Maynard1996

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Maynard1996
BibType ARTICLE
Key Maynard1996
Author(s) Douglas W. Maynard
Title On "realization" in everyday life: The forecasting of bad news as a social relation
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Narratives, Medical EMCA, News, Forecasting
Publisher
Year 1996
Language
City
Month
Journal American Sociological Review
Volume 61
Number
Pages 109-131
URL Link
DOI
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Forecasting is a strategy for delivering bad news and is compared to two other strategies, stalling and being blunt. Forecasting provides some warn- ing that bad news is forthcoming without keeping the recipient in a state of indefinite suspense (stalling) or conveying the news abruptly (being blunt). Forecasting appears to be more effective than stalling or being blunt in help- ing a recipient to "realize" the bad news because it involves the deliverer and recipient in a particular social relation: The deliverer of bad news ini- tiates the telling by giving an advance indication of the bad news to come; this allows the recipient to calculate the news in advance of its final presen- tation, when the deliverer confirms what the recipient has been led to antici- pate. Thus, realization of bad news emerges from intimate collaboration, whereas stalling and being blunt require recipients to apprehend the news in a social vacuum. Exacerbating disruption to recipients' everyday world, stalling and being blunt increase the probability of misapprehension (deny- ing, blaming, taking the situation as a joke, etc.) and thereby inhibit rather than facilitate realization. Realization and lack thereof are features of social psychology; social practices and interactional organization are implicated in individual cognition. My data include more than 100 narratives about the delivery and receipt of bad news.

Notes