3 pages in apa format

Framing and Editing Interpersonal Arguments

Dale Hample Æ Ben Warner Æ Dorian Young

Published online: 12 August 2008

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract Since argument frames precede most other arguing processes, argument

editing among them, one’s frames may well predict one’s preferred editorial stan-

dards. This experiment assesses people’s arguing frames, gives them arguments to

edit, and tests whether the frames actually do predict editorial preferences. Modest

relationships between argument frames and argument editing appear. Other con-

nections among frames, editing, and additional individual differences variables are

more substantial. Particularly notable are the informative influences of psycholog-

ical reactance. A new theoretical contribution is offered, connecting argument frame

research to Erving Goffman’s frame analysis.

Keywords Argument frames � Argument editing � Argumentativeness � Frame analysis � Gender � Goffman � Reactance � Verbal aggressiveness

1 Introduction

People may engage in interpersonal arguments with foresight or may simply be

caught up in a spontaneous exchange of reasons. Once an argument is joined we

bring to bear not only our content knowledge, topical attitudes, and habitual

argument patterns but also our preconceptions about what we are doing and our

predispositions about how to do it. This study is centrally about those last issues: the

preconceptions, the predispositions, and the means of arguing. We are interested in

discovering new relationships among these features of face-to-face arguing.

D. Hample (&)

University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

B. Warner � D. Young

Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL, USA

123

Argumentation (2009) 23:21–37

DOI 10.1007/s10503-008-9107-x

1.1 Frames

Goffman (1974) has provided us with an elaborate system of what he calls frame

analysis. Some of his central ideas are frame, natural strip, and keying. His use of

‘‘frame’’ is taken from Bateson’s (1987/1955) classic observations of monkeys’

play-fights at a zoo. Bateson noticed that all the specific actions the animals took

were fighting behaviors. But somehow the monkeys demonstrably understood that

they were playing and not fighting. In other words, the animals imposed a play

frame on fighting behaviors and so were really playing. The analogue to a picture

frame occurs in both Bateson’s and Goffman’s work. By placing a particular frame

around some central painting or object, it is set off from its surround and given a

particular meaning. So a framed ribbon is more special than a ribbon lying on a

table. Similarly a social behavior can have its meaning changed by a new framing.

Goffman calls the base actions a natural strip of behavior. Such a strip (e.g.,

eating a meal) can be directly experienced and understood or can be (re)framed in a

particular way (e.g., as a demonstration of gourmet insight). The reframing is

accomplished by means of keying. Goffman seems to have a musical analogy in

mind here, such that the same melody can be put in another key where it is at once

recognizable as and different than its base form or natural strip. A natural strip of

behavior may be rekeyed and so put into a different frame.

The application of these ideas to interpersonal arguing is as follows. The natural

strip of behavior under study is the face-to-face exchange of reasons, and this is

done in order to resolve some disagreement or get one’s way. Sometimes such a

strip can be reframed so that it becomes something else entirely (just as the

monkeys’ actions genuinely became play). As we will see momentarily, arguing

strips can be rekeyed so that they are really play or identity projections or

dominance displays, and any of these can be fierce or friendly. Arguing strips could

also be rekeyed into a movie or classroom frame where they become character

developments or examples even further removed from any status as actual,

personally consequential arguments. Play can be done by arguing just as it can be

done by fighting. Each rekeying leads to what Goffman calls a lamination, a

different layer of meaning that is ordinarily opaque to any beneath it. So arguing can

be rekeyed into play, which can be rekeyed into dominance attempts, which can be

manipulated into some sort of confidence swindle or practical joke. Many

laminations are possible in practice, though the present analysis keeps things simple.

For Goffman the frames are more or less objective features of the interactive

world—that is, they are really ‘‘out there’’ and assist in the organization of social

life. He discusses in passing the likelihood that participants have some self-

consciousness about what lamination they are in and what sort of keying

accomplished it (particularly when he discusses swindles, practical jokes, and the

like), but this is not a major preoccupation of his work. It is a major preoccupation

here. We want to learn what framing possibilities people can see (that is, what keys

they know about) and how they orient to various lamination possibilities. These

matters are approached by direct study of arguing frames. While we understand that

these frames are ‘‘out there’’ in the way Goffman assumes, here we are mainly

interested in people’s perception and anticipation of these keying possibilities.

