As a step toward the study of invention, an investigation dealt not with public arguments or the results of invention, but with arguments that may have occurred to the rhetor but were discarded. To avoid problems of self-presentation and retrospection, thinking aloud and reconstructive protocols were avoided in favor of providing 37 college…

A study continued a series of empirical investigations into the psychological criteria people use to determine whether or not to make particular arguments. Two hundred volunteers enrolled in a required public-speaking course (1) responded to several demographic questions, (2) described the persuasive choices they would make in the scenario…

Examines tactics undergraduate students use for avoiding and cutting arguments short. Finds that the episodes that were cut short were also the ones highest in explicitness and destructiveness. Suggests that cutting short, rather than avoidance, is the preferred solution to explicit, destructive conflicts. (CR)

An experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that abstract materials increase accuracy in solving categorical syllogisms. In an attempt to encourage subjects to reason their way through the problems rather than to make judgments about the truth or desirability of the proffered conclusions, the premises were composed of familiar words in…

Three studies investigated the effects of concrete versus abstract wording and negative versus positive premises on the difficulty subjects had in solving several kinds of reasoning tasks. Subjects for all three studies were college undergraduates who received booklets containing either hypothetical, disjunctive, or linear syllogisms. Each booklet…