Rogerian Argument
Introduction
The Rogerian argument, inspired by the influential psychologist Carl Rogers, aims to find compromise on a controversial issue.
If you are using the Rogerian approach your introduction to the argument should accomplish three objectives:
- Introduce the author and work. Usually, you will introduce the author and work in the first sentence, as in this example:In Dwight Okita’s “In Response to Executive Order 9066,” the narrator addresses an inevitable by-product of war – racism.The first time you refer to the author, refer to him or her by his or her full name. After that, refer to the author by last name only. Never refer to an author by his or her first name only.
- Provide the audience a short but concise summary of the work to which you are responding. Remember, your audience has already read the work you are responding to. Therefore, you do not need to provide a lengthy summary. Focus on the main points of the work to which you are responding and use direct quotations sparingly. Direct quotations work best when they are powerful and compelling.
- State the main issue addressed in the work, Your thesis, or claim, will come after you summarize the two sides of the issue.
Rogerian Argument
In 1951, the psychologist Carl Rogers gave a talk at the Centennial Conference on Communications at Northwestern University that changed the way we think about argument. Psychology at that time was dominated by psychologists like B.F. Skinner, who were learning to scientifically condition thoughts and feelings in the same way that Pavlov had conditioned his dogs to salivate at the sound of their dinner bell a half-century before.
Rogers, on the other hand, was a humanist. He believed that human speech and human cognition were interrelated and that the success or failure of one was related to the success or failure of the other. In “Communication: Its Blocking and Its Facilitation”, he put forward as the cornerstone of his practice the belief that “the whole task of psychotherapy is the task of dealing with a failure in communication” (330).
According to Rogers, the principle difficulty preventing people from settling their differences, indeed from communicating effectively in an everyday sense, was that people couldn’t stop evaluating one another. The more important a topic was to them, the more emotional the participants in a discussion became, and the more they were apt to judge what the other person was saying rather than giving it the best hearing they could. In short, Rogers noticed that when people argue, they tend to make judgments about their opponents’ positions before they really understand them.
Rogers’s goal, then, was to avoid this tendency to constantly evaluate and instead to “listen with understanding”. By this, he meant that people should not only try to understand that someone holds a particular viewpoint but also try to get a sense of what it’s like to believe that. “What does that mean? It means to see the expressed idea and attitude from the other person’s point of view, to sense how it feels to him, to achieve his frame of reference in regard to the thing he is talking about” (Rogers 331-32). Rogers himself acknowledged barriers to this kind of understanding. First and foremost, you have to be willing to try it, and not many people are. Rogers’s approach seems like you’re giving ground to your opponents and, what’s worse, sometimes you actually are. “In the first place, it takes courage […] you run the risk of being changed yourself” (Rogers 333).
It is important to note, though, that this sort of Rogerian understanding is also itself an argumentative tactic. First, people will almost always refuse to consider something if they feel threatened by it, and Rogerian understanding reduces the threat to the opposition. Second, people reciprocate; they tend to treat others as they are treated by them.
Despite the initial difficulties, then, each new understanding of the opponent’s view makes the next easier, while at the same time inviting, even obligating, the opponent to strive for a like understanding. “This procedure can deal with the insincerities, the defensive exaggerations, the lies, the ‘false fronts’ which characterize almost every failure in communication. These defensive distortions drop away with astonishing speed as people find that the only intent is to understand, not judge” (Rogers 336).
This Rogerian process started to make its way into textbooks in 1970. Richard E. Young, Alton L. Becker, and Kenneth L. Pike’s introduction of Rogerian psychology in their book Rhetoric: Discovery and Change seeks to simplify some of Rogers’s terminology and begin to present the process as a set of rhetorical objectives: “The writer who uses the Rogerian strategy attempts to do three things:
- to convey to the reader that he is understood
- to delineate the area within which he believes the reader’s position to be valid
- to induce him to believe that he and the writer share certain moral qualities (275)
Put like this, in such a simple and reductive way, the process of attaining and expressing Rogerian understanding seems almost easy.
It is important to note that these are not developmental steps intended as heuristics, that indeed there are no sequential stages to a Rogerian argument. They are instead objectives to be pursued independently and recursively with the probably effect of facilitating communication. As Young, Becker, and Pike write, “Rogerian argument has no conventional structure; in fact, users of the strategy deliberately avoid conventional persuasive structures and techniques because these devices tend to produce a sense of threat”. This is not to say the argument has no structure, but rather that “the structure is more directly the product of a particular writer, a particular topic, and a particular audience” (275). The danger of argumentative form becoming an exclusionary force, silencing rather than evoking discussion, is therefore greatly reduced.
At this point, then, you may be wondering what Rogerian argument might actually look like in terms of an essay for a composition class. An essay modeled on Rogers’s approach should include a few particular parts:
- a discussion of the problem from both points of view that uses value-neutral language
- a discussion of the writer’s opponent’s point of view and a selection of facts or assertions the writer might be willing to concede to his opponent
- a discussion of the writer’s point of view and a selection of facts or assertions the writer’s opponent might be able to accept about his point of view
- a thesis that establishes a compromise between these two points of view and represents concessions from both the writer and his opponent
Analyzing Pertinent Conventions
Below are some of the strategies that you can use to negotiate consensus between opposing parties. As usual, you should not consider the following to be a rigid formula. Instead, pick and choose from these strategies in light of your audience, purpose, and intended voice.
Present the Problem
In the introduction, identify the issue and clarify its significance. Because you need to adopt a nonthreatening persona throughout your essay, however, avoid dogmatically presenting your view as the best or only way to solve the problem. Unlike your strategy for shaping a conventional persuasive text, at this point in your discussion you will not want to lay your cards on the table and summarize your presentation. Instead, explain the scope and complexity of the issue. You might want to mention the various approaches that people have taken to solve the problem and perhaps even suggest that the issue is so complicated that the best you and your readers can hope for is consensus – or agreement on some aspect of the matter.
In your introduction and throughout your essay, you will want to explain the problem in ways that will make your audience say, “Yes, this author understands my position”. Because the people whom you are writing for may feel stress when you confront them with an emotionally charged issue and may already have made up their minds firmly on the subject, you should try to interest such reluctant readers by suggesting that you have an innovative way of viewing the problem. Of course, this tactic is effective only when you can indeed follow through and be as original as possible in your treatment of the subject. Otherwise, your readers may reject your ideas because they recognize that you have misrepresented yourself.
Challenge Yourself to Risk Change
Rather than masking your thoughts behind an “objective persona”, the Rogerian approach allows you to express your true feelings. However, if you are to meet the ideals of Rogerian communication, you need to challenge your own beliefs; you must be so open-minded that you truly entertain the possibility that your ideas are wrong, or at least not absolutely right. According to Rogers, you must “run the risk of being changed yourself. You … might find yourself influenced in your attitudes or your personality”.
Elaborate on the Value of Opposing Positions
In this part of your argument you will want to elaborate on which of your opponent’s claims about the problem are correct. For example, if your roommate’s messiness is driving you crazy but you still want to live with him or her, stress that cleanliness is not the be-all-and-end-all of human life. Commend your roommate for helping you focus on your studies and express appreciation for all of the times that he or she has pitched in to clean up. And, of course, you would also want to admit to a few annoying habits of your own, such as taking thirty-minute showers or talking on your cell phone late at night while your roommate is trying to sleep! After viewing the problem from your roommate’s perspective, you might even be willing to explore how your problem with compulsive neatness is itself a problem.
Show Instances When Your Assertions Are Valid
Once you have identified the problem in as nonthreatening a way as possible, established a fair-minded persona, and called for some level of consensus based on a “higher” interest, you have reached the most important stage in Rogerian negotiation: you can now present your position. At this point in your argument, you do not want to slap down a “But!” or “However!” and then come out of your corner punching. Remember the spirit of Rogerian problem solving: your ultimate goal is not to beat your audience, but to communicate with them and to promote a workable compromise. For example, in the sample argument with your roommate, rather than issuing an ultimatum such as “Unless you start picking up after yourself and doing your fair share of the housework, I’m moving out”, you could say, “I realize that you view housekeeping as a less important activity than I do, but I need to let you know that I find your messiness to be highly stressful, and I’m wondering what kind of compromise we can make so we can continue living together”. Yes, this statement carries an implied threat, but note how this sentence is framed positively and minimizes the emotional intensity inherent in the situation.
To achieve the nonthreatening tone needed to diffuse emotional situations, avoid exaggerating your claims or using biased, emotional language. Also, avoid attacking your audience’s claims as exaggerated. Whenever you feel angry or defensive, take a deep breath and look for points in which you can agree with or understand your opponents. When you are really emotional about an issue, try to cool off enough to recognize where your language is loaded with explosive terms. To embrace the Rogerian approach, remember that you need to defuse your temper and set your pride and ego aside.
Present Your Claim in a Nonthreatening Way
Admittedly, it is difficult to substantiate an argument while acknowledging the value of competing positions. Yet if you have done an effective job in the early part of your essay, then your audience perceives you to be a reasonable person – someone worth listening to. Consequently, you should not sell yourself short when presenting your position.
Because of the emotionally charged context of your communication situation, you still need to maintain the same open-minded persona that you established in the introductory paragraphs. Although your main focus in this section is to develop the validity of your claim, you can maintain your fair-minded persona by recalling significant counterarguments and by elaborating on a few limitations of your claim. You can also remind your readers that you are not expecting them to accept your claim completely. Instead, you are merely attempting to show that under certain circumstances your position is valid.
Examples
The Rogerian method of problem solving is designed for exploring controversial interpersonal, social, and political problems. You can use these techniques to help you begin or end a personal relationship or to help you effectively communicate with your professors, etc. Knowledge of the Rogerian method can help you deal with instances of sexual discrimination in the workplace or help you encourage insecure authorities to take the action that you want. You could use Rogerian approaches to encourage your classmates and other students at your school to be more sympathetic about social problems such as poverty and ecological issues. To select a subject for a Rogerian analysis, try reviewing your journal and free-write about significant interpersonal problems you have dealt with in your life. Below are a few questions that may help you identify a subject:
- Do I want to write about an interpersonal issue? For example, am I having trouble communicating with someone? Could the breakdown be linked to my failure to employ Rogerian strategies? Are there any major differences in belief that I could bridge by communicating with him or her in a Rogerian way?
- Do I want to write about a social or political problem? Are there any on-campus or work-related problems that I wish to explore? For example, am I worried about an important national issue such as the federal deficit? Or could I promote harmony in a local or campus conflict?
- Are there any sports-related topics that I could tackle? For example, do I want to convince skiers that short skis have carved up the mountain in an ugly way? Do I want to persuade tennis players that we need to throw away the wide-body power rackets and go back to the days of wooden rackets because power tennis is killing finesse tennis?
- Consider playing the role of a marketing executive. Find a new product that you believe is superior to an established product and then write some advertising copy that explains why people should shirt their loyalty to the new product.
Summary
Based on the work of psychologist Carl Rogers, a Rogerian argument focuses on finding a middle ground between the author and the audience. This type of argument can be extremely persuasive and can help you, as a writer, understand your own biases and how you might work to find common ground with others.
Below is a summary of the basic strategy for a Rogerian argument:
- In your essay, first, introduce the problem.
- Acknowledge the other side before you present your side of the issue. This may take several paragraphs.
- Next, you should carefully present your side of the issue in a way that does not dismiss the other side. This may also take several paragraphs.
- You should then work to bring the two sides together. Help your audience see the benefits of the middle ground. Make your proposal for the middle ground here, and be sure to use an even, respectful tone. This should be a key focus of your essay and may take several paragraphs.
- Finally, in your conclusion, remind your audience of the balanced perspective you have presented and make it clear how both sides benefit when they meet in the middle.
“Rogerian Argument.” By Excelsior Online Writing Lab. Retrieved from: https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/organizing-your-argument/organizing-your-argument-rogerian/Licensed under: CC-BY. Adapted by The American Women’s College.
“Rogerian Argument.” By Lumen Learning. Retrieved from: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/englishcomp2kscopexmaster/chapter/rogerian-argument/ Licensed under: CC-BY-NC-SA. Adapted by the American Women’s College.
“Writing Commons: Joseph M. Moxley’s “Rogerian Argument.” By Saylor Academy. Retrieved from: https://learn.saylor.org/mod/page/view.php?id=7188 Licensed under: CC-BY
