead to a successful interaction. Most importantly, you should have a good understanding of your audience's attitude as well as their latitudes of acceptance and rejection, so you can better frame the information you are presenting. Once you have this understanding you can present your information in a way that will guarantee results. For example, we know that if this new information is within the audience's latitude of acceptance, that they will adjust their attitude accordingly. However, it has also been shown that if the information presented falls within the audience's latitude of rejection, they will still change their attitude, but in the opposite direction from what they believe the speaker is advocating.