Interpersonal Arguments Research Articles

Personal Circumstances Preceding Firearm Suicide Death Among Black Adults in the United States.

Despite an alarming rise in firearm suicide rates within Black communities, there has been little research on the contributors that precede firearm suicide deaths among Black adults. To fill this knowledge gap, this study was guided by an overarching research question: What are the recurring and salient personal circumstances experienced by Black adults prior to dying by firearm suicide in the US? This basic, interpretive qualitative study analyzed narrative text data for 843 Black adult firearm suicide decedents from the National Violent Death Reporting System. The analysis began with an initial cycle of open coding, followed by a second coding cycle, organizing the circumstances into major categories using a focused coding process. The analysis then moved back and forth between description and interpretation, and major themes were developed. Five themes emerged from this analysis: (1) Decedents often experienced poor health prior to death - but not always poor mental health. (2) Romantic relationships were often deteriorating, leading to frequent interpersonal arguments. (3) Alcohol and substance use were common before a suicide attempt. (4) Decedents frequently experienced financial and legal difficulties prior to death. (5) Decedents had many pathways to accessing firearms, and limiting firearmavailability before death was challenging. Additional research on potential intervention pathways will be critical, given recent evidence indicating dramatic increases in firearm ownership among Black adults over the past 5years.

‘Hey Siri, You’re Dumb!’: Investigating Blurting Instances of Voice-Based Assistants

Abstract Voice-based assistants (VBAs) are transforming how we interact with technology. We rely heavily on VBAs (such as Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant) to manage our daily routines and tasks. The current study extends past research on blurting to the human–machine communication (HMC) context. An online survey (n = 185) was conducted to investigate blurting with a VBA. We analysed open-ended accounts of instances in which participants had blurted during conversations with a VBA. In addition, findings show that blurting with a VBA is related to the less sophisticated views of interpersonal arguments and higher argument seeking, verbal aggressiveness, psychological reactance, extraversion and neuroticism. Our findings suggest that although people blurt with VBAs, in line with the general Computers Are Social Actors paradigm, the reasons are unique to HMC.

Arguing about others’ personal issues: a reconceptualization of argument type

Extending the existing typology of interpersonal argument (i.e., public- and personal-issue argument), this manuscript focuses on a distinctive argument type: one that concerns others’ personal issues (i.e., OP arguments). OP arguments involve issues that have direct implications for other people’s personal relationships. We present a survey conducted to provide evidence for the existence of OP arguments, as well as how argument type affects people’s beliefs related to arguing from the perspective of the new conceptualization. The results have shown that OP arguments came across as more enjoyable than personal-issue arguments, but less so than public-issue ones. The participants also indicated that OP and public-issue arguments yielded similar level of pragmatic outcomes. OP and public-issue arguments were reported to be similarly ego-involving, but less so than personal-issue arguments. After having OP and personal-issue arguments, the participants indicated not having as many positive thoughts and feelings about themselves as they did after public-issue arguments.

Francesco Arcidiacono & Antonio Bova (2017). Interpersonal argumentation in educational and professional contexts

Francesco Arcidiacono &amp; Antonio Bova (2017). <i>Interpersonal argumentation in educational and professional contexts</i>

Have Mercier and Sperber untied the knot of human reasoning?

ABSTRACT Over the last decade, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber have elaborated an influential naturalistic account of human reasoning. Their distinctive hypothesis is that its adaptive rationale – and primary function – is to produce and assess reasons in interpersonal justification and argumentation. In this paper I argue, first, that their characterisation of reasoning as based on metarepresentations threatens to oversophisticate reasoning and faces the problem of vicious regress. Second, I argue that they owe us a coherent account of the cognitive role of reasons in reasoning.

Psychosocial factors of deliberate self-harm in Afghanistan: a hospital based, matched case-control study.

