Arguing to Display Identity

Dale Hample • Amanda L. Irions

Published online: 25 February 2015

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract A rarely studied motive for engaging in face-to-face arguing is to display

one’s identity. One way people can manage their impressions is to give reasons

(arguments) for their commitments. This appears to be the first study to focus on this

reason for arguing. 461 undergraduates recalled an episode in which they had argued to

display own identity. They filled out trait measures as well as instruments describing

the episode. Identity display arguments do not require controversy, are not very

emotional episodes, can partly serve many communication goals, and are polite.

People who have high predilection to argue for identity display are both self- and

other-oriented, although the correlations with self-oriented measures are stronger.

This study not only describes episodes containing arguments for identity display, but

also indicates the balance between self- and other-orientations that are involved.

Keywords Interpersonal arguing � Argument frames � Identity management

1 Introduction

Theories of argumentation often treat arguing as something that is done to resolve

disagreement or that aims at making a joint decision on some substantive issue (e.g.,

van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004; Jackson and Jacobs 1980). However, arguing

can be undertaken for other reasons as well. For instance, some people argue for fun

(Hample et al. 2010). Furthermore, Walton (1998) explained that some arguers have

an eristic goal and intend only to abuse the other person and express their own

views, often intemperately. Whether utilitarian, playful, or hurtful in intent, what all

these kinds of interaction have in common is that they use the same general form of

D. Hample (&) � A. L. Irions

University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

e-mail: dhample@umd.edu

123

Argumentation (2015) 29:389–416

DOI 10.1007/s10503-015-9351-9

communication, the provision of reasons in support of claims. Disagreement

resolution is probably the base process, since arguing seems most obviously

oriented to dealing with utilitarian matters (Mercier and Sperber 2011). However,

the same procedures that people learn in order to resolve differences can also be

used in service of other personal goals. Play and eristic aggression are two such non-

utilitarian objectives. This paper is about a third one, arguing to display one’s

identity.

Every message conveys something about one’s identity and also makes

projections about both the other’s identity and the nature of the relationship

between the two people (Watzlawick et al. 1967). Often this identity and relational

work is implicit, and the content level of the message’s meaning is uppermost in the

participants’ minds. In the utterance ‘‘Shut the door, please,’’ the speaker is

probably more focused on getting the door closed than in conveying that s/he has the

right to command the other person, even though the request does that as well.

Sometimes, however, people communicate primarily in order to show what kind of

person they are. The common public speaking assignment to give a speech of self-

introduction is an example of this, as is the construction of a resume, the preface to a

marriage proposal, self-conduct upon meeting a sibling’s new romantic partner, or

one’s first planned remarks in a parent-teacher conference. These situations make

room for arguments (‘‘I’m glad to meet you because I know we are both very

concerned about the number of people Susie bites’’), but arguments are not required

(‘‘Hey. Am I on time?’’).

Goffman (1959, 1974) said that people display idealized versions of themselves

in order to convince their interaction partners to accept those projected roles and

identities. Thus, people create, draw attention to, and reinforce their identities

through their behavior when in they are in a scene that permits them to express their

identities. They may also use props (e.g., a heavy book to display intellectuality)

when they are outside such a scene, or otherwise make efforts to create an

opportunity to display identity. Besides using props, identity work might also take

the form of latching onto a peripheral topic to talk about, or perhaps initiating a

gambit that opens an interactional space for enhancing one’s role or identity.

Goffman suggested that identity displays become particularly salient in two

instances: when people want to control the definition of a situation and when people

want to repair a prior disruption that occurred during one of their identity

performances.

One way that people display their identities is through argumentation. Like any

other message, every argument has both content and relationship meanings

(Watzlawick et al. 1967), but we mean something more pointed than that here. We

are concerned with arguments whose essential purpose is to project or defend identity.

Not everyone is able to convince important others to visit the scenes in which identity-

relevant performances can be staged and not everyone has an important identity that

can be easily displayed through artifacts. In the absence of these two methods

described by Goffman for displaying identities, we illustrate here that people can

create conversational spaces on the fly for the purpose of displaying their identities.

We see at least two special advantages to using arguments to display identities,

compared to the two interactional lines Goffman noticed. First, Goffman seemed to

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have assumed that the scene would naturally invite the identity work, as when a

student wanting to display studiousness goes to office hours. Identity arguments, as

we will see, can be nudged into many interaction streams, allowing a participant to

adapt scenes to the purpose of identity work. Secondly, by momentarily reforming a

current circumstance, the conversant can avoid structured scenes that might include

potentially disconfirming evidence for the identity display (e.g., being asked to

explain a paper lying on the professor’s desk, or having to receive an exam with a

bad grade on it). Both of these points converge on the idea that identity arguing is

portable and unusually convenient for the person wishing to express roles and

commitments.

When a person does argue in order to display identity, the point of the argument

is not to resolve any disagreement, because none is necessary for the episode to

begin or take shape. For instance, a pastor might make time in a sermon to display

his or her reasons for commitment to Christian doctrine, even though the

congregation sees neither a question about the pastor’s faith nor any issue about

whether the doctrine is correct. Identity display is undertaken to establish or

reinforce some aspect of a person’s public persona. It can be done by means of

reasons that support claims (‘‘I like to send Christmas contributions in people’s

names to the Heifer Project because I think that’s more valuable than another

necktie or box of chocolate’’). In fact, giving reasons for one’s commitments

probably enhances their credibility, in contrast to simple declarations that might be

received as superficial and ungrounded (‘‘Oh yes, I’m quite the feminist,’’ says a

young man on his first date with a woman). The reasons expose the commitment’s

basis to scrutiny and, presuming the reasons to be mature and plausible, should

result in the identity being seen as more genuine. Speakers anticipate this and so

spontaneously give proofs. Thus, they argue to display identity, to manage other’s

impressions of them.

Here are three examples from the present data set. They give some idea of the

identities people pursue and how they can do so with arguments.

I told a friend why I decided to join APO, a community service fraternity

because I have been doing community service projects for a long time and

wanted to make friends so I decided to join it. The friend said that she was

very supportive and it sounds like a fun group and is glad I like it.

Often my boyfriend would like to hang out with me on Saturday afternoons

but I would rather hang out in the evening because I had to attend church at

4 pm which is right in the middle of the afternoon. He would often forget that

I had to go to Church every weekend. Attending church every weekend is a

requirement of my faith, of being Catholic. If he asked to hang out at 2 pm or

3 pm I would often just remind him that I’m Catholic and that I have to go to

Church and would rather hang out after so we could have more time.

It was a conversation on the nature of abortion. I made a comment implying

the fact that I am fine with abortion, the other person, my grandmother, was

quite offended by this. I had to explain that times are different and I am not

religious, so I do not see abortion as defying god, but simply as a decision a

woman can chose to make based on the life she wants to live at the time.

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These participants’ summaries naturally omit a lot of the argumentative detail, but

we can still see reasons being presented: one person is committed to service work in

part for the chance to make friends, another goes to church out of firm religious

commitment, and the last rejects religious arguments against abortion and sees a

woman’s right to choose as decisive. Notice that the projected identities are all

positive, or at least held out as such: doing unpaid community service, faithfully

following church doctrine, and advocating for women’s rights. Any of these could

simply have been declared without elaboration, but it was natural for the people to

give reasons.

The second and third examples may have appeared in the midst of a discussion

on a controversial matter, but the first gives no evidence of that. Reading the

examples closely enough, an analyst can find some potential controversy even in the

first example. But it may be that the controversy ‘‘appears’’ only if we insist on it

being present when any argument takes place. For instance, here is another example

we collected: ‘‘I was telling my boyfriend that I had to go back home to visit my

sister for her birthday and I told him my reason was because I’m such a good

sister.’’ One supposes that the boyfriend might have objected or the speaker might

have anticipated a rebuttal, but that interpretation would be presumptive, guided

more by utility-centered theories of argument than simple observation of the

episode’s description.

