Assimilation and Contrast
Sometimes people perceive a message that falls within their latitude of rejection as farther from their anchor than they really are. This is called Contrast. The opposite of Contrast is Assimilation, and that is a perceptual error whereby people judge messages that fall within their latitude of acceptance as less discrepant from their anchor than they really are. These latitudes dictate the likelihood of assimilation and contrast. When a discrepant viewpoint is expressed in a communication message 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.
Read more about this topic: Social Judgment Theory
Famous quotes containing the word contrast:
“Unlike Boswell, whose Journals record a long and unrewarded search for a self, Johnson possessed a formidable one. His life in London—he arrived twenty-five years earlier than Boswell—turned out to be a long defense of the values of Augustan humanism against the pressures of other possibilities. In contrast to Boswell, Johnson possesses an identity not because he has gone in search of one, but because of his allegiance to a set of assumptions that he regards as objectively true.”
—Jeffrey Hart (b. 1930)