218. Playing Devil's Advocate
Channel: THUNK
Date: 2021-12-22

Research suggests that authentic dissent frequently leads a group to better decisions than a contrarian simply playing “Devil’s Advocate.” The question is: why should it matter if someone really disagrees, or is just faking it?

- Links for the Curious - 

Devil's advocate versus authentic dissent: stimulating
quantity and quality (Nemeth et al, 2001) - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Charlan_Nemeth/publication/229780153_Devil%27s_advocate_versus_authentic_dissent_Stimulating_quantity_and_quality/links/5eb96dd74585152169c6287e/Devils-advocate-versus-authentic-dissent-Stimulating-quantity-and-quality.pdf

Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory (Mercier & Sperber, 2011) - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21447233/

The Influence of Social Interaction on Intuitions of Objectivity and Subjectivity (Fisher et al, 2016) - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cogs.12380?identityKey=5df892a1-56cf-4803-9900-62e46db16887&regionCode=US-NY&wol1URL=%2Fdoi%2F10.1111%2Fcogs.12380%2Ffull 

Minority Influence Theory (Nemeth, 2009) - https://escholarship.org/content/qt1pz676t7/qt1pz676t7.pdf 

In-Class Debates: Fertile Ground for Active Learning and the
Cultivation of Critical Thinking and Oral Communication Skills (Kennedy, 2007) - https://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/pdf/IJTLHE19(2).pdf#page=83

Dissoi Logoi (Robinson, 1979) - https://web.archive.org/web/20100714195741/http://www2.comm.niu.edu/faculty/kwhedbee/dissoilogoi.pdf 

Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers (Hong & Page, 2004) - https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/scottepage/wp-content/uploads/sites/344/2015/11/pnas.pdf

Why do men want to play devil's advocate? An investigation - https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/devils-advocate

Opinion | The Dying Art of Disagreement - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/24/opinion/dying-art-of-disagreement.html

The Social Epistemology of Argument – Problems in Argument Analysis and Evaluation - https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/wsia062018/chapter/13/

Updating on the Credences of Others:
Disagreement, Agreement, and Synergy (Easwaran et al, 2015) - http://joelvelasco.net/Papers/synergy_preprint.pdf 

Detecting true and false opinions: The Devil's Advocate approach as a lie detection aid (Leal et al, 2010) - https://pure.port.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/128505/Devils_advocate.pdf

Effects of the Expert, Devil’s Advocate, & Dialectical Inquiry Methods on Prediction Performance (Schwenk et al, 1980) - https://core.ac.uk/reader/4835430 

Deviance and Dissent in Groups (Jessen, 2013) - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jolanda-Jetten/publication/237095760_Deviance_and_Dissent_in_Groups/links/53eaa90d0cf2dc24b3ce6f01/Deviance-and-Dissent-in-Groups.pdf

Group Creativity (see chapter by Nemeth) - https://www.google.com/books/edition/Group_Creativity/9QE2fXW_ce0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA63&printsec=frontcover 

64. The Argumentative Theory of Human Reason - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cduyyif7BVY

135. Aumann's Agreement Theorem & Arguing to Learn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR5Bp7oCidI