Grey Behaviors after Logical Fallacies in Public and Professional Communication

Homayoon Kord, George C. Thornton III

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000425451
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Business

This practical guide enables readers to recognize, assess, and defend against gray behaviors—attempts to persuade listeners using fallacious arguments. It provides valuable tools for communicating successfully in a wide variety of public and professional contexts.

The book examines 20 wide-ranging logical fallacies, cognitive errors, and rhetorical devices that may take place in persuasive communication, and discusses how to assess and respond the behavior of a speaker who may be disingenuously attempting to manipulate the listener—or who may simply be mistaken. Drawing upon research and insights from communication, psychology, business management, and human resources, it considers fallacies in reasoning not just as abstract formulas, but as a feature of communication encounters such as negotiations, interviews, public debates, and personal conversations. Each form of fallacious reasoning is exemplified by dialogues in both professional settings (such as interviewing and personnel assessment), as well as everyday interactions in public discourse. The book then provides self-assessment tests to ensure the reader can evaluate the grey behavior in these encounters.

This book provides research-based skills and insights that will benefit students and professionals in fields ranging from communication, politics, management, human resources, organizational psychology, journalism, and anyone else looking to develop critical interaction skills.

1 Introduction

In this chapter,

• We describe the purposes of the book.
• We give background on the role of logic in persuasion.
• We help you identify types of logical fallacies.
• We show the advantages of having preventive knowledge regarding fallacious thinking.
• We show the advantages of behavioral analyses of fallacious thinking.
• We show you how to assess the level of severity of grey behaviors after a person states a logical fallacy.

We caution you that

• Communication and discussion are complex processes.
• Some logical fallacies are difficult to understand.
• Any short book cannot de-bias faulty thinkers.

Caution!

Communication is complex. Short dialogues may not change the speaker, listener, or reader.

Introduction

Why should you read Grey Behaviors after Logical Fallacies in Public and Professional Communication?

You will learn to:

• recognize 20 fallacies commonly used in spoken and written communication,
• reserve judgment about the seriousness of fallacious thinking by the speaker,
• enter into a dialogue to help the speaker correct fallacies, and
• make a behavioral assessment of the speaker’s level of fallacious thinking.

You will learn about types of logical fallacies: relevance fallacies, induction fallacies, formal fallacies, and fallacies of language. These fallacies include some that you have probably been warned about since you were young, for example, “Two wrongs don’t make a right!” They also include more complex formal fallacies such as undistributed middle.

Grey Behaviors after Logical Fallacies in Public and Professional Communication analyzes behaviors occurring in dialogues between two fictional characters named Pat and Chris. Pat makes a claim which contains fallacious arguments. Chris gives feedback and tries to correct Pat’s reasoning. Pat’s reactions range from quick understanding and correction of the fallacy (light grey behavior) to failure to understand and then to compound multiple fallacies (dark grey behaviors). For each of 20 fallacies, we define the fallacy, give two examples, present four dialogues involving a third example, each followed by analysis of the degree of grey behavior expressed by Pat. Periodically, SELF-ASSESSMENTS are interspersed among the 20 fallacies to provide you chances to check your understanding.

Rhetorical devices, social influence techniques, and attributional biases are also described as other types of potentially misleading tactics. Along with logical fallacies, all these types of misleading tactics can interfere with effective communication. Studying this book will vaccinate you against the virus of misleading speech of others (identify, understand, and prevent fallacies).

Grey Behavior

Grey behavior is the reaction of the speaker to a listener’s feedback. It starts with committing a fallacy, getting feedback from a listener, and then reacting. Four levels of grey behavior are introduced in this book, including Quick Correction, Being Convinced, Recurrence of the Fallacy, and Compounding of Fallacies.

Grey behavior is a way a person might distract or mislead you, so as to convince you to their way of thinking in an argument. Grey behavior is different from behaviors such as aggression. Aggression is the intentional infliction of harm on others (Branscombe & Baron, 2017), while grey behavior, as used in this book, is an effort to mislead others to convince them. The goal of aggression is to harm while the goal of grey behaviors is persuasion. Grey behavior starts with a bad argument called a fallacy. It may continue in reaction to the listener’s feedback.

