A content analysis of arguing behaviors: a case study of Romania as compared to the United States.

• Author: Cionea, Ioana A.

Arguing is a pervasive form of interaction between people (Brockriede, 1975; Hample, 2005), embedded in the social fabric of human interactions. It is "a situated practice" (Poole, 2013, p. 608) in which members of a group advance statements but also enact and create social norms and rules that structure their argumentative interactions (Seibold & Meyers, 2007). Thus, the arguing practices of a social group reveal information about the functions of arguing and the rules that govern it within that group. For example, when an employee argues with a supervisor about a work-related topic, the employee communicates information but also the social acceptability of arguing with one's supervisors.

Argumentation research has a well-established tradition in the United States (U.S.), where scholars have examined how individuals argue from multiple perspectives (e.g., rhetoric, informal logic, and interpersonal argumentation). The same is not true of other cultures where argumentation undoubtedly occurs but knowledge of its specific functions, manifestations, and consequences is limited. The goal of this manuscript is to examine naive actors' perceptions of interpersonal argumentation in Romania from an emic standpoint, and based on structuration theory (Giddens, 1984). Data from the U.S. are used as a comparison point against which arguing behaviors in Romania are discussed.

Such an investigation is useful for several reasons. First, it provides a description of arguing behaviors in a different culture, which enhances cross-cultural argumentation knowledge. Specifically, this study explains Romanian youth's daily argumentation practices such as topics they argue about, people they argue with, and goals they pursue via arguing. In addition, the study examines Romanians' perceptions of the appropriateness of interpersonal arguing and its role in Romanian life and society. Because extant research examining Romanian communication practices is rare, understanding social and cultural perceptions of arguing is valuable to people interested in studying Romanian cultural customs as well as to people who anticipate interacting with Romanians. More Romanians now work or study abroad; an estimated 3 million Romanians (roughly 15% of the population) worked abroad (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2012), and approximately 28,000 Romanian students studied abroad in 2010 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2014).

Second, the study highlights social and cultural influences at play in a former Eastern European communist country that have led to a unique array of values (Smith, Dugan, & Trompenaars, 1996). Romania's case is interesting because the country has undergone social, economic, and political changes following the 1989 revolution and the integration into the European Union in 2007. This transition may have affected public and interpersonal argumentation. For example, Robila and Krishnakumar (2005) found that increased economic pressures were associated positively with marital conflict (i.e., arguing) among Romanian women, whereas Bancila, Mittelmark, and Hetland (2006) found that stressful interpersonal relationships increased Romanians' levels of psychological distress, regardless of gender. Thus, Romania represents a case study that illustrates the complexities of arguing behaviors in other post-communist Eastern European democracies. In what follows, the manuscript outlines key concepts of structuration theory that aid the analysis, conceptualizes arguing behaviors, and presents an overview of Romania compared to the U.S.

STRUCTURATION THEORY AND ARGUING BEHAVIORS

According to Giddens (1984), "human social activities (...) are recursive. That is to say, they are not brought into being by social actors but continually recreated by them via the very means whereby they express themselves as actors" (p. 2). This claim suggests that arguing, as a social activity (Hample, 2005), is continuously recreated in argumentative exchanges. The present study addresses the question of, "how do argument processes unfold and function within and between groups?" (Seibold & Meyers, 2007, p. 315).

Several scholars (e.g., Poole, Seibold, & McPhee, 1985, 1986, 1996; Seibold, McPhee, & Poole, 1980; Seibold & Myers, 2005) have applied structuration theory to group arguments and deliberation. According to Meyers, Seibold, and Brashers (1991), group arguments illustrate a structure and a system that highlights an "observable interactive practice" (p. 48). These structures can unveil rules and resources (e.g., logical principles) members of a group rely on, and how they deliberate to reach conclusions (Poole, 2013). If the group is a culture, structuration theory can reveal how its members organize argument behaviors-that is, what repertoire of resources they rely on for reenacting the structure imposed on such behaviors, and how the cultural group conceptualizes arguing as a system of everyday practices.