Controversy is not inherent to arguments for identity display. In contrast, it is

required for arguments that aim to resolve disagreement, critique common practice, or

come to a mutual decision, because without controversy there is no need for a

utilitarian argument (Goodnight 2003). The form and practice of arguing can be used

without aiming to change a behavior or an attitude. An identity display might be done

cathartically without even taking the listener into account at all. The only distinct idea

in arguing for identity display is that the argument is used to project some element of

the arguer’s identity, and the reasons are used to give grounding and texture to the

disclosure, to help define the other’s impression. These arguments can be initiated

without any invitation or exigency (cf. Bitzer 1968), but they might also appear at

some point in the development of a more traditionally argumentative exchange. The

latter may have been the case in the second and third examples above.

2 Argument Frames

Research on argument frames has produced work on the possibility that people

might argue for the sake of self-presentation, but the idea of identity display has not

yet been focal in that research project. The basic impulse in that line of work has

been to answer the question, ‘‘What do ordinary people think they are doing when

they argue?’’ Argument frames are the basic expectations and understandings that

arguers might have (Hample 2003, 2005a).

The argument frames are organized into three groups. These groups are theorized

to be in increasing order of sophistication. The first set is self-oriented. These are

primary goals for arguing, and the other person in the exchange is no more than a

foil or means for achieving the arguer’s goal. Four frames are in this first set: utility,

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using arguments to obtain benefits (such as persuading the other person or deciding

an uncertain case); identity, using arguments to display one’s character or

commitments; dominance, using arguments to assert one’s superiority over the

other person; and play, arguing for fun. The identity frame is the basic topic of the

present paper. The second set of frames takes the other person into account,

acknowledging that the other’s goals need to be respected. Three measures are in

this set. The first, blurting, is a transitional measure between the first and second set.

Blurters say what they think without editing or adaptation to the other person,

whereas non-blurters do consider the other arguer and adjust conventionally or

genuinely to the other person. The next frame in this set is cooperation, which

assesses whether the arguer is competitive or cooperative when arguing. Either

orientation requires that one must perceive and deal with the other person’s goals,

but cooperation is held to be more advanced. The last frame in the second set is

civility, which reflects whether arguments are conducted politely and constructively,

or the opposite. Civility is also a transitional frame, this time pointing toward the

third category. The third group actually only has one measure, called professional

contrast. This is a set of items on which it has been found that ordinary actors often

have abstract views about arguing that diverge from those of argumentation

professionals. For instance, many people believe that arguments lead to violence,

whereas scholars believe argument is an alternative to it. Some people believe that

arguments are corrosive to relationships, but scholars understand that arguments can

improve them. A high score on this measure indicates that the person tends to agree

with the more advanced understandings of the argumentation literature.

The work on argument frames was initiated without guidance from Goffman’s

(1974) frames theory, but Hample et al. (2010) later found Goffman’s work to be

helpful. Goffman showed how people can frame a ‘‘natural strip of behavior’’ as

something else: for example, handing something to another person (the ‘‘natural

strip’’) can be framed as a gift, a repayment, an apology, or a bribe. Framing is

accomplished by means of keys, which reformulate a behavior into something else,

much as an encryption key translates one set of characters into another. The keys

(e.g., exaggerations, winks) signal that the natural strip of behavior is being

performed as something else, just as musicians can change the key of a song to

make it lighter. Bateson’s description of monkeys using exaggerated combat actions

to play was a useful example of keying for Goffman.

The first four of the argument frames (playing or doing identity work, for

example) correspond to what Goffman (1974) called frames, but the other argument

frames are more like Goffman’s keys. Hample et al. (2010) decided that arguing’s

‘‘natural strip of behavior’’ was verbal fighting. Applying a cooperative key to that

strip makes it a different activity (perhaps conciliatory discussion), as would a

civility key or careful control of one’s propensity to blurt. Abstract reflection that

agrees with scholars summarizes the awareness of how verbal fighting can be

rekeyed to be a constructive, cooperative, and productive sort of interaction.

So the frames run from self-oriented to other-adapted to abstractly reflective, and

this is why they are held to be in order of sophistication. All the frames are

measured with self-report scales that were originally developed from people’s open-

ended comments. A modest body of empirical scholarship has developed the

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instruments and shown them to have interesting and valid connections to other

individual differences and situational features (Hample 2005b; Hample et al. 2006,

2009, 2010, 2013). The frames are also beginning to be explored cross-culturally

(Hample and Anagondahalli 2015; Xie et al. 2014).

Those earlier reports naturally included information about arguing to display

identity, though the studies were not particularly designed to illuminate this

orientation to interpersonal arguing. In many cases, the reports did not publish the

results to be mentioned momentarily, and some of the calculations reported here

were therefore made from the original data sets (Hample 2005b; Hample et al. 2006,

2009, 2010, 2013).

A natural and informative question is whether the identity frame was associated

with the others. In fact, arguing for identity display had consistent and substantial

positive associations with the other first-order frames. It correlated with play impulses

at around r = .50, with dominance assertion at about .30, and utilitarian goals at about

.40. This pattern suggests a clear self-orientation. That focus on self may be partly

defensive, since one study (Hample 2005b) reported that the identity frame was

positively associated with a tendency to take conflicts personally. As to the second

order frames, sensitivity to identity functions was uncertainly associated with blurting

(r’s ranged from -.07 to .21), inconsistently with cooperation (r’s ranged from .01 to

.39), and weakly with civility, with r’s of about .15. The association with professional

contrast was also weak and inconsistent, averaging about r = .10. In short, arguing to

display identity was strongly and consistently associated only with the other self-

oriented frames. However, arguing for identity was not incompatible with the more

socially advanced frames, having small positive associations for the most part.

Some of the earlier studies shared a few other measures as well. The identity

frame was associated with trait reactance at about r = .40, with masculinity

(approximately r = .25) but not femininity, with argumentativeness at about

r = .40, and with verbal aggressiveness (about r = .25). These trait results suggest

that those who argue to display identity were clearly characterized by various

expressions of aggressiveness. Several studies returned null results for the

associations between identity display and extraversion and self-esteem, implying

that the aggressive and self-presentation impulses did not derive from high self-

confidence. One data set (Hample et al. 2013) generated a correlation of r = .25

between the identity frame and self-monitoring. This suggests that people who

featured identity display in their understanding of argument’s social potential were

also alert to how they were being received during conversation, and this is

consistent with the modest positive correlations to the other-oriented frames.

Thus, research done to this point sustains several tentative expectations about

people who feature identity display as a motive for arguing. They are more attuned

to self-oriented reasons for arguing than other people and they are also more

aggressive than usual; however, they are not especially outgoing or confident, and

they pay close attention to their interactional partners. So the empirical record gives

a somewhat nuanced picture: these arguers clearly pursue their identity interests, but

not at the expense of other likely goals.

Several of the previous results need to be replicated because early measures for

some of the frames—blurting, utility, and cooperation—were psychometrically

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problematic, and are only now coming into final form. Other results were somewhat

inconsistent. However, the main point of the present study is to break new ground in

exploring argument for identity display, and therefore some additional matters will

be investigated. We want to describe the arguments themselves, understand the

situations in which they occur, and sketch the sorts of people who are (and are not)

inclined to argue to accomplish impression management.

First, descriptions of such arguments were collected. A few of these have already

been used as illustrations. These were analyzed as to the way in which respondents

described these experiences. The aim of this part of the investigation was

descriptive. We asked,

RQ1 What are the features of arguments that were intended to display identity,

and of respondents’ descriptions of those arguments?

