Arguments Agreement/Disagreement Model of Counterpositional Situation

[[abstract]]The purpose of this study was to clarify the response tendency, influencing factors, and cognitive processes in people who make agreement/disagreement judgments on other’s arguments in a counterpositional situation. An Arguments Agreement/Disagreement Model in Counterpositional Situation (CSAAM) was proposed. This model argues that when an individual discusses with a counterpositional communicator on some relevant issues, this person’s argument agreement/disagreement responses could be influenced via two routes. The first route is a conscious process, which involves the influences of two argument properties: the argument position and argument quality. When the counterpositional communicator’ arguments are propositional or strong, an agreement tendency would be elicited. When the arguments are counterpositional or weak, on the other hand, a disagreement tendency would be elicited. The second route is an automatic process, which involves the influence of the counterpositional message of the communicator. In this route the counterpositional message could directly elicit disagreement tendency through emotional reactance. In addition, the counterpositional message could interfere with the message recipient’s processing of argument quality, making him perceive the arguments as weaker and thus influencing his agreement/disagreement responses indirectly. The dual-process models of social judgment and persuasion in the past seldom emphasized the possibility of co-occurrence of automatic and conscious processing. Neither did they point out that the automatic processing might interfere with the conscious processing. The CSAAM proposed in the present study adopted an approach of parallel routes, claiming that the automatic processing of the counterpositional message of communicators and the conscious processing of the argument property could co-occur and that the counterpositional message of communicators could interfere with the processing of the argument quality automatically. The CSAAM was tested with seven experiments. In Experiment 1, the factors of argument position and argument quality were manipulated. The results showed that the two argument properties could influence the argument agreement/disagreement responses simultaneously. Further survey also showed that subjects were aware of the influence of argument position. In Experiment 2 and 3, the counterposition of communicators was manipulated. The results of Experiment 2 demonstrated that counterpositional message of communicators could elicit reactance and a disagreement tendency. The results of Experiment 3 further supported the prediction that the influence of counterpositional message is automatic and this influence could attenuate the influence from conscious processing. Experiment 4 extended the foregoing experiments and manipulated argument position, argument quality, and counterposition of communicator simultaneously. The results showed that the counterpositional message and the argument property could affect the recipient’s argument agreement /disagreement responses at the same time. Besides, the counterpositional message of communicators could interfere with the recipient’s judgment of the argument quality. Experiment 5, 6, and 7 extended the findings of Experiment 4 by manipulating the three variables in Experiment 4 and monitoring reminding, distraction task or pressure of time. These experiments aimed at examining whether the influence of the argument property was conscious and whether the direct and indirect influences of counterpositional message of communicator were automatic. Experiment 5 found that the influence of argument position was conscious, so the influence could be corrected by monitoring reminding. It was also found that the influence of counterpositional message of communicators was automatic, so the direct and indirect influences could not be completely corrected. Nevertheless, Experiment 5 did not show the facilitating effect of monitoring reminding on the influence of argument quality. Although the results in Experiment 6 and 7 did not fully support the predictions, it was demonstrated that the influence of argument property was conscious, so the influence would be interfered by distraction task and pressure of time. It was also demonstrated that the influences of counterpositional message of communicators were automatic, so the influences would not change by distraction task and pressure of time. In conclusion, the concepts of CSAAM were generally supported by the empirical data. Some suggestions for possible applications and future research were provided on the basis of the findings.