{"id":4461,"date":"2013-10-01T16:14:40","date_gmt":"2013-10-01T21:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4461"},"modified":"2013-10-01T16:14:40","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T21:14:40","slug":"when-argument-doesnt-work-try-argument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4461","title":{"rendered":"When argument doesn’t work, try argument"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fig 1: arguing badly by going for the jugular<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Courtesy of a former student, here’s an interesting read from Pacific Standard<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0about the effectiveness of counter arguments and contrary information on people’s attitudes towards their own beliefs.\u00c2\u00a0 TL;DR: counter information makes people more likely to persist in their false beliefs:<\/p>\n

Research by Nyhan and Reifler on what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve termed the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153backfire effect\u00e2\u20ac\u009d also suggests that the more a piece of information lowers self-worth, the less likely it is to have the desired impact.\u00c2\u00a0Specifically, they have found that when people are presented with corrective information that runs counter to their ideology, those who most strongly identify with the ideology will intensify their incorrect beliefs.<\/p>\n

When conservatives read that the CBO claimed the Bush tax cuts did not increase government revenue, for example, they became more likely<\/i> to believe that the tax cuts had indeed increased revenue (PDF<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In another study<\/a> by Nyhan, Reifler, and Peter Ubel, politically knowledgeable Sarah Palin supporters became more likely to believe that death panels were real when they were presented with information demonstrating that death panels were a myth. The researchers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 favored explanation is that the information is so threatening it causes people to create counterarguments, even to the point that they overcompensate and become more convinced of their original view. The overall story is the same as in the self-affirmation research: When information presents a greater threat, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s less likely to have an impact.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This naturally raises the question: are we doomed?\u00c2\u00a0 Part of the problem, I think, is that people generally argue very badly.\u00c2\u00a0 This is part of the point of Scott and Rob’s book: Why We Argue<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 See here<\/a> for\u00c2\u00a0a post the other day.\u00c2\u00a0 Take a look, for instance, at the following claim:<\/p>\n

This plays out over and over in politics.\u00c2\u00a0The arguments that are most threatening to opponents are viewed as the strongest and cited most often.\u00c2\u00a0Liberals are baby-killers while conservatives won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let women control their own body. Gun control is against the constitution, but a lack of gun control leads to innocent deaths. Each argument is game-set-match for those already partial to it, but too threatening to those who aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. We argue like boxers wildly throwing powerful haymakers that\u00c2\u00a0have no chance of landing. What if instead we threw carefully planned jabs that were weaker but stood a good chance of connecting?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t have any issues with this advice.\u00c2\u00a0 Indeed, I think it does not show that argument of the basic logical variety we endorse here doesn’t work.\u00c2\u00a0 On the contrary, it works really well; this is just how you do it.<\/p>\n

To rephrase the author’s advice:\u00c2\u00a0you’ve been\u00c2\u00a0arguing badly\u00c2\u00a0all along.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Constantly going for the\u00c2\u00a0knock out argument is\u00c2\u00a0a bad strategy primarily because it’s bad argumentation.\u00c2\u00a0 Such moves are very likely to distort the views of the person you’re trying to convince and in so doing alienate them.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0What’s better is the\u00c2\u00a0slow accumulation of evidence and\u00c2\u00a0the careful demonstration of the truth or acceptability of your beliefs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy of a former student, here’s an interesting read from Pacific Standard\u00c2\u00a0about the effectiveness of counter arguments and contrary information on people’s attitudes towards their own beliefs.\u00c2\u00a0 TL;DR: counter information makes people more likely to persist in their false beliefs: Research by Nyhan and Reifler on what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve termed the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153backfire effect\u00e2\u20ac\u009d also suggests that … Continue reading When argument doesn’t work, try argument<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1765,1657,1157,1763,1766,1764],"class_list":["post-4461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-argument","tag-argumentation","tag-brendan-nyhan","tag-eric-horowitz","tag-jason-reifler","tag-pacific-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4462,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461\/revisions\/4462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}