Second, the characteristics of identity arguments and arguers were investigated

more pointedly than in prior work. This new work was divided into two classes: the

identity argument’s situation, and the arguer him- or herself.

The use of several measures designed to assess situations should afford systematic

information about impression management arguments. Based on Dillard’s (Dillard

1990a, b; Dillard et al. 1989) theorizing, the primary and secondary goals of the

interactions were measured. The set of interpersonal communication goals that

emerged from the large samples in Hample (in press) was used here: relational

maintenance, fulfilling role obligations, promoting one’s own identity, cathartic

expression, obtaining some utilitarian benefit, and planning some future event.

Promoting one’s identity and self-expression should be especially prominent in

respondents’ self-reported episodes since these are obviously consistent with the idea

of arguing to display identity. However, identity display might not be the primary point

of a particular episode, and might not even be the weightiest secondary goal. It might

simply have been a characteristic of an argument conducted for other reasons.

Obtaining a profile of the goal system in which people argue to forward their own

identities should be informative. Participants will naturally try to form their goals in

synchrony with situational features (Meyer 1997), and when there is a mismatch

between one’s goal and what the situation seems to call for, people should revise their

utterance plans unless they are blurters (Hample et al. 2013). Therefore, we also

assessed whether people were aware of obstacles to their plans, and whether they

suppressed anything they might otherwise have said.

The combination of the arguer and the identity argument’s situation may create some

further effects. One group of such phenomena that has not previously been investigated

is the episode’s emotional system. Since identity arguments are not necessarily called

out by substantive matters, it makes sense that they might be stimulated by momentary

emotions, and the effort to promote identity might be reflected in one’s feelings about the

episode. Therefore we asked respondents to report their own feelings during the

interaction, and to project what the other person was feeling as well. We used the list of

discrete emotions developed in Hample (in press): anger, anxiety, disappointment,

happiness, sadness, surprise, guilt, fear, gratitude, and boredom.

In particular, we investigated these connections between the identity frame and

the situations in which people argued to promote own identity:

Arguing to Display Identity 395

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H1 Scores on the identity frame will be positively associated with the goals of

self-expression and own identity work.

RQ2 How will the identity frame be associated with other goals and with own and

other’s emotions?

The last main effort here was to describe the identity arguers themselves. Not

everyone engages in identity arguments at all, and of those who do, they may not all

participate with the same degree of readiness. Several individual differences

measures should permit us to distinguish high and low proclivities for identity

arguing. These variables include the other frames as well as several measures

already mentioned: masculinity and femininity, argumentativeness, verbal aggres-

siveness, personalization of conflict, and extraversion (and the other elements of the

Big Three). Generally, we expected to replicate earlier findings, gather all these

measures in one data set, and use these results to assist in interpreting the other

findings.

One key matter we wished to get onto firmer ground is identity arguers’ balance

between self- and other-orientation. We have already mentioned evidence of their

concentration on self (e.g., scores on other first-order frames and verbal

aggressiveness) but have also encountered evidence that they take others into

account as well (e.g., their higher scores on civility and self-monitoring). Therefore

to help estimate how they weigh self and other, we included measures of self-

esteem, narcissism, and entitlement. We also assessed the strength of respondents’

orientations to own and other’s positive and negative face needs in a typical

encounter. This set of variables should afford an estimate of identity arguers’ focus

on self and their level of interactional commitment to other people. Combined with

the other individual differences measures, this should put us in a position to describe

the balance of self and other in the social world of people who argue to display

identity.

To formalize our statements of expectation by research foci:

H2 Self-oriented Frames: Scores on the identity frame will be substantially and

positively associated with scores on the blurting, utility, dominance, and play

frames, as well as commitment to promote own face.

H3 Other-oriented Frames: Scores on the identity frame will be positively

associated with scores on civility, cooperation, and professional contrast frames.

H4 Aggressiveness: Scores on the identity frame will be positively associated

with extraversion, masculinity, argumentativeness, verbal aggressiveness, and lack

of conflict personalization.

H5 Self/Other Balance: Scores on the identity frame will be positively associated

with both self-orientation (narcissism, entitlement, self-esteem) and other orienta-

tion (intention to do positive facework for other).

Altogether, evaluations of the hypotheses and research questions should generate

a useful description of identity arguing, the situations in which it occurs, and the

people who engage in it.

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3 Method

3.1 Respondents and Procedures

Participants were 461 undergraduate students enrolled in communication courses at

the authors’ institution. They received minor course credit for their participation.

70 % of them were women, 67 % were juniors or seniors, and 53 % described

themselves as Euro-American (followed by 12 % African-American, 7 % Asian-

American, and the remainder scattered among various ethnicities or national

origins). Their average age was 20.3 years (SD = 1.70).

Data were collected online. About half the sample was enrolled in a course that

called upon the students to analyze the class data for various assignments, and these

participants responded to several individual surveys designed to take only about

10 min to finish. The remaining respondents participated for extra credit in other

courses and completed all the materials at one sitting.

The organization of the survey was as follows. Demographics were first,

followed by two sets of individual differences measures (argument frames and

taking conflict personally), detailed below. Then the questionnaire explained what

an identity argument is:

In this survey project, we define an interpersonal argument as an exchange in

which people give reasons and evidence (so an argument is not necessarily, for

instance, a hostile conflict). People give reasons to others for lots of purposes:

to get something done, to be playful, or to get agreement, for example.

We are particularly interested in one purpose for interpersonal arguing: to

display your identity. This doesn’t necessarily require any controversy or

disagreement. In fact, you might already know that the other person agrees

with you. But you give your reasons to show that you are liberal, or smart, or

conservative, or sympathetic to the poor, or supportive of capitalism. You’re

just giving reasons to display what sort of person you are.

Respondents were then asked to recall an instance of that sort: ‘‘Please think of a

situation in which you have done this—that is, when you gave reasons for some

commitment you had. There might or might not have been any controversy or

disagreement about the topic, in that conversation. You were just trying to show

what kind of person you were.’’ This open-ended prompt produced the materials that

were analyzed.

Respondents were asked to say whether there was controversy involved in their

example (a single item with three choices: clearly no, maybe, and clearly yes). Then

people chose their primary goal, and proceeded to indicate the importance of all

their goals. This was followed with a number of questions describing the

conversation (e.g., polite or rude), and own and other’s feelings. Finally, several

other trait measures were given, with instruction to respond ‘‘as you typically are:’’

the Big Three, argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness, masculinity and

femininity, entitlement, narcissism, self-esteem, and orientation to own and other’s

face. The full survey took about half an hour to complete. Table 1 reports

descriptive statistics for all the multi-item scales, including their reliabilities.

