Do You Love a Good Argument?
Arguing about ideas, avoiding arguments, and the line where debate turns into attack
Communication researchers made a distinction that most people blur: attacking a position is not the same as attacking a person. Someone who loves to argue about ideas can be a generous, fair opponent, while someone who hates arguments can still reach for a cutting remark when cornered. This test measures how much you are drawn to arguments, how much you avoid them, and how often a disagreement becomes personal.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Think about disagreements on things you care about - at work, with friends, at the dinner table - not about arguing with strangers online.
What it measures
The two halves of the original argumentativeness scale - the pull towards arguing about controversial issues and the urge to avoid it - plus verbal aggressiveness, a separate trait measured by a companion scale: the tendency to attack someone's character or intelligence instead of their point. It differs from conflict style, which is about how you handle a conflict once it exists; this is about your appetite for debate and where you aim.
Based on: Argumentativeness Scale (Infante & Rancer, 1982) and Verbal Aggressiveness Scale (Infante & Wigley, 1986)
Possible results
Drawn to arguments
How much you enjoy defending a position against someone who disagrees.
Avoiding arguments
How uneasy you feel when a disagreement is about to start.
Verbal aggressiveness
How often a disagreement turns into an attack on the person.
Common questions
Is being argumentative a bad thing?
Not in the research sense. Argumentativeness here means enjoying debate about positions, and it is treated as a constructive communication trait, separate from hostility or aggressiveness. What damages relationships is verbal aggressiveness - attacking the person. In everyday speech both get called argumentative, which is exactly the confusion this test separates.
Why do people turn arguments personal?
One explanation from this research is an argumentative skill deficit: when people cannot find a good argument for their position, they reach for an attack on the person instead. Anger, stress and having seen it modelled at home also play a part. The encouraging implication is that learning to argue well tends to reduce personal attacks rather than increase them.
Can I become more comfortable with disagreement?
Yes. Avoidance usually shrinks with practice in low-stakes settings and with a few habits: stating the other view fairly before disagreeing, separating the idea from the person out loud, and remembering that a disagreement handled well tends to increase respect rather than reduce it. The discomfort rarely disappears completely, and it does not need to.
Sources
- Infante, D. A., & Rancer, A. S. (1982). A conceptualization and measure of argumentativeness. Journal of Personality Assessment. doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa4601_13
- Infante, D. A., & Wigley, C. J. (1986). Verbal aggressiveness: An interpersonal model and measure. Communication Monographs. doi:10.1080/03637758609376126
An honest note The items are Quinthea's own wording adapted from the Argumentativeness Scale and the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale, so scores are not comparable with their published norms. The first two bars come from the first scale, the third from the second. Self-reports of verbal aggressiveness likely understate it, since few people like to see themselves as attacking others, and most of the original research used American college students, while norms about open disagreement vary a lot between cultures and families.