Argumentation-Theoretical Concepts in Persuasion: A Review of Persuasion Effects Experiments from a Pragma-Dialectical Perspective.

In this paper I demonstrate the potential ways in which the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation could contribute to the field of persuasion effects research. I selected 21 persuasion effects experiments from meta-analytic samples including studies investigating the persuasiveness of narrative versus statistical evidence or of conclusion omission. Of these experiments I analyzed the dialectically relevant components from a pragma-dialectical perspective, leaving out of consideration other aspects that could be relevant. I observed and classified potential threats to the studies' internal validity as identified from the perspective of pragma-dialectical theory. These threats entail confounds to the manipulation of the independent variable through undesired variation of (I) a wrong dialectically relevant feature, (II) a dialectically irrelevant feature. The results demonstrate that the pragma-dialectical framework can identify the theoretical gap in operationalizing persuasion variables, suggesting consistent application of one uniform theory could take away the contested inconsistency of results in persuasion effects research. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]