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Article published In: Journal of Argumentation in Context
Vol. 10:2 (2021) ► pp.202–225

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How do Chilean seniors think about arguing?

Their motivations, understandings, and emotional registration of interpersonal arguing

 | Universidad Católica de la Santísima de Concepción
 | University of Maryland
 | University of Nebraska at Kearney
Published online: 5 July 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.20002.san
Abstract
This project investigates orientations toward interpersonal arguing among Chilean seniors (N = 243), having a mean age of 72 years. We found no prior attention to seniors in the interpersonal arguing literature, and only a little to Chileans. Sited within the US framework for studying interpersonal arguing (see (2016). The psychological approach to interpersonal argumentation in the U.S. argumentation community. In F. Paglieri, L. Bonelli, & S. Felletti (Eds.), The psychology of argument: Cognitive approaches to argumentation and persuasion (pp. 257–274). London: College Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), this project collected seniors’ responses to survey items indexing argumentativeness, verbal aggressiveness, argument frames, personalization of conflict, and power distance. Our exploratory work involved use of a second sample of Chilean undergraduates (N = 80) for comparison. Comparisons showed that the seniors were less likely to argue, especially for play. Seniors were more interested in asserting dominance and were less cooperative and civil. Few sex differences were observed among the seniors, whereas quite a few had been previously found for Chilean undergraduates. These differences are attributed to the age of the seniors, although the possibility of a cadre effect is considered. Neither Chilean seniors nor younger adults displayed negative correlations between approaching and avoiding arguments, a result which has become an increasingly urgent theoretical issue across the world.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Chilean seniors
  • 3.Aging and personality
    • 3.1Aging and aggression
  • 4.Sex differences in arguing orientations
  • 5.Summarizing people’s orientations to interpersonal arguing
  • 6.Method
    • 6.1The senior sample
    • 6.2The undergraduate sample
    • 6.3Instrumentation and procedures
  • 7.Results
    • 7.1Comparing chilean seniors and undergraduates
    • 7.2Comparing men and women
    • 7.3Correlations among the measures
  • 8.Discussion
    • 8.1Immediate implications
    • 8.2More speculative implications
      • 8.2.1Linguistic capability
      • 8.2.2Political/Social considerations
  • 9.Conclusions
  • References
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