Objective Information and Social Consensus

James A. Yunker

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1984, vol. 43, issue 4, 413-425

Abstract: Abstract. The experiment reported in this paper assesses the relative importance of objective and subjective determinants of judgment in a typical social judgment situation. A moral dilemma was described in five written versions: a control version plus four experimental ones. Each experimental version presented a small amount of additional information emphasizing a particular objective consideration bearing on the evaluation of the morally questionable action. The subjective factors in terms of the personal backgrounds and attitudes of the judges were assessed via a brief questionnaire. A multiple regression analysis produced two principal conclusions: 1) while both the objective and subjective factors had statistically significant effects on social judgment, neither had a numerically substantial effect; 2) the subjective factors contributed appreciably more to the determination of social judgment than did the objective factors. But it is shown that objective information does have some impact on judgment—sufficient may be critical in producing social consensus.

Date: 1984
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1984.tb01865.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:43:y:1984:i:4:p:413-425

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0002-9246

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Economics and Sociology is currently edited by Laurence S. Moss

More articles in American Journal of Economics and Sociology from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().