Prototype Effect and the Persuasiveness of Generalizations

Dahlman, Christian; Sarwar, Farhan; Bååth, Rasmus; Wahlberg, Lena; Sikström, Sverker

doi:10.1007/s13164-015-0264-1

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Participants were exposed to both the age and the wine scenario, as developed and used previously by Dahlman et al (2016), presented in Swedish. (We give an English translation below).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An alcohol-intoxicated witness, for instance, must have consumed a minimum amount that serves as a contextually defined boundary quantity. Ignoring this quantity when subsuming an instance under a category results in a category transgression (Dahlman et al, 2016), insofar as the "intoxicated person"-prototype exists only above the boundary quantity. The descriptive baseline for a meaningful comparison is the case where audiences find the argument's generalized version as persuasive as its specific version.…”

Section: Generalization In Argumentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the wine scenario, we similarly expected a positive prototype effect from using the terms "intoxicated with alcohol" if the eyewitness had consumed two glasses of wine, assuming the prototypical alcohol amount an intoxicated person consumes is around four glasses of wine. Both predictions are based on the earlier finding, that using a generalization makes an argument more persuasive if the judgment is more warranted for the prototype than for the instance (Dahlman et al, 2016).…”

Section: Positive Prototype Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By contrast, professional judges did on average not differ significantly between agreeing to the argument's generalized or its specific version. To explain this, one may speculate that judges found their judgment equally warranted for the prototype as for the instance (Dahlman et al, 2016).…”

Section: Positive Prototype Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Prototypes generally serve reasoners in interpreting visual, spoken, or written information quickly (Mervis & Rosch, 1981), because the prototype fits a category's characteristics better than non-prototypical instances (Cantor & Mischel, 1979;Inman & Baron, 1996;Krumm & Corning, 2008;McCaughey & Strohmer, 2005;Rosch, 1975). Prior research suggests that activating the prototype can "overshadow" the category instance (Dahlman, Sarwar, Bååth, Wahlberg, & Sikström, 2016;Lakoff, 1987, p. 85). Audiences who evaluate an argument describing a category instance would thus transfer their evaluation of the contextually relevant prototype to the instance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Generalization in Legal Argumentation

Zenker

Dahlman

Sikström

et al. 2019

Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and Practice

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When interpreting a natural language argument that generalizes over a contextually relevant category, audiences are likely to activate the category prototype and transfer its characteristics onto category instances. A generalized argument can thus appear more (respectively less) persuasive than one mentioning a specific category instance, provided the argument's claim is more (less) warranted for the prototype than for the instance (positive and negative prototype effect). To investigate this effect in legal contexts using mock-scenarios, professional and lay judges at Swedish courts evaluated the persuasiveness of arguments giving a generalized or a specific description of an eyewitness. The generalized version described the witness either as an alcoholintoxicated person or as a child, while the specific version varied both the amount of alcohol consumed (two vs. five glasses of wine) and the child's age (four vs. 12 years). To investigate the effect of legal expertise on argument selection, moreover, law and social science students evaluate the persuasiveness of both argument versions. Though we observed statistically significant prototype effects as well as expertise effects, results were mixed and sometimes ran counter to normative expectation.

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“…Participants were exposed to both the age and the wine scenario, as developed and used previously by Dahlman et al (2016), presented in Swedish. (We give an English translation below).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Generalization In Argumentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Positive Prototype Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Positive Prototype Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Generalization in Legal Argumentation

Zenker

Dahlman

Sikström

et al. 2019

Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and Practice

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Opinion Events: Types and opinion markers in English social media discourse

Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk,

Liebeskind,

Bączkowska

et al. 2023

Lodz Papers in Pragmatics

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The paper investigates various definitions of the concept of opinion as opposed to factual or evidence-based statements and proposes a taxonomy of opinions expressed in English as identified in selected social media. A discussion situates opinions in the realm of pragmatics and reaches to philosophy of language and cognitive science. The research methodology combines a thorough linguistic analysis of opinions, proposing their multifaceted taxonomy with the automatically generated lexical embeddings of positive and negative lexicon acquired from the analysed opinionated texts. As proposed, the definition of the concept of opinion is best apprehended when looked upon in terms of an opinion event, with a number of necessary conditions on the one hand, and those that are characteristic of an explicit opinion prototype on the other. Lists of opinion discourse markers show their preferential uses either in positive or negative opinionated texts; however, no sets of necessary and/or sufficient opinion markers properties have been acquired from the analysed texts. The conclusions indicate a polysemous understanding of naturally occurring social media opinionated texts and a definitional flexibility of the boundaries around lexical positive and negative types of opinion markers.

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Pravda, klamstvo a ich podoby v politike

Klátiková,

Kmeť

2023

politickevedy

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Debate over the extent to which political statements are true has always had a place not only in politics. It is mostly argued that truth should be part of political action, yet there is no agreed-upon definition of the term. Unfortunately, politics is also associated with less agreeable phenomena such as various types of misinformation and even lies. We attempted to clarify the current state of affairs by looking into the reasons behind, as well as the implications or impacts of, the proliferation of lies and half-truths in politics and their acceptance. Among other factors, we focused on the linguistic means used by politicians in their effort to win or maintain popularity and/or gain or maintain power, the veracity of information in the digital age and the freedom of expression in the media. To this end, we used qualitative methods of text analysis, adopting a hermeneutic approach. As shown by our analyses, loss of security, coupled with a sense of ephemerality, elusiveness, helplessness and perceived injustice trigger in individuals and groups the most primordial survival mechanisms such as fight-or-flight response with black-and-white vision; this plays into the hands of populist parties, which feed on these sentiments, further polarising society and fuelling the spread of lies and half-truths. How we interpret information depends on many factors; with this in mind, one should make a clear distinction between the former (especially if emotionally charged) and actual facts.

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Prototype Effect and the Persuasiveness of Generalizations

Cited by 4 publications

References 16 publications

Generalization in Legal Argumentation

Generalization in Legal Argumentation

Opinion Events: Types and opinion markers in English social media discourse

Pravda, klamstvo a ich podoby v politike

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