Seibold and Meyers (2007) explained that "viewed as a system, argument is communicative patterns of disagreement, reason giving and reason defending, and resolution seeking" (p. 315). This notion resembles previous definitions of arguing. For example, O'Keefe (1977) explained that, in one sense, an argument is an interactional exchange between two people. Willard (1989) also supported this idea of argument as interaction, based on two individuals' incompatible positions. Similarly, Jackson and jacobs (1980) viewed arguments as "disagreement relevant speech events" (p. 254). In these conceptualizations, the focus is on individual actors, which makes this approach the most suitable for the present cross-cultural analysis, given that we rely on naive actors' reports. Although these reports may be biased or incomplete, they reflect individuals' perceptions, illuminating how they appropriate and reenact cultural norms.

This theoretical conceptualization is applicable across cultures insofar as people in other cultures also argue with others. According to structuration theory, social practices are "ordered across space and time" (Giddens, 1984, p. 2). Structuring properties "make it possible for discernibly similar social practices to exist across varying spans of time and space" (Giddens, 1984, p. 17). In other words, arguing is a social practice instantiated in a particular culture, at a particular moment in time, but drawing from a culturally common reservoir of similar systemic structural properties.

Furthermore, argumentative exchanges have been classified in many ways, depending on goals and normative rules (Walton, 1998). In argumentation theory, most attention has been paid to the argumentative discussion, also termed critical discussion or persuasive dialogue (Barth & Krabbe, 1982; van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1984; Walton & Krabbe, 1995). Other forms exist, including negotiation, deliberation, and eristic dialogues (Walton & Krabbe, 1995). Walton (1998) explained that the prototypical example of an eristic dialogue, and the most frequent in everyday interactions, is a quarrel. While other forms of dialogue are constructive and follow logical reasoning, the quarrel is often destructive, plagued by logical fallacies, and highly emotional. Cionea (2013) for example, found that persuasion, negotiation, and information seeking tended to be associated with positive interaction goals such as expressing positive feelings and relational concerns, whereas the eristic dialogue tended to be associated with negative ones such as dominance and expressing negativity.

Several empirical studies have provided support for this somewhat dichotomous classification of arguments as either positive exchanges (i.e., argumentative discussions) or relatively negative ones (i.e., quarrels). For example, Benoit (1982) found that naive actors distinguished between an argument and a discussion. The former elicited descriptions that resemble a quarrel: loud voices, emotional displays, and negativity. The latter elicited characterizations that resemble the constructive dialogues Walton (1998) outlined: problem solving, understanding the other's point of view, information exchange, and negotiation. Hample and Dallinger (2002) replicated these results. Hample (2005) concluded that quarreling "is the more punishing experience" (p. 26).

Given the focus of this study, another relevant element in the conceptualization of arguing behaviors is the conceptual vocabulary of the Romanian language. In Romanian, "to argue" has different translations: 1) to quarrel, which is a negative exchange characterized by loud voices, tension, and emotional outbursts, and 2) to debate or discuss something, which involves an intellectual exchange of reasons and explanations, civility, and persuasion. Therefore, participants in each culture were asked to report on a specific type of argument a quarrel or a debate/discussion.

ARGUING BEHAVIORS IN ROMANIA AND THE UNITED STATES

The two cultures selected for comparison were convenient and different, yet these differences ought to affect the content of arguing behaviors, not the very existence of arguing in interpersonal exchanges. In other words, the structuration of arguing as a social practice ought to permit arguments among members of both cultures; individuals ought to rely on cultural rules and resources for enacting and reinforcing the structure each culture has created for arguing.

There are also cultural and sociological reasons that make these cultures interesting cases for analysis. These reasons affect the available resources on which individuals will rely while arguing, which may lead to different instantiations of argument structures. From a cultural standpoint, the U.S. is an individualistic culture, relatively masculine and with a moderate to low power distance index (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010). Romania is a relatively collectivistic culture, moderately masculine, and with a high power distance index...