Police shootings of African-American men have become rampant in the USA over the years as seen in the cases of Amber Guyger, Ferguson, and Oscar Grants. A man from the African-American descent has a 1 in 1000 chance of being killed by the law enforcement officers in the course of his lifetime (Khan, 2019). The killings of black men have elicited violent and non-violent protests in the USA as the protestors call for justice for the lost lives. The aim of this literature review is to highlight the Social Judgement Theory and its relation to the increased incidence of police shooting of black men. The studies used in the literature review will be accessed from various journal databases such as EBSCO, PubMed, and Google Scholar among others. The articles will be ten years and older.
Cooksey (1996) states that Carl Hovland, Muzafer Sheriff and Carolyn Sheriff formulated the Social Judgement theory. The SJT is a self-persuasion theory that is formed on the basis that an individual must evaluate an idea and compare it with the present attitudes ascertain where it will be placed on attitude scale within one’s mind. SJT is used in trying to understand an individual’s judgment. The factors of an individual’s surrounding influences his/her psychological processes and this is what formed the probabilistic functionalist psychology. Egon Brunswick spearheaded the study of probabilistic functionalism psychology, and this is what laid down a foundation for the SJT (Cooksey, 1996). The Social Judgment theory was formulated from psychophysical experiment carried out in a laboratory aimed at studying the physical objects mental assessments. The subjects were required to compare an object’s features from various aspects. The researchers found out that the subjects made comparisons related to the object using an initial set standard. The standards used in the research were referred to as “anchors”. SJT was formulated to help in determining at what point the persuasive messages are likely to yield fruits, the fundamental objective of any persuasive communications attitude change and through SJT, it allows an individual in ascertaining the various conditions that will allow the respective changes to occur (Cooksey, 1996).
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Mallard (2014) observed that the Social Judgment theory is used in illustrating the disparities between the people’s personal viewpoints on matters to other’s sentiments around them. Similarly, people will tend to determine what they think is right or wrong based on their view of another group. In cases whereby attitudes are categorized as being extreme on various issues, it indicates that there is no cumulative nature in social attitudes. This is an indication that the attitudes of another individual may still not be agreeable to another even though they are moving in the same direction with what he/she believes in. Likewise, the least preferred and mots preferred attitudes of two people might not necessary be the same despite having similar attitudes. The only means through which the complete understanding of an individual’s position about others is possible is by trying to find out which level of acceptability or unacceptability dos one has with regard to one’s individual stand.
As per Sherriff (cited in Cooksey, 1996), an attitude comprises of three latitudes or zones. These include the latitude of acceptance, rejection and non-commitment. The latitude of acceptance determines the ideas that a person will view as being reasonable of consideration. Ideas regarded as being unreasonable are determined to base on the latitude of rejection while ideas regarded as being neither unreasonable nonacceptable are determined to base on the latitude of non-commitment. Cooksey (1996) states that the Social judgment Theory developers cited that the latitude of rejection is important when it comes to determining the involvement level of a person and thus his/her inclination towards an attitude change. In case one has a higher-level of rejection latitude, the person is more involved with the matter and thus making it very hard to persuade one to change. On the other hand, the non-commitment latitude renders an individual to have in different viewpoints, and this creates discrepancies. The higher level of discrepancy, the higher the probability one has to modify their attitudes. This indicates that the listener will adopt the message that will be brought forward and have a higher level of persuasion.
An article by Herak et al. (2018) found that human beings try very hard to ensure harmony is preserved between their behaviors (external) and attitudes (internal). Consistency is normative in human beings, and thus their main motivation is to ensure that they remain consistent. Nonetheless, there is likelihood for inconsistency to occur within people and this brings about dissonance. Through attitude change, an individual will try to ensure that consistency is retained. According to the Social Judgment theory, every new idea is weighed by a person through carrying out a comparison with the person’s point of view and ascertain where it should be gauged on the attitude scale within the person’s mind. The Social Judgement Theory is subconscious organizing of concepts that transpires at the instant of perception. Within a free-choice environment, individuals must ensure that they behave based on their attitudes. However once they behave contrary to their attitudes, there is a room for personal dissonance and this brings about an arousal state that lays a foundation for negative emotions to breed. Therefore, people who behave differently from their beliefs and attitudes are viewed as being more negative and thus bringing about a derogatory impression the social judgment of an in-group member is maintained using a consistent restoration. In case the consistency is not maintained and restored amongst the in-group members, it brings about the black-sheep effect.