22 D. Hample et al.

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1.2 Arguing Frames

The preconceptions we study are the argument frames described by Hample (2003).

These so-called frames summarize some of people’s leading expectations about the

activity of arguing. When two people argue, what do they think they are doing? Do

they think they are seeking personal gain? Do they think they should express

themselves diplomatically or blurt the first thing that comes to mind? Such questions

point us toward discovery of what laminations people position themselves to notice

and toward a description of how (e.g., cooperatively or competitively) they orient to

each keying. Hample (2003, 2005a) theorizes that there are three general categories

of frames. These are in ascending order of sophistication, and perhaps also in order

of developmental acquisition.

The first category is called primary frames, and these most immediately connect

to Goffman’s conceptions. One’s primary frames are focused on self and on one’s

life goals in the moment. A person might make an argument to avoid an errand or to

encourage a loan, and might notice only that sort of utilitarian purpose for arguing.

Although this practical motivation for arguing is the one most often noticed in

argumentation literature, people may have other impulses. A primary frame is

defined as being in play when self’s desires are the foci. Hample specifies four such

frames: utility (using an argument to one’s advantage), dominance (arguing to

display power over the other), identity (arguing to display some feature of self), and

play (arguing for entertainment). These four were suggested because of their

frequency or theoretical interest, and others may yet be added to the list.

The second group of argument frames involves whether and how one connects

with the other arguer. In retrospect, they are not quite frames in Goffman’s sense but

are closer to keys (Goffman 1974, pp. 43–45; Hymes 1972, p. 62; nonetheless

Hample’s terminology will be retained here). They display how one goes about

participating in any of the primary frames (and by being keys, hint at the

possibilities for rekeying or transforming to a different frame). This group of frames

is oriented to the fact that in an interactive argument, another active person is

present and brings another set of motives and plans to the episode. However, people

do not always acknowledge the other person in what we might loosely call a genuine

way. Sometimes the other might as well be inanimate, and is apparently seen only as

a foil, a means or obstacle to achieving one’s goals. So the first theoretical issue in

this second kind of frame is whether or not the arguer even arrives at this stage.

Thus, we examine blurting (speaking without planning) because blurts come simply

out of cognition without alteration, and perhaps without any adaptation to the other

arguer’s personal reality. Blurters never make use of the second sort of frame

because they do not connect own goals to other’s. Other arguers do. For people who

do make a conscious or unconscious effort to conjoin own impulses with other’s

needs and rights, a key question is whether the attempted connection (the key) is

cooperative or competitive. Both require genuine notice of the other person.

However, cooperation is regarded as displaying a more sophisticated understanding

of what people do when they argue. (This is not to say that people should always

cooperate when arguing; it merely acknowledges that competition is the more basic

urge, and that some people never notice the possibility of cooperating while

Framing and Editing 23

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disagreeing). The degree to which one expects that arguments are civil is a measure

that straddles the second and third set of frames. Seeing arguments as uncivil and

brutish is partly connected to whether one frames arguing as permitting polite

cooperative interaction. But civility is a key part of an advanced third frame as well.

The third argument frame is the one that requires reflective consideration, a

thoughtful theory of arguing. It raises the possibility of whether a person

understands the possible frames and available keys, or is ‘‘contained’’ within a

less reflective understanding (Goffman 1974). Arguers may intellectualize the

activity of arguing. If they do so well, they achieve or approach the views about

arguing that are held by argumentation professionals, particularly scholars. The

conceptualization and operationalization of the third frame derive from the frank

bias that scholars are correct about the nature of argument and that ordinary actors

are quite often wrong (Hample 2003, 2005a). Many people believe that arguments

are inherently nasty, irrational, hurtful, pointless, damaging, and potentially violent

(Benoit 1982; Hample and Benoit 1999; Martin and Scheerhorn 1985). While these

views need to be studied and acknowledged, as scholars we are entitled to say that

they are also wrong. The key variable that operationalizes this third frame is

therefore called professional contrast, and the items ask respondents to agree with

either the professional view or the cruder understanding of many ordinary actors.

