Thanks to Rachel MacDonald for this really interesting guest post! 

Imagine you are back at school now. You’re in science class. You have a thermometer and you are about to measure your own body temperature. Your temperature rises and so the thermometer’s sensor becomes more ‘red’, right?

That’s how social judgment theory works too. It states that people have a cognitive map that impacts the way messages are received and this map basically works like a thermometer.

The ego involvement you have with a topic determines how red your thermometer can potentially become. If you have a high ego involvement and hear a message that opposes your view on the topic, your thermometer will turn completely red and you’ll reject the message.

The basic premise of social judgment theory is that if the latitude of acceptance is greater than the latitude of rejection the recipient will likely accept the message. So, the theory focuses on low and high ego involvement.