Argumentativeness, Religious Orientation, and Reactions to Argument Situations Involving Religious versus Nonreligious Issues

Based on the interactionist perspective of argumentative communication, this study examined college students' reactions to two separate argument situations varying as to whether or not the argument issue conveyed religious connotations. Situation was coupled with four types of religious orientation and three levels of argumentativeness to create a three-way interaction model. Dependent variables were willingness to argue, value expectancy, and affective response associated with the argument situation. Results indicated a two-way interaction between argumentativeness and religious orientation on willingness to argue, argumentativeness main effects on willingness to argue and value expectancy, and religious orientation main effects on all three dependent variables. A main effect for argument issue occurred only for affective response. Implications of these findings for the interactionist perspective to argumentativeness are discussed.