So these are Hample’s three classes of argument frames. Translated into

Goffman’s terminology, we might say that the primary frames are Goffman’s

frames as well, the second set of frames are more like Goffman’s keys, and the third

frame points toward what Goffman called containment. Although empirical research

on argument frames is only starting, the basic idea is that the frames contain

people’s expectations and immediate orientations to arguing. These should influence

people’s emotional reactions to arguing. Given the importance of arguing to daily

activity, these emotional reactions may be important to the subjective quality of

one’s life. Frames should also affect what one anticipates is going to happen in an

argument, thus proposing opening argumentative moves and suggesting the chance

of self-fulfilling prophecies.

1.3 Editing

Of the various processes involved in generating arguments, we have selected

argument editing for special attention (Hample and Dallinger 1990). Editing is

theorized to intervene between the initial private production of a message (the

impulse that spontaneously generates content in service of a primary goal) and the

final public production (Hample 2006). Should that initial form strike the arguer as

somehow inappropriate or unwise, it may be edited so that the public statement is

better suited to the arguer’s primary and secondary goals (the latter often have to do

with facework or relational maintenance). People vary in the degree to which they

bother to edit at all, and those who do commonly edit may still differ among

themselves as to the standards featured in the reshaping of utterances.

Prior research has determined that editorial standards fall into two or three

classes (Hample and Dallinger 1992). Most of the work has been done by providing

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respondents with lists of arguments that they could make or reject for specified

reasons. The endorsement choice means that the arguer would be willing to offer

that message, and no editing is needed. The first class of editorial standards has to

do with effectiveness. A potential message can be rejected because it is not expected

to work, and this choice most obviously represents the larger class called

effectiveness. Alternatively, an argument might be suppressed because it is too

negative to use, and this is the second choice in the effectiveness group. The second

class is called person-centered. Here, an argument might be rejected out of concern

that it would harm self (perhaps violating one’s self identity or conscience). It might

be suppressed because it is seen as possibly harming the other (perhaps the other’s

identity or feelings). The last choice in this group of standards is harm to

relationship, which respondents sometimes do not clearly distinguish from harming

the other. The third class, which is often statistically joined to the first, is called

discourse competence. Here, possible arguments are suppressed because they are

false or irrelevant, in the view of either self or other. Finally, the instrumentation

permits a residual choice, which involves rejecting a possible argument for reasons

not otherwise listed.

These editorial standards also represent the goals an arguer has in play while

arguing. Editors tend to take on one of two styles. Some people edit primarily on

grounds of effectiveness, and represent themselves as willing to say nearly anything

that will work argumentatively. Others are person-centered editors. They won’t say

things that have negative identity or relational repercussions, and may very well

swallow potentially effective messages.

Argument frames have not yet been empirically connected to editorial behavior.

This study will explore the possible associations. Both research traditions derive

theoretically from concern for arguers’ goals, their understandings of what is

wanted. We suppose that people with different frames may have different editorial

inclinations. Several personality variables have been found to affect both frames and

editorial activity, and this also encourages us in the expectation that we will

discover direct relationships between them.

1.4 Other Individual Differences Variables

Both frames and editorial styles are individual differences variables, but others are

relevant to interpersonal arguing as well. Here, we have chosen several which we

think are of special importance, and which themselves may be interconnected. They

all seem conceptually to bear on one’s combativeness which at the very least is an

important possible key for arguing.

Argumentativeness (Infante and Rancer 1982) and verbal aggressiveness (Infante

and Wigley 1986) are perhaps the most important personality traits to examine here.

These two sorts of aggressiveness refer respectively to constructive efforts to

engage the other’s position (argumentativeness) and to destructive impulses to

attack the other’s feelings, identity, and person (verbal aggression). Both variables

have been found to affect people’s beliefs about arguing (Rancer and Avtgis 2006).

Argumentativeness, for instance, is connected to one’s beliefs about hostility,

Framing and Editing 25

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dominance, and self image, and verbal aggression levels predict the degree to which

one believes personal attacks are hurtful. These findings immediately suggest

connections to argument frames and editing styles. Some empirical work on these

points will be mentioned momentarily.

To enlarge this portrait of arguers’ predispositions, we also examine their gender

orientation (Bem 1974). Estimates of people’s masculine and feminine trait levels

help us to understand the degree to which they will be nurturant or combative, for

instance. Males and females (biological sex, not psychological gender) differ on

argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness (Rancer and Avtgis 2006), a finding

that roughly suggests that masculines and feminines might show parallel results.