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Table 1 Descriptive statistics (N = 461)

Measure Cronbach’s Alpha No. items Scale Mean SD

Frames

Utility .77 8 1–10 5.32 1.26

Play .87 4 1–10 4.44 2.17

Identity .83 8 1–10 6.57 1.40

Dominance .87 6 1–10 4.44 1.86

Blurting .88 10 1–10 5.11 1.58

Cooperation .84 7 1–10 6.83 1.50

Civility .75 10 1–10 6.26 1.16

Professional contrast .86 7 1–10 6.29 1.86

Taking conflict personally

Direct personalization .87 7 1–10 5.82 1.70

Persecution feelings .81 6 1–10 4.59 1.58

Stress reaction .69 5 1–10 5.70 1.61

Positive relational effects .87 7 1–10 6.02 1.44

Negative relational effects .79 5 1–10 6.06 1.40

Positive valence .87 7 1–10 4.12 1.76

Big three

Psychoticism .75 12 1–5 2.22 0.51

Extraversion .91 12 1–5 3.64 0.70

Neuroticism .87 12 1–5 2.94 0.71

Lying .78 12 1–5 2.98 0.57

Situation goals

Relational maintenance goal .90 5 1–10 5.85 2.29

Role obligation goal .95 5 1–10 6.63 2.10

Own face goal .87 5 1–10 7.28 1.73

Self expression goal .93 5 1–10 7.06 1.86

Obtain benefit goal .93 5 1–10 5.22 2.13

Plan future events goal .97 5 1–10 5.87 2.56

Situation characteristics

Politeness .96 5 1–10 7.26 2.15

Rudeness .92 5 1–10 3.50 2.23

Argumentative .83 5 1–10 7.15 1.86

Conflictive .94 5 1–10 4.78 2.80

Obstacles .86 5 1–10 5.10 2.33

Omissions .91 5 1–10 4.70 2.43

Own emotions

Anger .96 5 1–10 3.56 2.63

Anxiety .92 5 1–10 3.68 2.33

Disappointment .91 5 1–10 3.27 2.22

Happiness .94 5 1–10 6.50 2.39

Sadness .91 5 1–10 2.97 2.02

Surprise .94 5 1–10 3.26 2.26

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3.2 Instruments

3.2.1 Frames

Frames measures include identity, the key variable in this report, as well as other first-

order frames (utility, play, and dominance), second order frames (blurting,

cooperation, and civility), and the third order frame (professional contrast). The

frames instruments were reported in Hample, et al. (2006). An additional cooperation

item (‘‘I am often competitive when I’m arguing’’) is sometimes used, but is often

dropped after psychometric analysis (that also happened in the present data set). The

blurting instrument has been revised, and is now to be found in Hample et al. (2013).

Table 1 continued

Measure Cronbach’s Alpha No. items Scale Mean SD

Guilt .95 5 1–10 2.62 1.99

Fear .93 5 1–10 2.95 2.11

Gratitude .85 5 1–10 5.05 2.20

Boredom .93 5 1–10 2.93 2.07

Other’s emotions

Anger .97 5 1–10 3.46 2.65

Anxiety .95 5 1–10 3.32 2.39

Disappointment .91 5 1–10 3.33 2.26

Happiness .94 5 1–10 5.80 2.50

Sadness .93 5 1–10 3.07 2.13

Surprise .95 5 1–10 3.55 2.33

Guilt .97 5 1–10 2.75 2.14

Fear .95 5 1–10 2.85 2.16

Gratitude .89 5 1–10 4.51 2.28

Boredom .95 5 1–10 2.93 2.07

Additional individual differences

Argument-avoid .83 10 1–5 3.12 0.62

Argument-approach .82 10 1–5 3.11 0.60

Verbal aggressiveness—Antisocial .86 10 1–5 2.59 0.68

Verbal aggressiveness—Prosocial .78 10 1–5 3.38 0.55

Masculinity .89 20 1–7 4.72 0.81

Femininity .82 20 1–7 4.75 0.67

Entitlement .89 9 1–10 4.52 1.73

Self esteem .87 10 1–10 6.85 1.53

Narcissism .94 40 1–10 5.61 1.26

Concern other’s positive face .89 3 1–10 6.34 1.78

Concern own positive face .90 4 1–10 6.94 1.73

Concern other’s negative face .86 4 1–10 6.17 1.63

Concern own negative face .79 3 1–10 6.79 1.70

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Measurement of the utility frame has been somewhat inconsistent in the past. Here,

thirteen items were initially used and subjected to a principal components analysis.

Four principal components had eigenvalues greater than 1. Inspection of the loadings

indicated that the first component consisted of eight items, all expressing the idea that

arguing is utilitarian (e.g., ‘‘Arguing is a way to get what you want’’). The second

component had reverse-worded items (e.g., ‘‘Arguing doesn’t accomplish anything’’).

The third and fourth components only included items that had higher loadings on

either the first or second component. The decision was made to use only the first

component. Those items are listed in Table 2, and this is proposed as the proper

measurement for the utility frame in future work.

3.2.2 Taking Conflict Personally

Taking conflict personally (TCP) is a battery of six measures (Hample and Dallinger

1995). A large secondary analysis (Hample and Cionea 2010) has supported the

psychometric quality of the scales. The subscales are these: direct personalization

(the simplest measure of taking conflict personally), persecution feelings (the sense

that others are using the conflict as a pretext to attack self), stress reactions (both

physical and psychological), positive relational effects (the estimate that conflicts

can improve relationships), negative relational effects (the opposite estimate), and

valence for conflict (scored so that high values indicate positive evaluation).

3.2.3 Goals

Six goals (relational maintenance, fulfilling role obligations, promoting one’s own

identity, cathartic expression, obtaining some utilitarian benefit, and planning some

future event) have been found to describe people’s objectives in interpersonal

communication (Hample, in press). Dillard (1990a, b) has said that in a given

episode, a person will have a primary goal that frames or defines the nature of the

interaction (e.g., as persuasive) and secondary goals (e.g., politeness) that will

modify the person’s plans and actions. All of a person’s goals come from the same

motivational inventory; one is simply more salient in the moment, and that one then

becomes primary. The primary goal was identified in a single item that listed all the

Table 2 Utility items with loadings on the first principal component

Loading

When I argue with someone it is to get what I want .56

Arguing is a way to get what you want .64

If I want someone else to do something, giving the other person a reason to do something is the

best approach

.54

I use arguing as a way to get things done .62

If someone is arguing with me, I assume that we’re on our way to settling something .66

Arguing is meant to resolve issues .63

I only argue to achieve a specific outcome .50

The most important reason for arguing is to get something you need .56

400 D. Hample, A. L. Irions

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goals and a residual category, which no one chose. Then all the goals, including the

primary one, were rated as to their importance on multi-item Likert scales.

3.2.4 Conversation Characteristics

Respondents were asked to reflect on the identity argument episode and to rate its

politeness, rudeness, argumentative quality, conflictive nature, presence of obstacles

to one’s aims, and the degree to which the participant omitted anything that

occurred to him/her. Rudeness and politeness were both assessed because an

episode can have both qualities or neither. Argumentative quality refers to whether

reasons or evidence were in play, whereas conflictive quality reflects whether

conversants had explicit disagreement or goal conflict. The items for the

conversational characteristics were drawn from Hample (in press).

3.2.5 Emotions

Respondents were asked to recall their own feelings during the episode and to estimate the

other main person’s feelings as well. The same list was used for both people: anger,

anxiety, disappointment in the conversation, happiness, sadness, surprise at elements of

the episode, guilt over what was said or done, fear of the consequences of the conversation,

gratitude at having had the conversation, and boredom during it. These were found to be

the most common discrete emotions in conversations (Hample, in press).

3.2.6 Big Three

The Big Three instrument was used to assess personality supertraits (Eysenck and

Eysenck 1975; Eysenck et al. 1985). This measure assesses three supertraits:

psychoticism (flatness of affect, or hostility), neuroticism (anxiety, nervousness),

and extraversion (sociability). It also gives a lie score, which is calculated from the

presence of unlikely responses, such as the claim never to have stolen anything.

Rather than the original yes/no scale, here people responded to each item on a 1–5

scale ranging from ‘‘definitely no’’ to ‘‘definitely yes.’’

3.2.7 Argumentativeness and Verbal Aggressiveness

These are both twenty-item scales composed of two ten-item subscales. Argumen-

tativeness (Infante and Rancer 1982) measures one’s motivation to attack another’s

position, reasons, or evidence. The two subscales are argument-approach and

argument-avoid. Verbal aggressiveness (Infante and Wigley 1986) assesses one’s

motivation to attack the other person’s character or identity. Its two subscales are

prosocial (i.e., not attacking others) and antisocial (i.e., eagerly attacking others).

