Investigates the private criteria people use in judging whether or not to make particular arguments. Determines the relationship between self-monitoring and the use of editing criteria. Finds that person-centered issues and discourse competence rules are extremely important, and that the self-monitoring scale has serious psychometric problems. (MS)

In order to clarify and define the subject matter of argumentation, this paper examines the two senses of argument identified by D. J. O'Keefe and then proposes a third sense of argument as another legitimate perspective in argumentation. As discussed in the paper, O'Keefe's two senses of argument are a thing people make and a kind of interaction…

Noting that--although explicit attention to the unconscious has been rare in argument theories--the notion is unavoidable in any full theory, this paper argues that the unconscious plays a central role in argumentation. After briefly discussing the characteristics of the unconscious, the first section of the paper presents an analysis of…

The fact that little research has been conducted on the penalties for violating communication rules precipitated this study exploring the consequences of a superior lying to a subordinate and of a subordinate lying to a superior. The subjects were 82 college students who filled out attribution scales regarding the superior and subordinate depicted…

To determine whether argument is logical, this paper reviews the empirical literature on perception, memory, and reasoning. It finds cognitive processes to be inferential, thus supporting the assumption that argument is logical. It notes, however, that a cognitive view of argument must be taken to appreciate this logicality, because people…

The prime function of human communication is to enable people to survive their environment. The special function of an argument is to adjust the environment to satisfy felt needs. Whether argument takes the cognitive form of thought, the textual form of an essay, or the interpersonal form of a conversation, it serves this general function.…

A study focusing on argument as a receiver-contained phenomenon assessed the differential importance of (new) arguments stimulated by a message, as opposed to (old) arguments previously integrated. Data were collected from 207 college students in a pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest design. The subjects provided information on their attitudes…

Scholars have long been interested in the relation between rhetoric and dialectic. Recent theorists suggest that one way of viewing argument is through the perspective of argument-as-procedure, in which rules such as those attendant to the conduct of dialectic, debate, or discussion come under the purview of argumentation. This paper is a critical…

As a step toward the study of invention, an investigation dealt not with public arguments or the results of invention, but with arguments that may have occurred to the rhetor but were discarded. To avoid problems of self-presentation and retrospection, thinking aloud and reconstructive protocols were avoided in favor of providing 37 college…

A study was conducted to test the empirical merit of R. M. Chisholm's and T. D. Feehan's proposed typology of deception: (1) commission versus omission (lies of commission are those where the liar contributes causally to the receiver's believing the lie, perhaps by telling the falsehood; lies of omission would occur if the liar could have…

Describes the rationale for teaching the cognitive context of argument and argumentation, presents an example of an approach to value argument, and discusses the role of the unconscious in argument. (PD)

Reviews the case against and for verbal self-reports, then attempts a balanced assessment. Also critiques recent argumentation studies. (Examples of self-reports include disclosures under psychoanalysis, thinking aloud protocols of undergraduates reading a message, oral choices made in perceptual judgment tasks, marks on a Likert scale.) (PD)

An experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that abstract materials increase accuracy in solving categorical syllogisms. In an attempt to encourage subjects to reason their way through the problems rather than to make judgments about the truth or desirability of the proffered conclusions, the premises were composed of familiar words in…

A study continued a series of empirical investigations into the psychological criteria people use to determine whether or not to make particular arguments. Two hundred volunteers enrolled in a required public-speaking course (1) responded to several demographic questions, (2) described the persuasive choices they would make in the scenario…

The two chief approaches to teaching argumentation and invention over the centuries have been first presenting a formal, abstract system, such as logic or topic, then emphasizing audience analysis. Sometimes these have been seen as alternatives, and sometimes as complements. Cursory attention is often paid to the ideal of investigating audience…