Deliberate self-harm is not only a major global public health problem but also an important index of psychological distress and a risk factor for suicide. We aimed to determine the psychosocial risk factors for deliberate self-harm in patients aged ≥ 16 years presenting to tertiary care hospitals in Kabul, Afghanistan. A matched case-control study was conducted from February 2015 to May 2015. We recruited 185 cases (patients with deliberate self-harm) and 555 age- and sex-matched controls (patients with general medical conditions) from 4 tertiary care hospitals in Kabul. We developed a questionnaire to record the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants, history of domestic violence, drug abuse and details about the act of deliberate self-harm, including the methods used. To assess depression and anxiety, we used the WHO self-reporting questionnaire (SRQ-20). Matched odds ratios with 95% confidence interval using conditional logistic regression were used to determine statistically significant associations between psychosocial factors and deliberate self-harm. Family conflicts, domestic violence, interpersonal arguments and living in extended families were found to be significantly associated with deliberate self-harm. In Afghanistan, deliberate self-harm appears to be predominately related to interpersonal problems and family conflicts. About two-thirds of females and more than half of males scored positive for depression, yet none were receiving treatment for this. These findings have important policy implications for mental health and suicide prevention programmes in the country.

The playful divide: a new look at arguing for fun

Interpersonal arguments have many goals; one that has previously been identified is play or enjoyment. However, previous literature on playful argument has conceptualized it as a rather primal and overtly eristic behavior. While many playful arguments do indeed proceed in an eristic sort of frame, many do not show these features. As such, this paper advocates for the reconceptualization of playful argument into two discrete types, substantive playful argument (SBPA) and superficial playful argument (SPPA). First, the differing nature of the two types is explained. Second, four hypotheses are developed to predict association with each type of playful argument. The hypotheses are tested with a survey design, including instruments developed to measure both types of playful argument. Argumentativeness and epistemological sophistication are found to predict substantive playful argument more than superficial, and verbal aggressiveness, teasing, and use of inside jokes are found to be more predictive of superficial than substantive. Further, the substantive and superficial play scales showed a fairly weak correlation, indicating that they are indeed largely conceptually distinct. Thus, this paper advances the study of playful argument, provides new instruments for its measure, and provides insight into what traits or communicative preferences might predispose an individual to seek one route to enjoyment or the other.

Factors Predicting the Intent to Engage in Arguments in Close Relationships: A Revised Model

This manuscript examines argument engagement in close relationships (friendships and romantic relationships). Two pilot studies were conducted to identify what factors naive actors report matter to them when considering whether to engage in an interpersonal argument, and to develop and pre-test measurement scales for these factors. The main study examined which of these factors predicted participants’ behavioral intent to engage in an argument about different topics (personal or public) and with different partners (friend or romantic partner). Results indicated intent to engage was predicted by five factors: one’s orientation to the topic, one’s preparedness for an argument, the costs of arguing, the effort involved in arguing, and one’s right to speak one’s mind. Several of these factors are new contributions to argument engagement research. A discussion of these results and their implications are presented.

Extending the argument engagement model

This investigation considers the factors that predict the intent to engage in interpersonal arguments. By adapting the argument engagement model (Hample, Paglieri, and Na 2012), a subjective expected utility model was tested to determine the effects of (1) evaluative assessments, in addition to probabilistic assessments, and (2) probabilistic assessment-trait interactions on argument engagement. Participants (N = 273) read three argument vignettes and answered questions about their intent to argue in each situation. Results were mixed regarding the significance of expected values and situation-trait interactions in predicting intentions to argue. Participants overwhelmingly reported an optimism bias, whereby they tended to perceive positive outcomes of argument as likely and negative outcomes of argument as unlikely. Possible reasons for these findings and their implications are discussed.