3.2.8 Masculinity and Femininity

The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem 1974) contains twenty stereotypically

masculine adjectives, twenty stereotypically feminine adjectives, and twenty filler

Arguing to Display Identity 401

123

adjectives. People indicated the degree to which each adjective described self on

seven-point scales. The masculinity score is their average score for the masculine

adjectives, and the feminine score is the average for those twenty items.

3.2.9 Narcissism, Entitlement, and Self-Esteem

The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Raskin and Terry 1988) is a forty-item

instrument that often decomposes into several factors. Here, a principal components

analysis generated eight components with eigenvalues over 1, but all forty items had

loadings of .398 or higher on the first component. The single component solution

produced a very high reliability coefficient (Table 1), and was therefore used here,

which is not unusual (e.g., Campbell et al. 2002). For more psychometric nuance than

is in play in this report, see Ackerman et al. (2011). Entitlement was assessed with a

nine item self-report scale developed by Campbell et al. (2004). Sample items include

‘‘I honestly feel I’m just more deserving than others’’ and ‘‘Things should go my way.’’

Self-esteem was assessed with the standard Rosenberg (1965) instrument.

3.2.10 Facework

Finally, participants were asked to indicate the importance of own and other’s

positive and negative face during interactions. Positive face is the identity one

wishes to project, and negative face is the desire to be unimpeded in thought,

expression, or action. Scales developed by Cai and Wilson (2000) were slightly

adapted to assess general orientations to face issues. The fifth item (in the standard

ordering) was dropped to improve the reliability of the other’s positive face

measure.

4 Results

4.1 Research Question 1: Descriptions

We believe this to be the first systematic collection of interpersonal arguments intended

to display the arguer’s identity. Naturally, the first research question was, ‘‘What are the

features of arguments that were intended to display identity, and of respondents’

descriptions of those arguments?’’ We addressed this question with several sets of

analyses. In the first, we took note of respondents’ own descriptions of the episodes. Next

we subjected the written descriptions to analysis by Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count

(LIWC; Pennebaker et al. 2007). LIWC is a computer program that compares words in a

text to those in its dictionary of pre-classified words, and then reports the number of

words that express activity, positive emotion, and many other things.

A preliminary and theoretically fundamental question is, Was there controversy?

None is actually required in order to make an identity argument, but it is also possible

to do an identity display in the middle of an ordinary argument. Respondents were

asked to indicate whether or not controversy was present in their identity display

episode. Most often they said ‘‘clearly no’’ (f = 193), but ‘‘maybe’’ (135) and ‘‘clearly

402 D. Hample, A. L. Irions

123

yes’’ (130) were also common. This frequency distribution differed from chance (v2

(2, N = 458) = 16.07, p\ .001). An analysis of variance predicting scores on the

identity frame instrument from presence of controversy returned a significant result

(F (2, 455) = 5.52, p\ .01, partial g2 = .02), with a Duncan post hoc test showing

that the ‘‘clearly yes’’ condition (M = 6.89) had a significantly higher mean score than

the other two (‘‘clearly no’’ = 6.37; ‘‘maybe’’ = 6.53). Since controversy is not

required for identity displays, it is interesting that people with the highest identity

scores were also those who reported episodes in which identity displays were

integrated into ordinarily controversial arguments.

Respondents also used several instruments to rate the episode they summarized. These

measures were rudeness, politeness, argumentative character, conflictive character,

presence of obstacles, and awareness of having omitted anything. The theoretical

midpoint of these scales is 5.5, and Table 1 shows that the self-reports indicate that the

conversations were not rude, were polite, and were noticeably argumentative but not

especially conflictive. Obstacles were not especially apparent, and omission occurred at a

moderate rate. The situations were rated as quite a bit more polite than rude

(t (452) = 19.90, p\ .001, r2 = .47), and more argumentative than conflictive

(t (452) = 15.93, p\ .001, r2 = .36). On the whole, respondents’ descriptions indicated

that the exchanges were pleasant and unthreatening for self and other.

The next set of analyses involved descriptive coding of the episode summaries.

Results are in Table 3. The main coding categories were what identity was being

displayed, what the topic of the identity-displaying argument was, who the recipient

Table 3 Descriptive coding of

open-ended reports of identity

display arguments

Code Frequency % j

Identity being displayed .71

Loyal (259) (56.3)

Loyal to family 24 5.2

Loyal to friends 22 4.8

Loyal to charity 17 3.7

Loyal to school 25 5.4

Loyal to ideals 48 10.4

Loyal to prior obligation 27 5.9

Loyal to job 4 0.9

Loyal to religion 23 5.0

Loyal to political beliefs 45 9.8

Loyal, other 24 5.2

Positive personal characteristics (144) (31.3)

Knowledgeable 40 8.7

Honest 16 3.5

Leadership material 24 5.2

Independent, free thinking 19 4.1

Open minded, tolerant 16 3.5

Agreeable 20 4.3

Authentic, unchanging 5 1.1

Arguing to Display Identity 403

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Table 3 continuedCode Frequency % j

Tough minded 4 0.9

Other or uncodable 58 12.5

Topic .84

Political/Public (95) (20.5)

2012 election 42 9.1

Abortion 12 2.6

Gay rights 8 1.7

Pop culture 2 0.4

Other political 31 6.7

Time for (201) (43.8)

Romantic partner 9 2.0

Friend 74 16.1

Roommate 8 1.7

Family 13 2.8

Organizations 19 4.1

Religion 10 2.2

Job 15 3.3

Volunteer work 10 2.2

Location of studies (abroad) 10 2.2

School 15 3.3

Time, other 18 3.9

University Athletics 6 1.2

Interviews (job, organizations) 10 2.2

Independence, maturity 4 0.9

Romantic relationship 13 2.8

Relationships, not romantic 4 0.9

Work related 5 1.1

School related 2 0.4

Friends’ problems 10 2.2

Other or uncodable 111 24.0

Argument partner .90

Friend 179 38.8

Roommate 30 6.5

Romantic partner 11 2.4

Former romantic partner 2 0.4

Parent 29 6.3

Family, not parent 12 2.6

Boss 13 2.8

Organization member, not boss 9 2.0

Classmate 9 2.0

Peer 6 1.3

Stranger 4 0.9

404 D. Hample, A. L. Irions

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of the argument was, and how many people heard the argument. Two coders

reached reasonably high levels of agreement on fifty cases as shown by the Cohen’s

kappas in Table 3, and the second author coded the remaining materials. Each of the

main categories includes a substantial number of ‘‘other’’ or uncodable results. We

do not regard this as a fault of the coding systems, but rather as a reflection of how

complete or incomplete respondents’ reports were.

Naturally, our respondents reported having displayed positive identities. On our

reading of the materials, loyalty was a very salient theme. More than half of the

arguments indicated the arguer was resolute and reliable in his or her connection to

some important social element: family, friends, ideals, political commitments, and

so forth. Other identity targets were similarly desirable. Being knowledgeable,

honest, agreeable, independent, tolerant, and qualified for leadership were among

the main things people argued should be attributed to them.

Argument topics were quite varied, but we noticed how often people indicated the

importance of time in establishing their identities. One could indicate what a loyal

friend one is, or how committed to church or school, by pointing out how much time

was being freely given to that cause, or how an inability to give even more time was

painful to the arguer. Time (or more precisely, claims about time) was a very common

argumentative resource, accounting for more than 40 % of the topics we coded.

Having noticed this theme, we gave priority to time issues in our coding, so that ‘‘time

for romantic partners’’ was distinguished from the general romantic relationship topic,

for instance. Many of the ‘‘time’’ codes concerned topics that were also listed

separately when they did not involve mention of time commitments. Considering

Johnson’s (2002) distinction between public and personal topics, it is interesting that

only about 20 % of the argument topics were obviously public ones. Apparently

personal topics were a more natural site for identity displays.

