ABSTRACT
When one looks at far-flung research efforts delving into disparate phenomena in social judgment, one sees that the same curious character keeps emerging as an influential force. Indeed, the influence of this character can be seen in the earliest and classic writings in modern psychology. The work of this individual can be detected in the arguments of William James and Sigmund Freud. This character’s presence can be more directly seen in the formative empirical achievements of Carl Hovland and Muzafer Sherif, as well as Henri Tajfel. Indeed, this character continues to have an impact on the field of psychology, in that the influence can be explicitly detected in many recent and current studies on the social judgmental processes. In this chapter, I focus on the work of this character, and provide one treatment for why this character’s work is so influential.
