Arguments, Conflicts, and Decisions - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 116

(or to reach whatever goal she/he pursued by arguing), since, for this to happen,
the agreement of the counterpart and/or the satisfaction of some objective
criteria is required. But each arguer can and does decide whether to let the other
win by conceding the point, or shelve/postpone the argument, or move on to
other matters, or some other way of terminating the argumentative exchange
for the time being (for some preliminary findings on this point, see Benoit and
Benoit 1987 , 1990 ; Vuchinich 1990 ; Hicks 1991 ; Hample et al. 1999 ).

Even though this taxonomy of argumentative decisions is based on a procedural
view of argumentation, starting from its inception (engagement) and ending with its
conclusion (termination), the temporal succession of many decisions is not fixed,
and some decisions are bound to co-occur: for instance, it is typically the case that
arguers have to decide simultaneously on when to speak and what to say (timing
and editing), as well as on how to interpret the counterpart's utterance and how to
respond to it (interpretation and reaction). Moreover, many of these categories refer
to families of decisions, rather than to a single act of choice.
In spite of these limitations, this preliminary taxonomy suffices to convey the
sheer ubiquity of decision making in argumentation, and it provides a principled
starting point to look at arguments in this relatively new light. In the next section, I
will review some empirical evidence pertaining to three of the categories mentioned
above (engagement, editing, termination), to highlight the key role conflict plays in
all these decisions.

7.3 Conflict Matters: Empirical Evidence on Argumentative

Decisions

So far, the relevance of conflict considerations in orienting our argumentative
decisions has been defended mostly on intuitive grounds. Based on our everyday
experience, there is prima facie evidence that we do take into account how arguing
(or not) will affect intersubjective conflicts, either defusing or escalating them, and
then use these expectations in deciding how to proceed. However, is it possible to
muster more reliable evidence on the role of conflict in argumentative decisions?
Is it truly so pivotal as I have been arguing, or is it often trumped by other more
important considerations?
In this section, I summarize empirical evidence (Sects. 7.3.1 and 7.3.2 ) and
testable predictions (Sect. 7.3.3 ) that speak in favor of considering conflict as a
cornerstone of argumentative decision making. My overall assessment is that while
the evidence is not yet conclusive, it is more than sufficient to motivate further
research along these promising lines.