Finally, we took note of whom the arguments were presented to. By about a three to

one ratio, the interactions only involved one other person, although about 20 % of the

cases had a second listener. The most common interactants were friends. This may

simply reflect the social environment of our undergraduate respondents. Argument for

identity display could be directed to quite a few other social categories of person,

however, including bosses, romantic partners, teachers, and even strangers.

These codings offer a simple description of respondents’ identity arguments.

Loyalty was a particular theme and time was a common argumentative resource. We

observed a considerable range of identities, topics, and partners in our data.

Table 3 continuedCode Frequency % j

Greek brother/sister 3 0.6

Instructor 5 1.1

Other or uncodable 149 32.3

Number of people present .83

One other person 284 61.6

More than one 93 20.2

Uncodable 84 18.2

Arguing to Display Identity 405

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More detail can be obtained by attending to the vocabulary people used in their

descriptions of the arguments. Analysis of how the respondents expressed

themselves when describing their identity argument produced some points of

interest. Word counts and categorizations were done with LIWC2007. Table 4

Table 4 Percentages of various categories of words

Identity Serial Argt Recent Memorable

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Pronoun 21.45 5.65 24.11 6.29 21.91 5.86 23.72 6.21

Pers pron 15.54 5.30 17.99 5.90 16.76 5.49 17.95 5.41

I 11.18 4.86 7.94 4.14 8.14 4.33 9.91 4.53

We 0.65 1.41 2.52 3.94 2.11 2.99 1.35 2.33

You 0.33 1.29 0.41 1.26 1.92 2.65 1.88 3.13

She he 2.10 2.78 6.81 4.75 3.83 4.13 4.18 4.15

They 1.28 2.32 0.32 0.99 0.75 2.30 0.63 1.47

It 5.91 3.62 6.11 3.48 5.16 3.09 5.76 3.44

Past 8.22 5.21 9.82 5.05 8.08 5.52 8.09 5.08

Present 6.18 4.80 5.20 4.30 7.62 5.36 7.64 5.87

Future 0.94 1.50 0.97 1.52 1.12 1.54 1.37 1.63

Social 14.17 6.09 18.39 7.91 17.27 7.13 16.29 6.39

Family 0.58 1.33 0.25 0.88 0.43 1.15 0.91 1.71

Friend 1.33 1.75 1.40 1.73 0.75 1.61 0.44 1.06

Humans 1.31 1.92 0.67 1.18 0.64 1.33 0.43 1.10

Affect 6.34 4.29 6.71 4.33 5.41 3.58 5.40 3.62

Pos emo 4.47 3.95 3.10 2.87 4.01 3.28 3.46 3.05

Neg emo 1.80 2.36 3.56 3.70 1.36 1.90 1.89 2.41

Anxiety 0.22 0.89 0.59 1.09 0.29 0.82 0.44 1.05

Anger 0.77 1.46 1.99 3.41 0.38 0.88 0.48 1.35

Sad 0.24 0.77 0.28 0.67 0.18 0.57 0.32 0.88

Cog mech 19.33 6.23 21.02 6.02 16.99 6.13 19.21 6.36

Insight 3.44 2.82 2.51 2.42 1.88 1.89 2.76 2.56

Cause 3.09 2.79 1.93 1.69 1.88 1.99 2.00 2.10

Discrep 2.21 2.21 2.46 2.39 2.10 2.09 2.75 2.45

Tentatative 1.99 2.49 1.74 1.72 2.10 2.06 2.32 2.44

Certain 1.36 2.05 1.13 1.50 1.17 1.54 1.19 1.75

Inhibition 0.44 0.92 0.83 2.21 0.40 0.96 0.40 0.83

Biology 0.92 1.92 1.04 2.02 1.77 2.32 1.07 1.97

Body 0.13 0.64 0.23 0.78 0.81 1.48 0.43 0.98

Health 0.32 0.91 0.20 0.62 0.24 0.74 0.30 1.18

Sexual 0.27 0.99 0.21 1.02 0.18 0.75 0.17 0.76

Ingest 0.29 1.17 0.41 1.37 0.56 1.44 0.21 1.06

Work 2.82 3.51 1.15 1.93 2.53 2.97 3.34 3.69

Achieve 1.88 2.33 1.64 1.97 1.17 1.74 1.44 1.69

406 D. Hample, A. L. Irions

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displays results for the present study (uninteresting categories, e.g., prepositions, are

omitted).

To provide context for these results, parallel analyses (reported here for the first

time) were conducted on three other sets of open-ended descriptions provided by

people from roughly the same sampling frame as the present study, but in response

to different stimuli. The serial argument data refers to open-ended descriptions of a

recent serial argument episode with a friend or romantic partner (Hample and

Richards, in press). The other data summarizes descriptions of a recent and a

memorable communication situation, each provided by the same respondent

(Hample, in press, study 1). The serial argument data definitely referred to

arguments, but not particularly those intended to display identity. The recent and

memorable situation data did not necessarily refer to arguments at all, although

15 % of the descriptions were coded as describing a conflict experience for the

‘‘recent’’ data, and 28 % for the ‘‘memorable’’ descriptions.

The Table 4 results are being offered descriptively as general guides for how

respondents expressed themselves. Independent sample t-tests showed that the

present data were different from the serial argument results on 33 of the 39 tests,

from the recent situations data on 24, and from the memorable situations results on

30. Close statistical analysis would not be productive, given the commonness of

uninteresting significant differences among the samples. The point of the

comparisons to other data is merely to afford some context.

Table 4 indicates that on many of the word categories, identity argument

descriptions were similar to the others (even if technically different statistically).

Several substantial differences are worth noting, however.

Even though the current respondents used fewer pronouns than in the other

studies, first person singular pronouns occurred more often here. This focus on first

person was quite self-oriented, as the low percentage of ‘‘we’’ pronouns

underscores. Nor were ‘‘you’’ or ‘‘she he’’ very salient in these stories, although

‘‘they’’ had some prominence. The pronoun frequencies give a general sketch of

identity argument stories that were centered on self. This impression is reinforced

by the results for social words (the category includes words like ‘‘interact,’’

Table 4 continued

Identity Serial Argt Recent Memorable

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Leisure 1.41 2.47 0.78 1.63 1.14 1.69 0.62 1.38

Home 0.70 1.57 0.58 1.44 0.88 1.64 0.48 1.23

Money 0.41 1.16 0.48 1.49 0.63 1.77 1.09 2.34

Religion 0.55 1.67 0.17 0.92 0.12 0.51 0.06 0.30

Samples sizes are identity (457), serial argument (714), recent (467) and memorable (452). The serial

argument data are from Hample and Richards (in press) and the recent and memorable data are from

Hample (in press). Some elements of the LIWC reports are omitted, and the columns do not add up to

100 %. Average number of words was 21.94 (SD = 9.50) for the present data, 22.19 (SD = 10.39) for

serial arguments, 28.70 (SD = 22.24) for recent communication situations, and 27.97 (SD = 21.94) for

memorable communication situations

Arguing to Display Identity 407

123

‘‘Honey,’’ and ‘‘talks,’’ as well as many pronoun forms). These were least frequent

in the present data set compared to the others.

Categorizing words by their emotional content suggests that overall, identity

arguments were less affect-laden than the serial argument episodes but comparable

to the routine and memorable conversations. However, the present data showed

some imbalance between positive and negative emotions. Expression of positive

affect in the current episode descriptions was fairly high, and negative affect

occurred less often than in the serial argument episodes. Anxiety levels were

comparable to the low values from the routine conversations, and thus were lower

than for the serial arguments or memorable moments. Anger was noticeably less

salient than in serial argument episode descriptions. Arguments intended to display

identity were not as threatening as serial argument episodes and seemed to be

somewhat more positive than other sorts of interactions.

