Empirical evidence for the non-persuasiveness of the straw man on its target

This paper addresses the degree to which straw man arguments are perceived as persuasive by their targets. A review of the literature shows that there is a consensus on the topic, stipulating that using a straw man argument is unlikely to change a person’s views. However, the experimental evidence we have so far on the straw man fallacy only covers third-person scenarios, i.e., when participants act as an audience observing an argumentative exchange between others. This study fills this gap by discussing the second-person straw man, i.e., when the audience for the argument is the target of the straw man representation. It shows that (1) the straw man is indeed not a persuasive tactic, and (2) the political orientation of the statements and the participants also plays a role.