The Psychology of Argument

Arguments have often been a topic of interest in the psychology of communication, typically with an emphasis on their persuasive features - an emphasis largely shared by at least one of the classical disciplines in argumentation studies, namely, rhetoric. Nonetheless, contemporary argumentation theory has mostly steered clear of psychological contributions, with only few (albeit notable) exceptions. While there are both historical and theoretical reasons for this lack of interaction, many nowadays seem to think it is past time we bury the hatchet for good, and recent years have witnessed a flourish of cognitive approaches to the study of argument.

This volume aims to take stock of these recent developments, as well as paving the way to new promising directions of inquiry. In doing so, it also manages to organize this rich landscape around five main sub-themes: socio-cognitive models of argumentation, issues of rationality (or lack thereof), the study of biases and fallacies, the role of argumentation in persuasion (and vice versa), and how learning and development affect our argumentative attitudes.