In this project, we study how people distinguish well-justified from poorly justified arguments in everyday discourse. This work involves developing and validating ways to assess argument discrimination skills, and exploring their dimensionality, i.e., different subskills that make up argument literacy. Informed by dual-process theories of thinking and reasoning, we examine the extent to which argument evaluation skills involve effortful processing. To situate argument evaluation skills in higher cognition, we also examine correlates, predictors, and consequences of these skills. This research has received funding from the Ella and Georg Ernrooth foundation.
In her thesis project, Pinja Marin explores the roles of motivational and cognitive factors in predicting thinking outcomes including argument evaluation and views on religion. This project has received funding from the Emil Aaltonen foundation.
In his thesis project, Tuukka Heikkinen investigates the role of emotions in argument evaluation.