Social Judgment Theory - Latitudes of Rejection, Acceptance, and Noncommitment

Latitudes of Rejection, Acceptance, and Noncommitment

Social Judgment Theory also illustrates how people compare their personal positions on issues to other people’s positions. Individuals hold both a personal position on an issue and latitudes of what they think is acceptable or unacceptable in general for other people. Social attitudes are not cumulative, especially regarding issues where the attitude is extreme. This means a person may not agree with less extreme stands relative to his/her position, even though they may be in the same direction. Furthermore, even though two people may seem to hold identical attitudes, their "most preferred" and "least preferred" alternatives may differ. Thus, a person's full attitude can only be understood in terms of what other positions he/she finds acceptable (or not) in addition to his/her own stand. Sherif saw an attitude as amalgam of three zones or latitudes. There is the latitude of acceptance which is the range of ideas that a person sees as a reasonable or worthy of consideration, the latitude of rejection, which is the range of ideas that a person sees as unreasonable or objectionable, and finally the Latitude of noncomitment which is the range of ideas that a person sees as neither acceptable nor questionable.

These degrees or latitudes together create the full spectrum of an individual's attitude. Sherif and Hovland (1961) define the latitude of acceptance "as the range of positions on an issue ... an individual considers acceptable to him (including the one 'most acceptable' to him)" (p. 129). On the opposite of the continuum lies the latitude of rejection. This is defined as including the "positions he finds objectionable (including the one 'most objectionable" to him)". This latitude of rejection was deemed essential by the SJT developers in determining an individual's level of involvement and thus his/her propensity to an attitude change. The greater the rejection latitude, the more involved the individual is in the issue and thus is harder to persuade. In the middle of these opposites lies the latitude of noncommitment, a range of viewpoints where one feels primarily indifferent. Sherif claimed that the greater the discrepancy, the more hearers will adjust their attitudes. Thus, the message that persuades the most is the one that is most discrepant from the listener’s position yet falls within his or her latitude of acceptance or latitude of noncommitment.

These degrees of latitude together are very useful when your goal is to persuade someone. If you can judge their latitude of acceptance, rejection, noncommittment or anchor you can better craft your message to move their opinion along the line closer to your goal.