Abstract
According to the psychology of everyday, emotions are the major cause of irrationality in deliberative human behavior. This idea is so obvious, that it suffices to juxtapose the words “emotion” and “argumentation” to make plain what question will be addressed in this paper. It is the more remarkable, that in the research literature hardly any studies are found into the relation between emotion and expressions of opinion. In all probability this omission is due to a single circumstance: the existence of the questionnaire. Attitude scale included, the questionnaire is undoubtedly the most sophisticated instrument in the methodological repertory of the social psychologist. Its very sophistication meant, that the analysis of natural expressions of opinion lost its urgency and attractiveness. However, as Eiser (1982) makes clear, as a research tool, the questionnaire compels an approach to beliefs and attitudes that is largely insensitive to differences among individuals in the complexity and content of their belief systems. Based on a static mathematical model, the attitude scale, moreover, carries with it a view of attitudes as static, readily available knowledge structures in memory.
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© 1988 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Wegman, C. (1988). Emotion and Argumentation in Expressions of Opinion. In: Hamilton, V., Bower, G.H., Frijda, N.H. (eds) Cognitive Perspectives on Emotion and Motivation. NATO ASI Series, vol 44. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2792-6_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2792-6_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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