Note: Publications “in press” are displayed as published in year 3999.
2026
2.
Deans-Browne, Calvin; Singmann, Henrik
For Everyday Arguments Prior Beliefs Play a Larger Role on Perceived Argument Quality than Argument Quality Itself Journal Article
In: vol. 266, pp. 106257, 2026, ISSN: 0010-0277.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Argument evaluation, Argument quality, Belief-based reasoning, Everyday reasoning, Informal reasoning
@article{deans-browneEverydayArgumentsPrior2026,
title = {For Everyday Arguments Prior Beliefs Play a Larger Role on Perceived Argument Quality than Argument Quality Itself},
author = {Calvin Deans-Browne and Henrik Singmann},
url = {http://singmann.org/download/publications/Deans-Browne%20and%20Singmann%20-%202026%20-%20For%20everyday%20arguments%20prior%20beliefs%20play%20a%20larger%20role%20on%20perceived%20argument%20quality%20than%20argument.pdf, publisher PDF
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027725001970, publisher website},
doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106257},
issn = {0010-0277},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-01-01},
urldate = {2026-01-01},
volume = {266},
pages = {106257},
abstract = {Not all arguments are equally convincing, and whilst a given argument may be persuasive to some people, it is often seen as inadequate by others. We are interested in both the individual and argument level differences that make ‘everyday’ arguments such as those on social media persuasive. We investigate this question using a paradigm that consists of two parts. In the first part, we measure participants' individual beliefs about eight claims each referring to a political topic (e.g., Abortion should be legal). In the second part, participants rated the quality of an argument for each of these claims. Arguments were good or bad (Experiments 1 and 2) or good, inconsistent, or authority-based (Experiment 3). Good, inconsistent, and authority-based arguments summarised arguments from an educational bipartisan website, contained internal inconsistencies, or were based on appeals to authority, respectively. We found that participants preferred arguments that were also in line with their beliefs. We also found that participants were able to discriminate the qualities of different arguments – good arguments were rated as better than any other type of argument. In Experiment 3, inconsistent arguments were rated as better than those making appeals to authority. Importantly, the maximum effect of belief was larger than the maximum effect of argument quality. Thus, people do not evaluate arguments independently of the background beliefs held about them, which play at least as large a role in evaluating the quality of the argument as does the actual quality of the argument itself.},
keywords = {Argument evaluation, Argument quality, Belief-based reasoning, Everyday reasoning, Informal reasoning},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Not all arguments are equally convincing, and whilst a given argument may be persuasive to some people, it is often seen as inadequate by others. We are interested in both the individual and argument level differences that make ‘everyday’ arguments such as those on social media persuasive. We investigate this question using a paradigm that consists of two parts. In the first part, we measure participants' individual beliefs about eight claims each referring to a political topic (e.g., Abortion should be legal). In the second part, participants rated the quality of an argument for each of these claims. Arguments were good or bad (Experiments 1 and 2) or good, inconsistent, or authority-based (Experiment 3). Good, inconsistent, and authority-based arguments summarised arguments from an educational bipartisan website, contained internal inconsistencies, or were based on appeals to authority, respectively. We found that participants preferred arguments that were also in line with their beliefs. We also found that participants were able to discriminate the qualities of different arguments – good arguments were rated as better than any other type of argument. In Experiment 3, inconsistent arguments were rated as better than those making appeals to authority. Importantly, the maximum effect of belief was larger than the maximum effect of argument quality. Thus, people do not evaluate arguments independently of the background beliefs held about them, which play at least as large a role in evaluating the quality of the argument as does the actual quality of the argument itself.
2025
1.
Deans-Browne, Calvin Christopher James Lee; Roth, Pia; Echterbeck, Carolin; Singmann, Henrik
Differential Memory for Belief-Congruent versus Belief-Incongruent Arguments Cannot Explain Belief-Driven Argument Evaluation Proceedings Article
In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2025.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Belief bias, Belief-based reasoning, Everyday reasoning, Informal reasoning, real-world reasoning, Reasoning, Recognition memory
@inproceedings{deans-browneDifferentialMemoryBeliefCongruent2025b,
title = {Differential Memory for Belief-Congruent versus Belief-Incongruent Arguments Cannot Explain Belief-Driven Argument Evaluation},
author = {Calvin Christopher James Lee Deans-Browne and Pia Roth and Carolin Echterbeck and Henrik Singmann},
url = {https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5nn3w7xz, CogSci Proceedings link},
year = {2025},
date = {2025-07-27},
urldate = {2025-01-01},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society},
volume = {47},
abstract = {People often rely more on their prior beliefs than the presented evidence when evaluating arguments. We investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. We hypothesise that when individuals encounter an argument that is congruent with their beliefs, it activates related information in memory. For belief-congruent arguments, people should therefore be more likely to both correctly recognise previously encountered information and incorrectly recognise new information as previously seen. To test this, we first investigated the effect of participants' beliefs about political claims on their evaluation of corresponding arguments that varied in quality. We then employed a surprise memory test to assess participants' recognition memory for these arguments. While we replicated the finding that prior beliefs drive argument evaluations, prior beliefs did not affect memory performance for all arguments in the same way. Our results indicate that individuals may use prior beliefs to aid memory only when the memory task is difficult.},
keywords = {Belief bias, Belief-based reasoning, Everyday reasoning, Informal reasoning, real-world reasoning, Reasoning, Recognition memory},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
People often rely more on their prior beliefs than the presented evidence when evaluating arguments. We investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. We hypothesise that when individuals encounter an argument that is congruent with their beliefs, it activates related information in memory. For belief-congruent arguments, people should therefore be more likely to both correctly recognise previously encountered information and incorrectly recognise new information as previously seen. To test this, we first investigated the effect of participants' beliefs about political claims on their evaluation of corresponding arguments that varied in quality. We then employed a surprise memory test to assess participants' recognition memory for these arguments. While we replicated the finding that prior beliefs drive argument evaluations, prior beliefs did not affect memory performance for all arguments in the same way. Our results indicate that individuals may use prior beliefs to aid memory only when the memory task is difficult.