Both sex and gender have shown weak connections to editorial patterns (Hample

2005a). Gender has a more marked association with argument frames (Hample

2005b).

Finally, in this study we include psychological reactance (Brehm 1966), an

under-appreciated variable (Burgoon et al. 2002). Reactance refers to one’s impulse

to resist and counter when pressured. Levels of reactance are implicated in various

personality disorders (Seibel and Dowd 2001), and are connected to agreeableness,

openness, and extraversion in ordinary people (Seemann et al. 2005). Reactance

should help us to understand when people push back or concede gracefully when

they are pressed during an argument. People differing in reactance may well have

different arguing frames and editorial orientations.

2 Specific Connections and Predictions

Prior work has, in some cases, directly associated some of these measures with one

another. The major exceptions are that frames and editing have not been studied

together, and reactance has not been introduced into any of these research programs.

Reviewing previous findings may sharpen our expectations about what those

missing relationships might be.

Gender orientation has been related to the frames in two studies. Hample and

Dallinger (2002) use a preliminary version of the frames instrument. They report

that results from the professional contrast scale (the third frame, the most reflective)

show that people with a feminine gender orientation have higher (more advanced)

scores. Androgenous respondents—those with high scores on both masculinity and

femininity—regard arguments as more civil than do people with lower gender

scores, although this is a weak effect. Hample and Dallinger also use a scale called

winning, which does not survive into later versions of the frames instrument, but has

some connection to the competitive and utility frames. The view that winning is the

main desiderata in arguing is most typical of masculines and negatively associated

with feminine orientations. Hample (2005b), using better frames scales, replicates

and extends these findings. Although utility is not successfully operationalized in

that study, the other first frame measures (identity, dominance, and play) are

positively associated with masculinity, and negatively correlated to femininity.

Cooperation (operationalized as the opposite of competition) is positively associated

with high feminine orientations, partly replicating the earlier finding about winning.

26 D. Hample et al.

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Femininity is again positively associated with advanced scores on the professional

contrast scales.

Hample (2005b) also presents evidence about the associations between argument

frames and the argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness instruments. High

argumentatives are unusually likely to see play as a legitimate goal for arguing.

People who are very verbally aggressive see domination as an appropriate reason to

argue, and are noticeably more competitive in their orientation. They also get low

scores on the professional contrast scale.

These same measures have been used in the argument editing research program (the

current summary is Hample 2005a). Arguers high in masculinity are unusually likely

to edit for effectiveness, but are noticeably disinclined to worry about harm to self,

harm to other, or harm to relationship, when deciding which arguments to express and

which to suppress. Femininity scores do not predict editorial choices. Argumenta-

tiveness has two subscales, argument approach and argument avoid. Those with high

approach scores endorse more arguments, meaning that they edit less overall. On the

other hand, people with avoidant predispositions are very concerned with harm to

other when deciding what arguments to make. Verbally aggressive arguers endorse

more possible arguments and are relatively unconcerned with harm to other.

The current study permits several of these results to be replicated, but its main

purpose is to connect frames and editing. The data record affords some expectations

about what such connections might be.

Masculine respondents are oriented to the identity, dominance, and play frames,

and feminines are cooperative and resemble scholars in their understanding of

arguing. At the same time, masculines edit for effectiveness but not for person-

centered reasons. So we expect that the first frames (identity, dominance, play, and

utility) should be the province of those who are effectiveness oriented in their

editing. At the same time, we suppose that those who edit for person-centered

reasons will have higher scores for cooperation and professional contrast.

High argumentatives are playful, edit less, and are less worried about hurting the

other’s feelings with their arguments. This suggests that people with high play

orientations will edit less, and will prefer effectiveness standards to person-centered

ones. These expectations are consistent with those flowing from the gender work.

Verbally aggressive people orient to domination, have competitive orientations to

arguing, and generate low scores on the professional contrast scale. These same

people edit less and display less interest in protecting the other from harm. So we

suppose that domination will be directly associated with endorsement and negatively

associated with use of the harm to other standard. The opposite relations should hold

for highly cooperative people and those with high professional contrast scores.

Other relationships between framing and editing are also possible, and we will

test for them as well.