Introduction to the Special Issue on 30 Years of Research on Serial Argument in Interpersonal Relationships

In 1985, this journal, then called the Journal of the American Forensics Association, published what would become a seminal research study by Robert Trapp and Nancy Hoff. Entitled A Model of Serial Arguments in Interpersonal Relationships, Trapp and Hoff's study was initially broadly intended to explore argument processes via interviews with 12 close relationship partners. Indeed, they stated that their purpose was to determine how these individuals make sense of the relational aspects of their (p. 1). What they additionally found-and rightfully called serendipitous-was that these partners continuously grappled with ongoing arguments throughout the course of their relationships. Trapp and Hoff noted that these serial arguments were in direct contrast to the prevailing belief at the time that interpersonal conflict was a communication event that was contained in a single episode. Where Have We Been? With the exception of a handful of interpersonal argument pieces (e.g., Benoit & Benoit, 1988; Brossman & Canary, 1990), scholarly interest in serial arguments remained fairly dormant until 1998, when Kristen Johnson and Michael Roloff (1998, 2000a, 2000b) ignited renewed interest in the topic by publishing the first of a series of research studies about romantic serial arguments. These studies, emanating from Johnson's dissertation, advanced the study of serial arguments by approaching them from a quantitative perspective and identifying the central serial argument concept of perceived resolvability. Roloff has continued to contribute meaningful, significant knowledge to the study of serial argumentation, collaborating most frequently with Rachel (Malis) Reznik and Courtney Waite Miller. Offering just one example, their research program has successfully extended the study of demand-withdraw patterns and the multi-faceted experiences of stress and well-being to the serial argument context (e.g., Malis & Roloff, 2006; Reznik, Roloff, & Miller, 2012). Their Communication Yearbook chapter (Miller, Roloff, & Malis, 2007) has also provided the most comprehensive review of intractable conflict-including serial arguments-to date. Other interpersonal argument scholars, including Dale Hample, Ioana Cionea, Amy Janan Johnson, and their students and colleagues, have recently also shifted their research programs to encompass the study of serial arguments. Hample's many contributions include broadening the scope of serial argument research to include organizational (Hample & Allen, 2013) and educational (Hample & Krueger, 2011) contexts, considering climate as a serial argument outcome, and successfully applying elements of conflict linkage theory and imagined interactions (Hample, Richards, & Na, 2012). Hample and Cionea (2012) have further expanded serial argument research to interethnic relationships. Johnson and her colleagues (including Cionea) have demonstrated that her distinction between public and personal issue arguments can also apply to multiple serial argument elements(e.g., Johnson, Averbeck, Kelley, & Liu, 2011) and the role of interdependence in serial arguments (Johnson & Cionea, in press). How did I come to study serial arguments? Throughout my academic career, I have experienced a series of what I call ping moments, where I encounter a novel concept or idea that is, to me, at once logical and groundbreaking. When my doctoral advisor at the University of Georgia, Jerry Hale, handed me Johnson and Roloff's (1998) piece on serial arguments in 2000, I read it and heard that ping. The notion that interpersonal arguments could be serial in nature made so much sense to me that I was astounded that it was not already the prevailing method of studying interpersonal conflicts and arguments. I was immediately flooded with an overwhelming number of research ideas to better understand serial arguments. First up: what were the most important goals for romantic partners in serial arguments (Bevan, Hale, & Williams, 2004)? …

Dignity and the Value of Rejecting Profitable but Insulting Offers

In this paper we distinguish two competing conceptions of dignity, one recognizably Hobbesian and one recognizably Kantian. We provide a formal model of how decision-makers committed to these conceptions of dignity might reason when engaged in an economic transaction that is not inherently insulting, but in which it is possible for the dignity of the agent to be called into question. This is a modified version of the ultimatum game. We then use this model to illustrate ways in which the Kantian evaluative standpoint enjoys a kind of internal stability that the Hobbesian framework lacks. Our interpersonal argument shows that, under certain conditions, Hobbesians prefer to cultivate Kantian commitments in others and promote the presence of Kantians in the population. Our intrapersonal argument shows that agents who are conflicted between Kantian and Hobbesian commitments have powerful reasons not to resolve this commitment in favour of Hobbesian values. Our emulation argument illustrates that in repeated versions of the ultimatum game, the Hobbesian chooses to behave like a Kantian, including publicly repudiating her Hobbesian commitments. Here again, however, the Hobbesian is able to achieve a desired benefit only on the condition that there are genuine Kantians in the population. Finally, our social planning argument explores the reasons why a community of Hobbesians would opt to enshrine a Kantian conception of dignity into law. The paper concludes with some remarks about the policy implications of this work. The value or worth of a man is, as for all other things, his price, that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power; and therefore is not absolute, but a thing dependent on the need and judgement of another � The public worth of a man, which is the value set on him by the Common-wealth, is that which men commonly call DIGNITY. Hobbes, Leviathan X, 16

