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Group Emotions in Collective Reasoning: A Model

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Abstract

Education and cognition research today generally recognize the tri-dimensional nature of reasoning processes as involving cognitive, social and emotional phenomena. However, there is so far no theoretical framework articulating these three dimensions from a descriptive perspective. This paper aims at presenting a first model of how group emotions work in collective reasoning, and specifies their social and cognitive functions. This model is inspired both from a multidisciplinary literature review and our extensive previous empirical work on an international corpus of videotaped student debates. The cognitive function of emotions is defined in reference to the process of schematization (Grize 1996, 1997) and associated emotional framing (Polo et al. 2013). On the other hand, the social function of emotions refers to recognition-oriented behaviors that correspond to engagement into specific types of group talk (e.g. Mercer 1996), implying specific politeness rules or face-preservation systems (Brown and Levinson 1988). We believe that our multi-dimensional and multi-level approach to group reasoning, which mostly employs a linguistic perspective, can be applied to a diversity of contexts. We hope it will serve as a basis for further discussion on the role of emotions in reasoning among the interdisciplinary community of argumentation studies.

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Notes

  1. They were especially trained during 1 day (6–8 h) in order to moderate the café.

  2. The Alpine Rendez-Vous Workshop on “Tools and Technologies for Emotion Awareness in Computer-Mediated Collaboration and Learning”, held in Villard-de-Lans, in Juanuary 2013, is emblematic of this line of research.

  3. This typology was developed by Mercer and his colleagues, see the following references: Fernández et al. (2002), Mercer (1996), Mercer and Littleton (2007), Mercer et al. (1999), Mercer and Sams (2006), Wegerif et al. (2004), Wegerif and Mercer (1997).

  4. Opinion question 3 is as follows: “How should the price of water be determined? (a) drinking water should be free; (b) drinking water should be sold at a price that covers the costs of its production; (c) drinking water should be sold at a price that depends on its quality; (d) drinking water should be sold at a price that depends on family income; (e) drinking water should be sold at a price that depends on how it is used; (f) water should be free up to a reasonable amount, beyond which it should be sold at a high price”.

  5. The conventions used for all the transcripts are detailed in Appendix 1.

  6. ‘Phase’ here corresponds to ‘planned tasks sequentially organized that take part to the pedagogical activity’ (Bouchard and Rollet 2003). In this context, a phasis consists of a group discussion about a given opinion question (lasting from 3 to 5 min).

  7. Opinion question 1 is the following: “In your opinion, which potential source of drinking water is the most promising for the future? (a) the discovery of new fresh water deposits; (b) water that we don’t use today (that which, is economized); (c) desalination of seawater; (d) climate change leading to more rain; (e) new techniques for the depollution of water; (f) none of these are promising: water is going to be in short supply and will become THE conflict of the twenty-first century”

  8. The English version of opinion question 2 is “Which of these things would you be the most willing to do? a) take fewer baths and showers; b) use my phone and computer for a longer time before getting a new one; c) eat less meat; d) use dry toilets; e) all of that, and even more; f) I’m not ready to make any of those efforts”.

  9. This approach is similar to the Anglo-Saxon frame analysis. As a discursive construct, ‘frames’, as schematizations, ‘induce us to filter our perceptions of the world in particular ways, essentially making some aspects of our multidimensional reality more noticeable than other aspects’ (Kuypers 2009, p. 181). As a process, ‘framing’, as well as ‘schematization’, ‘encourages the facts of a given situation to be interpreted by others in a particular manner’ (Kuypers 2006, p. 8). Nevertheless, frame analysis is related to the critical tradition in discourse analysis, which does not fit with our radically descriptive epistemological approach. Moreover, the schematization process applies at a smaller scale, the one of discourse objects. We sometimes use the term ‘emotional framing’ to refer to the global emotional position resulting from the sum of the emotional tonalities conferred to each considered discourse object, for a specific ‘team’ defending the consistent argumentative claim.

  10. The following excerpts are taken from a debate among American students about the final, main question of the café: “In your opinion, in the future, whether a person has access to drinking water will depend on…? (a) on how rich the person is; (b) on how physically able the person is to live with lower water quality; (c) on efforts made, starting now, to save water by using less and to protect water resources; (d) on where on the globe the person is born; (e) on nature’s capacity to adapt to our needs for water; (f) on scientific advances”.

  11. The concept of ‘interdiscourse’ has been used and defined in different ways and is characterized by a complex historiography (Paveau 2010), that we unfortunately have no space to detail here. This classical notion of the French discourse analysis finds its roots in from Pêcheux (1969). Amossy (2006, pp. 94–99) briefly introduces this concept as a part of the basic toolbox for the analysis of argumentation. Following her approach, we here only mention ‘interdiscourse’ as far as it corresponds to ‘a necessity, to identify and assess the function of doxic elements, to perceive the utterance in relation to the other discourses from which it is elaborated’ (Idem: 98).

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Acknowledgments

LABEX ASLAN (ANR-10-LABX-0081) of Université de Lyon supported this research, within the program “Investissements d’Avenir” (ANR-11-IDEX-0007) of the French National Research Agency (ANR).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ICAR Laboratory, CNRS, Post-Doc of the ASLAN LABEX, Lyon, France

    Claire Polo

  2. ICAR Laboratory, Lyon 2 University, Emeritus Professor, Lyon, France

    Christian Plantin

  3. ICAR Laboratory, CNRS, Senior Research Engineer, Lyon, France

    Kristine Lund

  4. ICAR Laboratory, CNRS Researcher, Lyon, France

    Gerald Niccolai

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  1. Claire Polo
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Correspondence to Claire Polo.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Appendices

Appendices

1.1 Appendix 1: Transcript Conventions

Here are detailed the main transcript conventions used in this article:

1 SPE blabla:

number of the turn, first three letters of speaker’s name, utterance

[:

beginning of speech overlap

::

elongated sound

<((laughing)) uterrance>:

commentaries on simultaneous coverbal behaviour

&:

continuation of a speech turn

=:

rapid succession of words/sounds

((turn)):

non-verbal turn (laugh, gesture, etc.)

xxx:

inaudible segment

/or \:

raising or falling intonation

(word):

uncertain transcription

°word°:

low voice or very low voice (°°word°°)

WORD:

augmented volume

‘:

non standard elision

(.) or (0.8):

pauses either not timed or timed in seconds (lasting 0.8 s)

(…):

discontinuity in turn taking

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Polo, C., Plantin, C., Lund, K. et al. Group Emotions in Collective Reasoning: A Model. Argumentation 31, 301–329 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-016-9407-5

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