A few remaining points might be worth attention. The high score for achievement

is consistent with the idea that people are pushing forth a desirable identity. The

scores for religion and leisure give some clues to what the respondents valued in

their self-images. Most of the other results are provided for the reader to peruse,

because many of the interesting comparisons are among the studies not being

reported here in any detail.

Overall, our answer to Research Question 1 is this: Identity-display arguments

did not require controversy for their production, but more than half the arguments

were presented in the midst of some level of disagreement. This sort of arguing was

more polite than rude, and more argumentative than conflictive. Loyalty was an

important argumentative claim, but many other sorts of identities were also pursued.

In generating reasons to support face-enhancing conclusions, arguers often turned to

time as a topos that they found convenient in establishing their good qualities. A

minority of the apparent topics for the arguments were public. Identity display

arguments were aimed at many sorts of people, but the interactions were most often

dyadic. Arguers were quite self-centered in their descriptions of the episodes.

Compared to serial arguments, these reports were not especially emotional. Positive

feelings were expressed more often than negative ones. Identity display arguments

did not appear to be especially threatening for the arguers.

4.2 Hypothesis 1 and Research Question 2: Goals and Emotions

We move now to analysis of other measures in the data set. First, we hypothesized

that scores on the identity frame will be positively associated with the goals of self-

expression and own identity work (H1). We also inquired (RQ2), How will the

identity frame be associated with the other goals and with own and other’s

emotions?

4.2.1 Framing Goal

Table 5 displays the frequencies with which different goals were identified as

primary (using a single item measure), as well as means on the identity frame

instrument for people choosing each primary goal. The goals were not evenly

408 D. Hample, A. L. Irions

123

distributed (v2 (5, N = 456) = 292.00, p\ .001). An analysis of variance

predicting identity score by framing goal was not significant: F (5, 450) = 1.50,

p = .18. Together, these results indicate that identity-expression arguments were

most often produced for the purposes of self-expression or identity projection, but

that all of the possible primary goals were associated with about the same level of

commitment to identity display.

4.2.2 Secondary Goals

Correlations between the identity frame scores and the importance ratings for the

full list of goals (using multiple item measures) produced several significant

correlations. The higher a person’s score on the identity frame measure, the more

important he or she rated the self-expression goal (r = .30, p\ .001), the

importance of the goal to promote own face (r = .19, p\ .001), the importance

of the goal of obtaining benefits (r = .16, p\ .001), and the importance of the goal

of planning future events (r = .17, p\ .001). Sensitivity to the identity frame did

not produce significant correlations with the other two goals (relational maintenance

[r = .09, p = .07] or fulfilling role obligations [r = .02, p = .66]). The overall

pattern here is self-focus for people high on identity orientation, with ambivalent

interest in the interpersonal relationship and social role obligations.

4.2.3 Own and Other’s Emotions

Respondents were asked to indicate their emotional reactions during the episode

they described, and to project what the other person felt as well. The only

statistically significant association that appeared between the identity frame score

and own emotions was for anger (r = .12, p\ .05), indicating that higher

sensitivity to identity issues was associated with feeling a little more anger during

the episode. The other measures of own feelings were not associated with scores on

the identity frame: anxiety (r = .08, p = .12), disappointment (r = .01, p = .86),

happy (r = .05, p = .32), sad (r = -.04, p = .36), surprised (r = .02, p = .66),

guilty (r = -.06, p = .23), fear (r = -.03, p = .56), gratitude (r = .06, p = .19),

and bored (r = -.08, p = .10). When the respondent’s identity frame score was

associated with his or her estimates of how the other person felt, we found no

significant correlations at all: anger (r = -.00, p = .98), anxiety (r = -.00,

Table 5 Frequencies of

framing goals and mean identity

frame values

Frequency Identity frame mean SD

Relational maintenance 67 6.58 1.31

Role obligation 60 6.17 1.42

Own face work 105 6.73 1.31

Self expression 193 6.58 1.44

Obtain benefits 14 6.43 1.43

Plan future events 17 6.92 1.58

Arguing to Display Identity 409

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p = .97), disappointment (r = -.05, p = .28), happy (r = .06, p = .18), sad

(r = -.07, p = .16), surprised (r = .04, p = .45), guilty (r = -.04, p = .41), fear

(r = -.03, p = .50), gratitude (r = .03, p = .55), and bored (r = -.04, p = .35).

Since the power of these correlational tests was about .95 (r = .20, two-tailed,

alpha = .05), these are reasonable grounds for concluding that scores on the identity

frame do not point to any particular pattern of emotional experience in specific

impression management episodes.

H1 was supported because the identity frame scores correlated positively with the

goals of expressing self and projecting own identity. Our answer to the research

question is that the identity frame was also associated with the utilitarian goals of

obtaining benefits and planning future events, but not with intending to do relational

maintenance or fulfill one’s role obligations. In addition, having high awareness that

arguments can be used to promote identity did not predict any unusual emotional

experience for self, and was not thought to be associated with the other person’s

feelings either.

4.3 Hypothesis 2: Self-Orientation

H2 concerned self-orientation: Scores on the identity frame will be substantially and

positively associated with scores on the blurting, utility, dominance, and play

frames, as well as interest in doing facework for self.

4.3.1 First-Order Frames

Correlations between scores for the identity frame and the other self-oriented frames

were all positive and substantial: for utility r = .36, p\ .001; for dominance

display r = .22, p\ .001; and for play r = .41, p\ .001. In addition, blurting was

also positively associated with identity display: r = .19, p\ .001. All these results

indicate that people who clearly orient to identity uses for arguments are also

oriented to the other self-oriented frames.

4.3.2 Own Facework

Correlations between the identity frame scores and interest in own face were

positive: for own positive face, r = .19, p\ .001; and for own negative face,

r = .18, p\ .001. So the people most likely to frame an argument as being identity-

relevant were also very interested in displaying themselves positively and protecting

themselves from imposition.

These results supported the claim that people who argue to display identity are

self-oriented and data are therefore consistent with H2.

4.4 Hypothesis 3: Other-Orientation

H3, in contrast, dealt with the more other-oriented frames: Scores on the identity

frame will be positively associated with scores on civility, cooperation, and

professional contrast frames.

410 D. Hample, A. L. Irions

123

Correlations between identity frame scores and cooperation (r = .35, p\ .001),

civility (r = .13, p\ .01), and professional contrast (r = .14, p\ .01) were all

positive, although they tended to be lower than the associations with the first-order

frames. So identity-oriented arguers made more use of the cooperation and civility

keys and were more sophisticated in their recognition of arguing’s constructive

potentials. The identity frame’s positive correlations to the first-order frames and

blurting revealed a focus on self, but that focus was not so strong as to obscure the

more social possibilities (cooperative, civil) in interpersonal arguing. Thus, H3 was

also supported.

4.5 Hypothesis 4: Aggressiveness

H4 was concerned with one particularly self-focused orientation to interaction,

aggressiveness: Scores on the identity frame will be positively associated with

extraversion, masculinity, argumentativeness, verbal aggressiveness, and lack of

conflict personalization.

Positive correlations between identity framing and several measures supported

the prediction: extraversion (r = .11, p\ .05), masculinity (r = .29, p\ .001),

argument-approach (r = .47, p\ .001), and verbal aggressiveness (antisocial)

(r = .15, p\ .01). Correlations with psychoticism (r = -.08, p = .09), neuroti-

cism (r = .07, p = .16), femininity (r = .18, p\ .001), argument-avoid (r = -.11,

p\ .05), and verbal aggressiveness (prosocial) (r = .14, p\ .01) were generally

supportive of the hypothesis as well, and fill out the empirical record.

