Social Judgment Theory - Ego Involvement

Ego Involvement

It was speculated by the SJT researchers that extreme stands, and thus wide latitudes of rejection, were a result of high ego-involvement. Ego involvement is the importance or centrality of an issue to a person’s life, often demonstrated by membership in a group with a known stand. According to the 1961 Sherif and Hovland work, the level of ego-involvement depends upon whether the issue "arouses an intense attitude or, rather, whether the individual can regard the issue with some detachment as primarily a 'factual' matter" (p. 191). Religion, politics, and family are examples of issues that typically result in highly involved attitudes; they contribute to one's self-identity.

The concept of involvement is the crux of SJT. In short, Sherif et al. (1965) speculated that individuals who are highly involved in an issue are more likely to evaluate all possible positions, therefore resulting in an extremely limited or nonexistent latitude of noncommitment. People who have a deep concern or have extreme opinions on either side of the argument always care deeply and have a large latitude of rejection because they already have their strong opinion formed and usually aren't willing to change that. High involvement also means that individuals will have a more restricted latitude of acceptance. According to SJT, messages falling within the latitude of rejection are unlikely to successfully persuade. Therefore, highly involved individuals will be harder to persuade per SJT. In opposition, individuals who have less care in the issue, or have a smaller ego involvement, are likely to have a large latitude of acceptance. Because they are less educated and do not care as much about the issue, they are more likely to accept more ideas or opinions about an issue easily. This individual will also have a large latitude of noncommitment because again, if they do not care as much about the topic, they are not going to commit to certain ideas whether they are on the latitude of rejection or acceptance. Lastly, an individual who does not have much ego involvement in an issue will have a small latitude of rejection because they are very open to this new issue and do have opinions previously formed about it. .