The speaker’s behaviors in dialogues with others are analyzed in this book. Although a speaker may initially commit a fallacy, his or her subsequent behaviors after receiving feedback may be quite different. Four different patterns of behavior after receiving feedback include quickly correcting one’s behavior, being convinced after additional feedback, repeating the fallacy, and even compounding subsequent fallacious behaviors.

Theoretical and Historical Background

There is a long history of the study of persuasion by philosophers, psychologists, and experts in decision-making and communication. According to Aristotle (2015) there are three modes of persuasion. First, we can be persuaded by a speaker’s personal attributes, including such things as his or her background, reputation, accomplishments, or expertise. Aristotle referred to this mode of persuasion as ethos. Second, a speaker can persuade us by connecting with us on a personal level, or by arousing and appealing to our emotions by skillful use of rhetoric. This mode of persuasion Aristotle termed pathos. (Rhetoric is discussed more fully in Chapter 5. It may be a legitimate form of effective communication or, as used more recently, a manipulative diversion.) And third, the speaker may persuade us by using information and arguments including appeal to logic, reason, and facts, what he called logos (Moore & Parker, 2017). Box 1.1 provides a concise summary of Aristotle’s analysis of persuasion.

Box 1.1 Aristotle’s Modes of Persuasion.

Argument

In the classic usage, argument is not a pejorative term, as it is often used nowadays. Argument is simply an attempt to convince someone (possibly yourself) that a particular claim, called the conclusion, is true (Epstein, 2006, p. 5). We all do this every day. An argument consists of two parts: One part gives a reason for accepting the second part (Moore & Parker, 2017, p. 7). This process is the basis for sound reasoning.

Reasoning occurs whenever the mind draws conclusions on the basis of reasons. We draw conclusions whenever we make sense of things. Usually we are not aware of the full scope of reasoning in our lives. We begin to reason from the moment we wake up in the morning. We reason when we figure out what to eat for breakfast, what to wear, whether to stop at the store on the way to school, whether to go with this or that friend to lunch. We reason as we interpret the oncoming flow of traffic, when we react to the decisions of other drivers, when we speed up or slow down. We reason when we figure out solutions to problems. We reason when we formulate problems. We reason when we argue.

(Paul & Elder, 2014, pp. 85–86)

Aristotle’s articulation of the importance of reasoning provided the foundation for much Western philosophy. In addition, reasoning is one of the common elements of classical philosophy of not only ancient Greece, but also India and China (Baggini, 2018). In How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy, Baggini explains that many philosophies throughout the world are based on the assumption that accurate logic is how to understand how the world works. He defines logic as the “systematic working through of the system of true statements (p. 54).” In the universe of situations, speakers try to convince others by reasoning with sound arguments. Listeners are supposed to be convinced by the speakers’ arguments. As a listener you should avoid being misled by bad argument called Fallacy.

What Is Logical Fallacy (Bad Argument)?

There is a two‐step process to the analysis, critique, and evaluation of an argument:

• Step 1: Make sure the conclusion follows from the premise(s).
• Step 2: Make sure all of the premises in the argument are true.

If either one of these conditions is absent, then the argument is bad and should be rejected. A fallacy has occurred when one thinks a conclusion follows from a premise when in fact it does not (Arp, Barbone, & Bruce, 2019, p. 28).

A logical fallacy is an argument that appears to be correct at first glance but is found to be incorrect in further examination. In a bad argument the premise doesn’t support the contention.

Here is an example of a fallacy:

Parent: There is strong evidence of a link between smoking and chronic obstructive lung disease. Smoking is also associated with many other serious disorders. Smoking is unhealthy. So you should not smoke.

Child: But you smoke yourself. So much for your argument against smoking.

Analysis: The Child committed the Ad Hominem fallacy by attacking the parent, but not by presenting any reason r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Grey Behaviors after Relevance Fallacies 1–9
• 3 Grey Behaviors after Induction Fallacies 10–17
• 4 Grey Behaviors after Formal Fallacies and Fallacies of Language 18–20
• 5 Other Examples of Potentially Misleading Tactics That May Be Followed by Grey Behavior
• 6 Conclusions and Applications
• References
• Appendix I: Answers to Quizzes in Self-Assessments
• Index