Maynard1996
| 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 |
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| Tag(s) | EMCA, Narratives, Medical EMCA, News, Forecasting |
| Publisher | |
| Year | 1996 |
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| Journal | American Sociological Review |
| Volume | 61 |
| Number | |
| Pages | 109-131 |
| URL | Link |
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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.
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