3 Method

Two hundred and five undergraduates at our institution served as respondents. 51%

were male and 49% were women. Their average age was 19.9 years. Students

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received minor extra credit in their courses for participating. Data were collected in

two separate sessions. The study was approved by our Institutional Research Board.

In the first session, students completed the 63 item frames instrument, the 28 item

Therapeutic Reactance Scale (Dowd et al. 1991), and the 60 item Bem Sex Role

Inventory (Bem 1974). Reliabilities and other descriptive statistics for these and the

other measures in the study are in Table 1. Of special note are the results for the

utility and blurting scales from the frames instrument. Prior work has consistently

had difficulty with these measures. Here, for the first time, we factor analyzed these

subscales, and found evidence that the scales are multidimensional. While the

reliabilities are somewhat problematic here, we can now see how to improve the

measurements in the future. With the additional exception of the cooperation/

competition subscale, reliabilities are acceptable.

In session two, normally a week or less afterwards, respondents filled out the

argumentativeness (Infante and Rancer 1982) and verbal aggressiveness (Infante

and Wigley 1986) instruments after completing the editing tasks. Both of these

scales are now thought to have subscales (Levine et al. 2004; Rancer and Avtgis

2006), and results for those appear in Table 1.

The editing task involves some minor departures from earlier work. Four

situations were used. Following Johnson’s (2002) recommendations, two of these

were public issues (getting your roommate to recycle, and getting your father to

attend a political rally) and two were personal ones (getting your friend to give you

Table 1 Reliabilities and descriptive statistics

Scale Cronbach’s

alpha

Mean Standard

deviation

N No. of

items

Utility (constructive resolution) .62 18.5 2.67 202 5

Utility (self interest) .58 8.7 2.09 201 3

Identity .76 27.9 4.82 202 8

Dominance .75 16.0 4.19 202 6

Play .81 10.9 3.82 202 4

Blurting (take care of business) .52 5.0 1.41 202 2

Blurting (say what’s on my mind) .59 9.9 2.12 202 3

Blurting (argue w/out thinking) .57 5.7 1.68 202 2

Cooperation .59 18.1 2.80 202 5

Civility .78 33.5 5.21 201 10

Professional contrast .81 24.4 5.00 201 7

Verbal aggressiveness .80 34.2 9.38 197 20

VA (prosocial) .71 17.6 5.13 198 10

VA (antisocial) .81 16.7 6.23 201 10

Argument approach .83 22.2 6.80 202 10

Argument avoid .80 18.9 6.73 199 10

Masculinity .83 73.4 9.33 197 20

Femininity .82 71.9 9.09 201 20

Therapeutic reactance .75 84.4 9.60 196 28

28 D. Hample et al.

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a ticket to a football game, and borrowing your friend’s car). Each participant

responded to all four situations, although they were presented in four different

orders. Each one paragraph situation was followed by 20 possible arguments. These

were intended to afford substantial variability in possible responses, but were not

generated according to a standard typology, as had been done in earlier work. Once

the 20 arguments were written for the first situation, this list was used as a template

for the other three situations, yielding rough equality for matters such as non-topic

content, prosocial versus antisocial, direct versus indirect, and so forth, across the

situations. For each possible argument, students make one of nine responses. The

first choice is endorsement. The other eight are reasons for suppression:

ineffectiveness, too negative to use, it would hurt self, it would hurt the other, it

would damage our relationship, it is false, it is irrelevant, or some other reason for

rejection. This is the usual list of available responses. Figure 1 displays one set of

experimental materials.

This design permits an assessment of the internal reliability of the editing

instrumentation. By cumulating all the endorsements for situations one, two, three,

and four, all the rejections for ineffectiveness for situations one through four, and so

forth, we constructed a data set with four measures for each editorial code.

Cronbach’s alphas are as follows: endorsement, .83; ineffectiveness, .87; too

negative to use, .90; harm to self, .73; harm to other, .84; harm to relationship, .63;

false, .66; irrelevant, .78; and residual, .83. These are conservative estimates of

reliability, since they ignore the possibility that different situations and argument

lists might call out different editorial behavior. This information is new to the

editorial research program.

4 Results

Although the key issues here concern the relationships among the frames and

editorial variables, some preliminary results are of substantial interest.

