Abstract
According to the psychology of everyday, emotions are the major cause of irrationality in deliberative human behavior. This idea is so obvious, that it suffices to juxtapose the words “emotion” and “argumentation” to make plain what question will be addressed in this paper. It is the more remarkable, that in the research literature hardly any studies are found into the relation between emotion and expressions of opinion. In all probability this omission is due to a single circumstance: the existence of the questionnaire. Attitude scale included, the questionnaire is undoubtedly the most sophisticated instrument in the methodological repertory of the social psychologist. Its very sophistication meant, that the analysis of natural expressions of opinion lost its urgency and attractiveness. However, as Eiser (1982) makes clear, as a research tool, the questionnaire compels an approach to beliefs and attitudes that is largely insensitive to differences among individuals in the complexity and content of their belief systems. Based on a static mathematical model, the attitude scale, moreover, carries with it a view of attitudes as static, readily available knowledge structures in memory.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Abelson, R.P., & Levi, A. (1985). Decision making and decision theory. In: G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology. (Vol.2,pp.524–530).Reading Mass.: Addison Wesley.
Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall.
Batson, C.D., Coke, J.S., Chard, F., Smith, D., & Taliafero, A. (1979). Generality of the “Glow of goodwill”: Effects of mood on helping and information acquisition. Social Psychology Quarterly, 42, 176–179.
Billig, M. (1985). Prejudice, categorization and particulari- zation: From a perceptual to a rhetorical approach. European Journal of Social Psychology, 15, 7 9–103.
Billig, M. (1986). Thinking and arguing. Inaugural lecture, Loughborough University.
Bower, G.H. (1981). Mood and memory. American Psychologist, 36, 129–148.
Bower, G.H., & Cohen P.R. (1982). Emotional influences in memory and thinking: Data and theory. In M.S. Clark, & S.T. Fiske (Eds.), Affect and cognition (pp.291–331). Hillsdale NJ.: Erlbaum.
Cohen, R. (1981, June). Investigation of processing strategies for the structural analysis of arguments. Proceedings of ACL Conference.
Cohen, R. (1984a, May). A theory of discourse coherence for argument understanding. Proceedings of LSLSI Conference.
Cohen, R. (1984b, July) A computational theory of the function of clue words in argument understanding, Proceedings of COLING conference.
Converse, P.E. (1970). Attitudes and non-attitudes: Continuation of a dialogue. In: E.R. Tufte (Ed.), The quantificative analysis of social problems (pp.168–189). Reading Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
Eemeren, F.H. van, Grootendorst, R., & Kruiger, T. (1984). The study of argumentation. NY: Irvington.
Eiser, J.R. (1982). Attitudes and applied research. In P. Stringer (Ed.), Confronting social issues: application of social psychology. (Vol.1, pp.81–101). London: Academis Press.
Eiser, J.R., & van der Pligt, J. (1979). Beliefs and values in the nuclear debate. Journal of applied social psychology, 9, 524–536.
Fazio, R.H. (1986). How do attitudes guide behavior? In R.M. Sorrentino, & E.T. Higgins (Eds.). Motivation and cognition: fundamentals of social behavior. N.Y.: Wiley.
Fazio, R.H., Chen, J., McDonel, E.C., & Sherman, S.J. (1982). Attitude accessibiliy, attitude-behavior consistency, and the strength of the object-evaluation association. Journal of experimental social psychology, 18, 339–357.
Fazio, R.H., Sanbonmatsu, D.M., Powell, M.C., & Kardes, F. R. (1986). On the automatic activation of attitudes, Journal of personality and social psychology, 50, 229–238.
Fazio, R.H., & Williams C.J. (1986). Attitude accessibility as a moderator of the attitude-perception and attitude-behavior relations: An investigation of the 1984 Presidential elections. Journal of personality and social psychology, 51, 505–514.
Feather, N.T. (Ed.). (1982). Expectations and actions: Expectancy-value models in psychology. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.
Forest, D., Clark, M.S., Mills, J., & Isen, A.M. (1979). Helping as a function of feeling state and nature of the helping behavior. Motivation and Emotion, 3, 161–169.
Hovland, C.I., Harvey, O.J., & Sherif, M. (1957). Assimilation and contrast effects in reactions to communication and attitude change. Journal of abnormal and social psychology, 17, 282–291.
Isen, A.M. (1970). Success, failure, attention and reactions to others: The warm glow of success. Journal of personality and social psychology, 15, 294–301.
Isen, A.M. (1984). Toward understanding the role of affect in cognition. In R.S. Wyer, & T.K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (Vol.3, pp.179–236). Hillsdale NJ.: Erlbaum.
Isen, A.M., Means, B., Patrick, R. & Nowicki, G. (1982) Some factors influencing decision making strategy and risk taking. In M.S. Clark, & S.T. Fiske (Eds.), Affect and Cognition (pp. 243–261). Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.
Isen, A.M., Simmonds, S.F. (1978). The effect of feeling good on a helping task that is incompatible with good mood. Social Psychology, 41, 345–349.
Johnson, E., & Tversky, A. (1983). Affect, generaliztaion, and the perception of risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 20–31.
Knapp, A. (1986). Die Auswirkung emotionaler Zustände auf das Lösen eines sozialen Dilemmas. Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie, 17, 160–172.
McGuire, W.J. (1985). Attitudes and attitude change. In G. Lindzey, & E. Aronson, The handbook of social psychology (vol.2, pp.233–346). Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley.
Montgomery, H., & Svenson, O. (1976). On decision rules and information processing strategies for choices among multi-attribute alternatives. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 17, 282–291.
Natale, M. (1977). Effects of induced elation-depressed on speech in the initial interview. Journal of counseling and clinical psychology, 45, 45–52.
Payne, J.W. (1976). Task complexity and contingent processing in decision making: An information search and protocol analysis, Organizative behavior and human performance, 16, 366–387.
Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse analysis and social psychology. London: Sage.
Powell, M.C., & Fazio, R.H. (1984). Attitude accessibility as a function of repeated attitudinal expression. Personality and social psychology bulletin, 10, 139–148.
Schellens, P.J. (1985). Redelijk argumenteren. Een onderzoek naar normen voor kritische lezers. Dordrecht: Foris.
Tversky, A. (1972). Elimination by aspects: A theory of choice, Psychological review, 79, 281–299.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1988 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wegman, C. (1988). Emotion and Argumentation in Expressions of Opinion. In: Hamilton, V., Bower, G.H., Frijda, N.H. (eds) Cognitive Perspectives on Emotion and Motivation. NATO ASI Series, vol 44. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2792-6_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2792-6_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7756-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-2792-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive