Arguing and Persuading

Introduction

A number of cognitivists have claimed that it is somehow illegitimate for those people who do not accept that cognitions are the only cause of human behavior to enter into debate on the issue. Their argument appears to be that it is not possible to develop an argument without making use of the sort of cognition described by Bandura [Bandura (1995) Comments on the crusade against the causal efficacy of human thought, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 26, 179-190] and others, nor is it possible to influence other people without attempting to change their cognitive model ...