Objective Information and Social Consensus

. 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.