According to Shakya (2014), the Social Judgment Theory focuses on the relationship between a person’s judgment based on its internal processes and the communication message. The main aim of developing the Social Judgment Theory was to come up with a methodology that could help in determining how to effectively use persuasive messages in communicating. The key aim of persuasive communication is targeting attitude change. Therefore, the Social judgment theory outlines the various conditions that support effective changes and forecast the extent and direction of the attitude change. Through the Social Judgment theory, it will outline the commitment level of an individual to their position, the tolerance of an individual towards the viewpoint of others, the likelihood of the change direction and the probability of an individual changing their attitudes.
Social judgment encompasses how individuals thing about social things, how they perceive other individuals and how impressions about the particular group are formed. At times, an individual might wrongly judge another group of people, and it is these misjudgments that lay a foundation for the existence of discrimination and prejudice. The categorization and discrimination of stimuli is the major concern for judgment, as it will try to explain how attitudes are modified, judged and expressed. According to Shrestha (2017) for judgment to exist, an individual must make comparison between two or more stimuli and come up with the choice one deems right. In most cases, one will use past and present experiences in making judgments, and at times, the experiences will overshadow the present experiences when making a decision. Therefore, the Social judgment theory believes that attitudes of an individual are acquired and thus the theory aims to highlight how people make comparisons about their positions on the various matter concerning other people’s viewpoints.
Unsworth, Harries & Davies (2015) carried out a study to determine how an occupational therapy uses information in making various decisions basing on the Social judgment Theory. The SJT was used in determining the affiliation between the natural decision setting and the judge using the probabilistic functionalism principle. The main reason for using SJT is that it offers one an effective methodology for assessing the decision-making abilities in the event there is a lack of optimal judgment. The major outcomes of such decisions in the real world will bring about catastrophic errors. Social judgment theory uses statistical analysis to define the affiliation between a person’s judgment and information available. In the case of the study, clinical decisions are made by the occupational therapists after weighing information basing on their importance levels. Using the SJT, statistical methods such as regression analysis is used in determining the differences in decisions made by individuals.
Mallard (2010) cites that a high ego involvement is the results of wide latitudes of rejection according to the SJT developers. Ego involvement is what will determine the affiliation that an individual has with a certain group concerning their attitudes on a certain issue. Some of the issues that bring about a high level of attitude involvement include family, religion and politics. It is these elements that will lay foundation for the development of one’s self-identity. In case an individual has a higher level of involvement with particular matter, it leads to the development on the non-commitment latitude. Such individual with extreme opinion from both sides of an argument will tend to have strong opinions related to the matter, and thus they cannot change their beliefs. A more restricted level of acceptance is also evidenced in individual with higher involvement levels within issue. The Social Judgement theory states that there is very little probability of persuasion with regards to messages to fall within the latitude of rejection. Therefore, according to the Social judgment theory, it is very hard to persuade people who are highly involved.
Based on the literature review, it is evident that the Social Judgment Theory is used in analyzing human judgments basing on their level of attitude changes and opinions. The ability of an individual to change their attitudes is what determines the ability of one to become persuaded by a particular message. Most of the scholarly articles have highlighted that the Social Judgment Theory will effectively be used in determining the various worldviews that people have basing on their ability to become persuaded by a particular opinion. The current research will aim at ascertaining why the police have continually shot Black men across the USA basing on the Social Judgment Theory tenets.
References
Cooksey, R. W. (1996). The methodology of social judgement theory. Thinking & Reasoning , 2 (2-3), 141-174.
Herak, I., Martinie, M. A., Almecija, Y., & Kamiejski, R. (2018). Social Judgment of an In-group Member Behaving in a (Non) dissonant Way. International Review of Social Psychology , 31 (1).
Mallard, J. (2010). Engaging students in social judgment theory. Communication Teacher , 24 (4), 197-202.
Shakya, R. (2014). The social judgment theory: Consumer behavior . Retrieved on 12 October 2019, from https://www.academia.edu/8314396/The_Social_Judgment_Theory_Consumer_Behavior
Unsworth, C., Harries, P., & Davies, M. (2015). Using Social Judgment Theory method to examine how experienced occupational therapy driver assessors use information to make fitness-to-drive recommendations. British journal of occupational therapy , 78 (2), 109-120.
Khan, A. (2019). Getting killed by police is a leading cause of death for young black men in America. Los Angeles Times . Retrieved on 12 October 2019, from https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2019-08-15/police-shootings-are-a-leading-cause-of-death-for-black-men