Understanding Argumentation in Interpersonal Communication: The Implications of Distinguishing Between Public and Personal Topics

In this chapter, we review an important distinction in interpersonal argumentation between public-issue arguments and personal-issue arguments. Public-issue arguments focus on concerns outside an interpersonal dyad, whereas personal-issue arguments focus on issues tied closely to an interpersonal relationship. These two types of interpersonal arguments differ in terms of who argues about these topics, how argumentative episodes are interpreted and enacted, and the stakes that the arguments have for relational outcomes. This distinction is argued to be consequential for several areas of communication research including persuasion, conflict, relational communication, political deliberation, and public argument.

Reconsidering Display in Online Testimonial Advertising: The “Show Faces” Feature in Facebook’s Social Plugins

Showing what consumers think and like about products, services, or brands is a well-known communicative feature in advertising. This article explores the new ways in which consumer experience is represented in online communication. Facebook has developed a range of Social Plugins that can be added on external websites to generate traffic to Facebook (e.g., by showing what other users “like”). This article focuses on the display of profile pictures in Social Plugins located on brand and company websites. Within this context, the article approaches the display of profile pictures as a dynamic text feature in what will be considered “testimonial advertising.” Inspired by Goffman’s discussion of display in public and private pictures, the article examines new meanings of display by focusing on the textual mechanisms of the plugins. Two main types of arguments related to the display of profile pictures are identified: an interpersonal argument based on personal knowledge of the portrayed, and a crowd argument established by the piles of unknown faces. The article suggests these two arguments as important to the meaning potential of the Social Plugins’ profile pictures; yet, it also critically discusses the compiled pictures beyond social communication as a tendency of aestheticization .

Blurting

Blurting is production of speech that is spontaneous, unedited, and negative in its repercussions. Study 1 (N = 230) analyzed open-ended descriptions of situations in which respondents had blurted and situations in which they had been tempted to blurt but stopped themselves. Coding of those materials supported our essential understanding of blurting. A self-report measure of blurting was developed and produced these findings: Blurters endorsed more messages overall and rejected fewer because of harm to other or relationship; they saw interpersonal arguments in a less sophisticated way, and as less cooperative or civil, but more pointedly emphasized the utility, identity display, dominance, and play goals for arguing; blurters were higher in verbal aggressiveness, indirect interpersonal aggression, psychological reactance, sensation seeking, psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism; and they were lower in perspective-taking and lying. People were most likely to blurt when they believed they had high rights to speak in a situation, and were less likely when personal benefits and relational consequences were at issue, or when the situation made them apprehensive. Study 2 (N = 570) clarified the psychometric properties of the new blurting scale and established its convergent and discriminant validity when compared to a measure of simple spontaneity in speech.

Neighborhood cohesion and daily well-being: Results from a diary study

Neighborly cohesiveness has documented benefits for health. Furthermore, high perceived neighborhood cohesion offsets the adverse health effects of neighborhood socioeconomic adversity. One potential way neighborhood cohesion influences health is through daily stress processes. The current study uses participants (n = 2022, age 30–84 years) from The Midlife in the United States II and the National Study of Daily Experiences II, collected between 2004 and 2006, to examine this hypothesis using a within-person, daily diary design. We predicted that people who perceive high neighborhood cohesion are exposed to fewer daily stressors, such as interpersonal arguments, lower daily physical symptoms and negative affect, and higher daily positive affect. We also hypothesized that perceptions of neighborhood cohesion buffer decline in affective and physical well-being on days when daily stressors do occur. Results indicate that higher perceived neighborhood cohesion predicts fewer self-reported daily stressors, higher positive affect, lower negative affect, and fewer physical health symptoms. High perceived neighborhood cohesion also buffers the effects of daily stressors on negative affect, even after adjusting for other sources of social support. Results from the present study suggest interventions focusing on neighborhood cohesion may result in improved well-being and may minimize the adverse effect of daily stressors.