Table 2 shows the intercorrelations among the argument frames variables. As in

prior work (Hample 2005b) the first-frame measures (utility, dominance, identity, and

play) are positively correlated. This is sensible, since the first frame is self-centered

and focused only on what the arguer seeks to gain by arguing. The utility data are new,

as are the blurting results. Blurting, which indicates whether or not the arguer even

participates in the second frame, is negatively associated with seeing arguments as

constructive options, but positively correlated with the view that arguments have

utility for getting what self wants. When blurting is justified as ‘‘taking care of

business,’’ it is negatively associated with more advanced frames: seeing arguments

as essentially cooperative, civil, and partaking of professionally-advanced charac-

teristics. These negative correlations follow from the theoretical point that blurters do

not really enter into second-frame orientations. Professional contrast scores are

closely connected to civility and cooperativeness, as in earlier work.

Table 3 shows how the frames instruments are associated with the other

individual differences measures. These results roughly replicate the parallel

outcomes in Hample (2005b), when they are available. Masculinity is directly

Framing and Editing 29

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Please write in the number below which indicates either that you would use the item (1) or that you would not use it for the reason specified (2-8). Write in number 9 if you would not use it but for a reason different that any of these. Refer back to this list or to the cover page to remember the answer list.

1. I would use this one 6. No: I must treat our relationship positively. 2. No: This wouldn’t work. 7. No: This is false. 3. No: This is too negative to use. 8. No: This is irrelevant. 4. No: I must treat myself positively. 9. No: Other reason 5. No: I must treat the other positively.

Situation: One of your friends has an extra ticket to a big football game. You would really like to go to the game and have tried without success to get tickets. Even though several people have asked your friend for the ticket, you would like your friend to give you the extra ticket.

___1. You tell him/her that a nice person would give you the ticket.

___2. You tell him/her that you would consider it a personal favor if he/she gave you the ticket.

___3. You tell him/her that if s/he was a good friend s/he would give you the ticket.

___4. You tell him/her that if s/he doesn’t give you the ticket you will never watch football with him/her again. ___5. You act as pleasant as possible to get him/her in the right frame of mind before asking him/her for the ticket. ___6. You tell him/her that if s/he refuses to give you the ticket s/he will feel guilty.

___7. You tell him/her that s/he will feel really good about himself/herself if he/she does this for you. ___8. You tell him/her that s/he hasn’t been a good friend if s/he doesn’t give you the ticket.

___9. You remind your friend that you brought him/her to a game and that s/he should return the favor. ___10. You tell your friend that you will buy dinner if s/he takes you to the game.

___11. You tell your friend that s/he will feel rotten if s/he doesn’t do this for you.

___12. You tell him/her that it is not very nice to refuse your request.

___13. You ignore your friend, refusing to speak until s/he agrees to give you the ticket.

___14. You tell your friend that only an unfriendly person would refuse to help in this way.

___15. You tell your friend that s/he will feel proud if s/he gives you the ticket.

___16. You make your friend’s favorite dessert and then ask for the ticket.

___17. You tell your friend that people who don’t take their friends to the game probably can’t keep friends for very long. ___18. You remind your friend that you helped him/her last week with a flat tire and s/he owes you. ___19. You remind your friend that if would be a real service to you if s/he would give you the ticket. ___20. You purchase a team jersey for your friend to wear at the game and then ask for the ticket.

Fig. 1 An experimental situation, message set, and list of editorial choices

30 D. Hample et al.

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correlated with utility (constructive), identity, play, and blurting (say what’s on my

mind). Femininity is negatively correlated with dominance, play, and blurting (say

what’s on my mind), and positively with cooperativeness and professional contrast.

People with high motivations to approach argument also see arguing as utilitarian

(constructive), serving identity, dominance, and play functions, and being civil.

Argument approachers are also less likely to report that they blurt (argue without

thinking). Those highly motivated to avoid arguments have essentially the reverse

relations. Respondents who have high scores on the antisocial verbal aggression

items see arguments as utilitarian (serving one’s self interest), and fulfilling identity,

dominance, and play functions. These people report that blurting is good because

people should simply ‘‘take care of business.’’ They have low scores for

cooperativeness, civility, and professional contrast. The reactance data are not

precedented. Highly reactive people see arguments as useful (serving self interest),

fulfilling identity, dominance, and play functions, and being competitive. They also

blurt because they prefer to ‘‘say what’s on my mind.’’