Results connecting identity framing with the taking conflict personally (TCP)

battery showed little defensiveness and some evidence of willingness to engage in

conflicts. Direct personalization was not significantly related to the inclination to see

identity possibilities in arguing, r = .03, p = .59; the same was true for persecution

feelings (r = .05, p = .31), stress reactions (r = -.08, p = .08), and negative

relational effects (r = .07, p = .14). High scores on these four measures would

have indicated personalization of conflict, or defensiveness, but results were

essentially null. However, the correlations between identity framing and positive

relational effects (r = .33, p\ .001) and positive valence (r = .22, p\ .001) were

both significant. These two subscales are the ones that point toward willingness to

engage in conflict discussions.

H4 was supported. Results indicated that marked interest in framing arguments as

identity work was connected to higher aggressiveness and less defensiveness.

4.6 Hypothesis 5: Self/Other Balance

Finally H5 addressed other measures that should help us understand the self/other

balance in the orientations of identity arguers: Scores on the identity frame will be

positively associated with both self-orientation (narcissism, entitlement, and self-

esteem,) and other-orientation (intention to do positive facework for other).

Correlations with the self-oriented measures were somewhat uneven. The

identity frame correlated with entitlement (r = .11, p\ .05) and narcissism

(r = .23, p\ .001), but not with self-esteem (r = .07, p = .14). These results

Arguing to Display Identity 411

123

(except for self-esteem) show that people who see the identity promotion

possibilities in arguments were self-oriented (they were narcissistic and felt

entitled). Associations with the other’s face concerns were direct: for other’s

positive face, r = .18, p\ .001; for other’s negative face, r = .15, p\ .01. This

means that the people who made most use of the identity frame were also those who

were most attentive to promoting the other person’s positive social identity and to

protecting the other person from feeling imposed upon.

In short, results indicated that identity arguers’ commitments to self did not

require sacrifice of commitment to the other person as well. H5 was supported, with

the exception of the self-esteem result.

5 Discussion

Arguing, providing reasons in support of claims, can be done for a variety of

purposes: to obtain some benefit, to engage in playful verbal activity, to solve some

intellectual problem, to enrage another person, to vent one’s feelings, or to practice

self-presentation. This has been the first focused investigation of that last possibility,

arguing to display identity.

Respondents here seemed to have no difficulty remembering an episode in which

they did this. Their open-ended summaries of those episodes revealed that the

conversations were quiet, unemotional, and peaceful. They were polite and not

especially conflictive, and did not even require the presence of any controversy. The

interactions were not characterized by any particular felt emotions; nor were any

particular emotional reactions from the conversational partner noticed. Promoting

own identity and enjoying self-expression were important goals in these episodes,

but utilitarian and other goals were important as well. Like other sorts of

interpersonal communication (Caughlin 2010), identity arguing was done in pursuit

of multiple goals, not necessarily one at a time. People simply created or found a

place for identity construction in the midst of a fairly ordinary sort of encounter. The

theoretically distinctive thing about the phenomenon studied here is that the identity

work was done by means of reasons, with some element of own identity constituting

the conclusion of the arguments and various reasonings, declarations, or disclosures

serving as the support. These findings supplement Goffman’s (1959, 1974)

observation that people seek out appropriate scenes or use props to facilitate

presentation of self. Identity arguing can be done at any time that a person can find a

conversational crack to project roles and commitments into.

This study’s main findings have to do with the balance between self- and other-

orientation present during the episodes. Presenting (projecting, defending, defining)

one’s own identity is obviously a self-focused activity. This fact was reflected in the

positive correlations between the identity frame scores and a variety of other

measures: episode goals, other self-oriented frames, narcissism, entitlement,

attention to own face, and several indices of aggressiveness. Self-centeredness

was also apparent in the language of people’s descriptions of their arguments.

However, we project identities for social reasons, and so the identity arguers could

not have only been self-oriented if they expected to have social success. This

412 D. Hample, A. L. Irions

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general conclusion was supported by the associations between having an identity

frame and scores for the other-oriented frames and commitment to facework for the

other person.

Among the most common theoretical claims about argumentation is that it is

done in service of inquiry or persuasion, and thereby addresses the presence or

possibility of disagreement. A fundamental implication of the present study is that

argumentation theory needs a broad vision, one that encompasses argument

functions and goals beyond those of resolving controversy. Face-to-face arguing is

one of many sorts of interpersonal exchange, and it shares many of the possibilities

and affordances of those other communication practices.

One of this paper’s reviewers made an interesting point to the effect that frames

research may have implications for how arguments should be evaluated. Our

community standards (often acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency) were

developed in view of arguments intended to resolve controversy or settle

epistemological questions. But if an argument is intended to display identity, to

participate in an entertaining exchange, or to assert dominance, should we apply the

same assessment standards? On one hand, identity and dominance arguments have

conclusions (e.g., ‘‘I am a good student;’’ ‘‘I am your superior in every way’’) and

these need a defensible illative core in the same way that a utility argument does (cf.

Johnson 2000). However, an identity argument’s evaluation should surely involve

standards about what identities ought to be projected (e.g., ‘‘I am ruthless’’) and

what the social implications of those identities might be. Similarly a playful

argument should be assessed for the enjoyment it produces, and a dominance

argument for its forcefulness. It strikes us that these social matters (identity,

enjoyment, etc.) should probably be carefully segregated from illative and

dialectical considerations (Johnson 2000), but it also appears to us that these may

be important considerations in evaluating the pragmatics of interpersonal arguing.

The main limitations of the study have to do with the design decisions that have

been made throughout the research program. The list of frames is an inductive

summary of what U.S. undergraduate respondents told us were their experiences and

understandings of arguing. While it has always been possible that other frames exist

but simply were not expressed to us, recent application of frames measures in

various nations to both undergraduate and adult samples is encouraging (e.g.,

Hample and Anagondahalli 2015; Xie et al. 2014). The frames on the present list

perform in theoretically sensible ways in those other studies, suggesting that the

frames that originated with U.S. undergraduates resonate with people of other ages

and nationalities.

The present sample, however, is composed primarily of people in late

adolescence. Evidence from developmental psychology (e.g., Arentt 2000; Berman

et al. 2001; Luyckx et al. 2008; Marcia 1966; McLean 2005) suggests that late

adolescence is a period when individuals particularly explore their social identities:

which identities they want to project to others, which identities they want to avoid

projecting, and how important their identities are. Displaying identity might be

particularly important to our participants because they live in the turbulence of

choosing, inspecting, retaining, and discarding many social identities. Fewer reports

of arguing for identity might have been given by a sample with a different age

Arguing to Display Identity 413

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composition. Possibly older adults in continuing family, social, and occupational

circumstances would be less engaged in displaying their identities because those

identities would be more stable and better known to those around them. Using

undergraduates as respondents seemed to be a good design decision because we

expected identity work to be very salient to them, but it remains possible that such

work would be different in detail for samples that did less identity work.

Nonetheless, we would be surprised to find substantially different self/other

balances in other samples because identity arguments inherently require self-focus

to gather the identity materials and other-focus to deliver them effectively. Nor

would we expect much difference in the goals people pursue during the moments in

which they use arguing to display their commitments and interests.

This paper’s findings contribute to the growing body of empirical literature

regarding arguing frames. Evidence is beginning to cumulate from different

countries and different age ranges. Several of the frames have been the topic of

specialized inquiries, and so have been associated with measures that are rarely held

up against argumentation behaviors and orientations (e.g., narcissism). Other

variables (e.g., argumentativeness) have often been calibrated against frames, so

that secure empirical conclusions are now available. It may be time to re-initiate

basic thinking about arguing frames. Bottom-up theorizing should be dominated by

the empirical record. Top-down thinking should be energized by more general

theoretical concerns from both interpersonal scholarship (e.g., Goffman 1974) and

the argumentation literature (e.g., Walton 1998).

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