An Exploration of Families' Psychosocial Well-Being in a South African Context

The aim of this study was to explore and describe aspects that contribute to the psychosocial well-being of families from diverse cultures in a South African context by analysing data obtained through narratives, drawings and interviews with families. Participant families took part voluntarily in family interviews (N=36), written narratives (N=23) and drawings (N=14). These different methods of data collection provided rich data on family psychosocial well-being in a South African context with culturally diverse families, as well as on those aspects that influence family psychosocial well-being. The findings suggest that communication, mutual support, togetherness as a family and spirituality are the most prominent contributing factors, while financial difficulties and interpersonal conflicts or arguments are the most prominent hindering factors with regard to family psychosocial well-being in this group of participants.

Culture and the Anxiety Disorders: Recommendations for DSM-V

Background: The anxiety disorders specified in the fourth edition, text revision, of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV-TR) are identified universally in human societies, and also show substantial cultural particularities in prevalence and symptomatology. Possible explanations for the observed epidemiological variability include lack of measurement equivalence, true differences in prevalence, and limited validity or precision of diagnostic criteria. One central question is whether, through inadvertent “over-specification” of disorders, the post-DSM-III nosology has missed related but somewhat different presentations of the same disorder because they do not exactly fit specified criteria sets. This review canvases the mental health literature for evidence of cross-cultural limitations in DSM-IV-TR anxiety disorder criteria. Methods: Searches were conducted of the mental health literature, particularly since 1994, regarding cultural or race/ethnicity-related factors that might limit the universal...

The Aggressiveness of Playful Arguments

Some people report that they argue for play. We question whether and how often such arguments are mutually entertaining for both participants. Play is a frame for arguing, and the framing may not always be successful in laminating the eristic nature of interpersonal argumentation. Previous research and theory suggest that playfulness may be associated with aggression. Respondents (N = 199) supplied self-report data on their arguing behaviors and orientations. We found support for the hypothesis that self-reported playfulness and aggression are directly associated. We found less evidence for our hypothesized inverse association between self-reported playfulness and indices of cooperation and avoidance. Self-reports of playfulness are not significantly associated with expert coders’ ratings of either playfulness or aggressiveness. The claim that an argument is playful should be met with skepticism, although playful arguments are possible.

A Functional Approach to Interpersonal Argument: Differences between Public-Issue and Personal-Issue Arguments

A functional approach to argument distinguishes between public-issue and personal-issue arguments. Public-issue arguments focus on concerns outside the interpersonal dyad, while personal-issue arguments focus on issues tied closely to the interpersonal relationship. In this study, 117 students from a midsized southwestern university completed a survey in which they were asked to recall a public-issue and personal-issue interpersonal argument with a friend, family member, or romantic partner. The results show that public-issue arguments were reported to fulfill the functions of gaining or giving knowledge, passing the time, and expressing one's views more often than personal-issue arguments. Personal-issue arguments were reported to fulfill the functions of portraying oneself in a positive light and solving behavioral incompatibilities more often than public-issue arguments.

Reported Argumentativeness and Verbal Aggressiveness Levels: The Influence of Type of Argument

Arguments in interpersonal relationships can be divided into two types: public issue arguments and personal issue arguments. This study examines the ability of type of argument, trait argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness, and gender to predict reported argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness levels related to a particular argument episode. Reported argumentativeness levels were higher in the public argument condition, and reported verbal aggressiveness levels were higher in the personal argument condition. Trait argumentativeness predicted reported argumentativeness levels better in the public argument condition than the personal argument condition, suggesting that type of argument may serve as a moderator for the relationship between trait argumentativeness levels and argument-specific argumentativeness levels. Implications for using these two scales to examine interpersonal argument are discussed.