Table 4 cumulates these last results into a canonical analysis of the relations

among the frames variables, considered as a group, and the other individual

differences measures, considered as another group. The relationships are very

substantial, as indicated by the size of the squared canonical correlations, the

amounts of variance in the groups accounted for by the latent variables, and by

the consistency with which each individual variable is predicted by the variables in

the other group. Root 1 shows mainly that first-frame issues (identity, dominance,

and play) are directly associated with reactance, antisocial verbal aggressiveness,

and argument avoidance. Interpreting further roots is delicate because the first root

has already extracted considerable variance. However, root 2 seems to show that

utility (self interest), dominance, and blurting (taking care of business and arguing

without thinking) are all directly related to verbal aggressiveness (the antisocial

subscale), and negatively with verbal aggressiveness (prosocial) and femininity.

Utility (constructive), cooperativeness, civility, and professional contrast scores, a

Table 2 Correlations among frames variables

a b c d e f g h i j

(a) Utility constructive

(b) Utility self interest -.17

(c) Identity .37 .14

(d) Dominance -.00 .41 .35

(e) Play .19 .18 .56 .41

(f) Blurt take care of business -.30 .31 .01 .25 .07

(g) Blurt on my mind .07 .14 .12 .11 .13 .01

(h) Blurt argue w/out thought -.17 .09 -.05 .13 -.02 .11 .06

(i) Cooperative .20 -.08 .13 -.19 -.14 -.28 .01 -.11

(j) Civility .44 -.31 .26 -.23 .11 -.18 -.05 -.27 .14

(k) Professional contrast .26 -.25 .02 -.28 -.05 -.17 -.09 -.23 .19 .51

Note. Statistically significant correlation are boldfaced. Sample sizes range from 202 to 195

Framing and Editing 31

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123

generally advanced set of frames, are positively associated with high scores on the

prosocial measure of verbal aggressiveness and femininity. Root 3 does not show

much more than that masculines are competitive. It should be emphasized, as the

final column of the table shows, that every one of the frames is substantially

predicted by the other individual differences variables. This suggests that we are

working with a nice cluster of argument-relevant personality indices.

Tables 5 and 6 show the associations between the frames and editing data. Table 5

displays a scattering of significant correlations, not many more than would be expected

given the significance level and number of results (8 significant out of 99 calculated).

Table 6 shows the overall canonical correlation between the two variable sets. While

the RC is substantial, neither latent variable accounts for much of the variance in its

component variables. Nor are many of the variables predictable from those

contributing to the other latent variable. However, the significant root shows that

endorsements are especially common among people who see arguments largely in

terms of the first frame set (utility, identity, dominance, and play), who blurt, and who

have unsophisticated appreciations of the cooperative, civil, and other possibilities for

arguing. The opposite pattern appears for editors who make substantial use of the ‘‘too

negative to use’’ standard. While frames and editorial orientations are significantly

connected, the extent of the connections is less than we had expected. The results that

do appear, however, are generally consistent with our original expectations.

Table 4 Canonical correlation

between frames and other

individual differences variables

Note. Pillais approx. F (77,

1169) = 1.29, p \ .001. df for

the regressions in which the

frames variables are

dependent = (7, 171). df for the

regressions in which the other

individual differences variables

are dependent = (11, 167).

* p \ .05; ** p \ .01;

*** p \ .001

Root 1 Root 2 Root 3 R2 from

other root

Utility constructive -.23 -.49 -.05 .15***

Utility self interest -.21 .55 -.39 .17***

Identity -.66 -.27 -.36 .31***

Dominance -.60 .59 -.33 .35***

Play -.82 -.16 -.20 .41***

Blurt take care of business -.17 .47 .05 .10*

Blurt on my mind -.38 -.02 .37 .12**

Blurt argue w/out thought .18 .41 .04 .09*

Cooperative .33 -.49 -.50 .19***

Civility -.06 -.56 -.29 .14***

Professional contrast .04 -.50 -.34 .11**

Variance explained 17.1% 19.7% 9.3%

Reactance -.85 .03 -.03 .44***

VA prosocial .51 -.56 -.21 .30***

VA antisocial -.55 .60 -.23 .33***

Argument approach -.79 -.17 -.34 .40***

Argument avoid .67 .38 -.16 .33***

Masculinity -.47 -.24 .60 .22***

Femininity .45 -.50 -.26 .23***

Variance explained 39.6% 16.3% 9.4%

RC .76 .59 .38

Framing and Editing 33

123

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34 D. Hample et al.

