African American women's perception of rebuttal analogy: Judgments concerning politeness, likability, and ethics

Abstract

Recent theorizing and research suggest that communicators using rebuttal analogy are rated as less polite, less likable, less competent and less ethical than communicators using a nonanalogy form of the same argument. A significant limitation of this work, however, is that it focuses largely on European Americans to the exclusion of other important groups, such as African American women, that are exposed to rebuttal analogy in public discourse. African American females'norms associated with communicative competence and argumentative practices, differing from European Americans, render this co‐cultural group's perceptions of rebuttal analogy and its users of particular theoretical import. On the basis of a 2 (rebuttal analogy, nonanalogy) x 4 (message topic) design, African American women (n = 200) read and rated one of eight experimental messages. Results indicated that African American women rated (a) rebuttal analogy users as less polite than communicators using the nonanalogy argument form, and (b) rebuttal analogy as less ethical than the argument phrased in literal terms. These results are discussed and suggestions for future research are offered.