128 economics students judged 64 statements in terms of their permissiveness or restrictiveness toward the use of drugs. When the 32 most permissive statements were attributed to 1 fictitious newspaper, and the 32 most restrictive to another, judges gave more polarized ratings than when the statements were presented in the absence of newspaper names. It was found that the more permissive a judge's own position, the more polarized and restrictive tended to be his judgments. The ratings given by different groups of judges were highly linearly correlated with each other. An interpretation of the relationship between attitude and polarization of judgment is proposed, which assumes that judges categorize statements according to how much they agree or disagree with them. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)