123

5 Discussion

5.1 Implications of Empirical Results

This project successfully replicates some leading results from the nascent research

program dealing with arguing frames. These expectations about arguing now seem

to have consistent and theoretically sensible relationships with several powerful trait

variables: argumentativeness, verbal aggressiveness, and gender orientation. The

new results associating the frames with psychological reactance are promising, and

conceptually consistent with prior work on both topics.

In addition, some psychometric improvements in the frames instruments appear

here, and solutions to persistent measurement problems now seem at hand.

Ambiguity in the utility and blurting scales has been detected. One substantial

implication is that one group of utility items, those suggesting that argument is a

constructive way to resolve problems, is more directly connected with the more

advanced elements of the second and third frames than with the other first-frame

measures. Some reconceptualization of the scale is in order. In the case of blurting,

Table 6 Canonical correlation

between frames and editorial

standards

Note. Pillais approx. F (88,

1496) = 1.28, p \ .05. df for

the regressions in which the

editorial codes are

dependent = (11,187). df for the

regressions in which the frames

are dependent = (8, 190).

* p \ .05; ** p \ .10

Root 1 R2 from

other root

Endorse -.53 .08

Ineffective -.03 .06

Too negative .67 .11*

Harm self -.33 .07

Harm other .37 .10**

Harm relationship -.17 .04

False -.13 .05

Irrelevant -.11 .05

Variance explained 13.0%

Utility constructive -.08 .03

Utility self interest -.33 .04

Identity -.45 .08*

Dominance -.63 .09*

Play -.48 .09*

Blurt take care of business -.34 .04

Blurt on my mind -.27 .07**

blurt argue w/out thought -.02 .04

Cooperative .37 .05

Civility -.27 .05

Professional contrast -.34 .05

Variance explained 13.3%

RC .45*

Framing and Editing 35

123

respondents are making distinctions that were not originally apparent to the scales’

authors, and this may also require some rethinking on our part.

We are nonetheless encouraged by our discovery of relationships between arguing

frames and editorial work. Endorsement, understood in this context as the inclination

not to edit at all, is characteristic of first-frame people. As arguers advance in their

appreciation of arguing—that is, as they begin to see that it is cooperative, ought to be

civil, and should be a productive way of resolving conflict—they endorse fewer

arguments and suppress more of them. However, our present results do not point to

any particular editorial style for these advanced arguers.

5.2 Frame Analysis

Although the work on argument frames has been under way for several years it was

born as a descriptive data-driven project without many theoretical anchors. Here for

the first time it is connected to Goffman’s rich microsociology.

Goffman’s conception of frames corresponds directly to the primary arguing

frames. Arguing for a utilitarian purpose is the natural strip of behavior,

untransformed and working directly in the world. This strip can be transformed

in various ways, and several of them are play, identity, and dominance (as well as

others not studied in the argument frames program, such as classroom example or

theatrical display).

An arguer can act within any of these frames in various ways and these can give a

tone to the argument. Thus the second set of frames particularly features

competition and cooperation, both traditionally recognized as important attitudes

toward arguing. These are keys in which one might dispute or play or show off. In

fact, these keys may well be those that transform the primary frames. For instance a

competitive key may be what changes a display of identity to one of dominance and

a cooperative key may convert dispute into play.

Goffman discusses the plight of people who are ‘‘contained’’ within a frame, such

as victims of swindles or practical jokes. To be contained is to be unaware of

someone else’s fabricated frame, in Goffman’s writing. Here the idea of

containment refers to the third arguing frame, which points to whether a person

has a crude unreflective understanding of argument or the more sophisticated

perceptions that argumentation scholars propound.

The connections between the empirical work on arguing frames and Goffman’s

theory deserve to be worked out in more detail. It may also be that the various

frames and keys can be connected to the goals that arguers pursue. If that proves to

be the case, we may be able to unify our thinking on a number of matters: arguing

frames, argument goals, and argument editing.

References

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Benoit, P.J. 1982. The naı̈ve social actor’s concept of argument. Paper presented at the annual conference

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Greene and B.R. Burleson, 439–478, Ch. 11. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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