Argumentation in Psychology.

• Author: Sarnoff, Tamar
• Position: Book Review

Argumentation in Psychology. Edited by James F. Voss and Julie Van Dyke. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002; 155 pp. $35.00.

In this reprint of a special issue of Discourse Processes, editors James Voss and Julie Van Dyke strive to present a sample of current research trends in the psychology of argument. Their purpose is to elaborate on how argumentation operates in "virtually all contexts," and its study affords a better understanding of social, cultural and subjective norms, which despite their ubiquity, they argue, should remain constant across all fields. In addition, the editors claim that argumentation, as a developmental process, is central to education, and should therefore help in understanding epistemological development. Most of the studies selected function within this framework. The chapters show how empirical research methods have the potential to make progress in under standing the process of argumentation, and this collection of essays certainly adds to this growing field of research.

The majority of the researchers whose work is represented in this volume come from pedagogical and developmental psychology backgrounds. One outcome of this is that more than half of the studies relate to how children develop argument skills and strategies. This leads to a set of interesting conclusions that may hold great weight for future directions in argumentation. Perhaps the most intriguing of the hypotheses replicated in several of the studies is that dialectical functions of argument act as a gateway to rhetorical skills. Chapters by Stein and Albro, Felton and Kuhn, Reznistkaya, Anderson, McNurlen, Nguyen-Jahiel, Archodidou, Kim, and Bren, Russell and Weems provide compelling evidence to bolster this claim. A marked reliance by children and adolescents on dialogical communication is evidence of a developing psychological process in which arguers hone their skills at arguing a position, but they also develop the ability to effectively evaluate and analyze the arguments of others in dialogue, and in turn, transfer those skills over to written arguments.

While argumentation scholars have dealt with the influence of multiple goals on argument between adults (Jacobs, Jackson, Stearns & Hall, 1991, Jacobs, 2002), as well as the influence of argument type on strategies (Walton, 1992), Stein and Albro's research deals with alternate influences on argument construction in children and adults. Two areas that the authors found were underrepresented in the literature were the roles on interpersonal goals and emotional content in both children and adults construction of arguments. These goals, they argue, affect the structure and content of an argument. The authors refer to studies that indicate by age 7, children are able to challenge the opposing position to build more complex and coherent arguments; indicating the development of an automatic schema. This notion of using the interlocutor in building argument schema works to support the notion that dialectic skills build to develop into anticipatory rhetorical skills, where the interlocutor is present only in imagination.

Stein and Albro argue that the majority of research has been more focused on formal models of argument, and children's ability to construct arguments has been drastically underrepresented. One of the aspects of argument that is not accounted for in traditional models, but is a key component in the online processing of argument is that interleaving arguments control which components of argument are generated. The authors note that even young children can present claims, warrants and evidence in argumentation, although the standards of logic and acceptability are not used. The authors found that maintaining a relationship (and the relative import of interpersonal goals) was more important than winning an argument to mutually...