The Consummation and the Aftermath
Behavioral Responses and Emotional Reactions
Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON, American poet
Imagine the following scenario. A store customer approaches a cashier and hands her an item she wishes to buy. The cashier enters the purchase into the computer, looks up, and says to the customer: “That will be seven sixty-five please.” As the cashier bags the merchandise, the customer counts out six dollars and seventy-five cents and places it on the counter. After counting the money, the cashier looks back at the customer, smiles, and says, “That was seven sixty-five.” “Oh, I’m sorry,” explains the blushing customer as she hurriedly hands over another two dollars, “I thought you said six seventy-five.” The cashier takes the money, smiles, enters the appropriate numbers into the keyboard, retrieves a dollar and a dime from the register drawer, and hands the change to the customer. The customer takes the money and the receipt, realizes that she only needed to give the cashier one additional dollar, and blushes again. Looking down, she stuffs the money and receipt into her purse and makes a hasty retreat.
Although this misunderstanding causes no major problems and is not likely to be remembered by either party for very long, it nevertheless demonstrates the dynamic nature of the misunderstanding process. In addition to containing the essential elements of action, perception, and interpretation, which were discussed in earlier chapters, it also reveals both the form and function of the response, which is the final necessary step in the misunderstanding process.
The action that initiates this particular misunderstanding sequence is the cashier’s statement: “That will be seven sixty-five, please.” The customer misperceives the cashier’s words as “that will be six seventy-five, please,” and interprets what she has heard to mean “you owe six dollars and seventy-five cents.” As the cashier begins to bag the merchandise, she does not realize that the customer has misunderstood what she said. She discovers that only when the customer responds to her comment by giving her less than the amount of the purchase. Interactants become aware of misunderstandings only through the responses that have been generated by misperceptions and misinterpretations. Notice that it was only because the customer’s response was not properly coordinated with the cashier’s initial action that the cashier was alerted to the misunderstanding. If the customer had used a ten-dollar bill or credit card to pay, the misunderstanding never would have come to light. No doubt, many misunderstandings occur in daily life without anyone ever knowing. Most misunderstandings become known and shared experiences only through miscoordinated responses. Such responses, which are out of synch with the original action, serve as vital hints to actors that their actions have been misunderstood.
Misperceptions and misinterpretations often lead to miscoordinated actions that create awkward moments or occasionally outright conflict. Ironically, however, awkwardness and conflict are sometimes avoided precisely because of misunderstandings. For example, a slightly veiled insult that is not perceived as an insult will have little or no influence on the flow of interaction. Actor Jim Nabors is famous for his television portrayal of Gomer Pyle, a good-hearted but simple-minded U.S. Marine private who blissfully endured the insults of Sergeant Carter because he failed to understand that they were intended as insults. In fact, it was a persistent source of consternation for Carter that his barbs were incapable of intimidating the oblivious Pyle or disrupting his course of action.
Insults, slights, snubs, or other expressions of negative feelings will not disrupt interaction unless and until they are understood as disparaging. However, other kinds of misunderstandings—especially those involving factual information—can have immediate negative consequences. I recently had a driving experience that illustrates this point. Before turning onto a busy street from a place where I could not see in both directions, I asked the person sitting in the passenger seat, “How does it look over there? Can I go?” Unfortunately, although she said, “No!” I heard it as “Go!” My response was nearly catastrophic as we were barely able to avoid a collision with an oncoming car.
Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Hazards of Miscoordinated Responses
Social interaction is one-half action and one-half reaction. Humans are constantly altering their behavior in order to coordinate it with the actions of others. Misunderstandings create interactional chaos by inducing responses that are not coordinated with the actions they follow. The first clear indication that a misunderstanding has occurred is found in the response of the person who has misunderstood. When actions appear inappropriate, our responses tend to be cautious as we attempt to collect additional information and figure out what is going on. When actions appear situationally appropriate, however, we tend to respond quickly, decisively, and without further interpretation. Thus, whether we are driving a car or carrying on a casual conversation, the more appropriate the actions of others appear, if we have misunderstood them, the more likely we are to respond in a way that seems appropriate to us but inappropriate to the other. Consider the following example.
At six feet four inches tall, Brian literally stands well above the conversation in many situations. He has an especially difficult time conversing with people in situations where there is lots of background noise. Rather than constantly asking people to repeat themselves or talk louder, he has learned to read the body language of speakers and other listeners in order to respond in ways that seem appropriate. Although this strategy usually works, it occasionally fails miserably, and he hears just well enough to get himself into trouble. This happened recently at a party he was attending. He was having a conversation with a couple who were telling a story about their teenage daughter, who had disappeared for several hours earlier that day. Just as they were about to start calling around for her, their seven-year-old son informed them that “she had gone to a mall with some friends.” As he listened to the story, Brian heard the word mall as ball, and laughingly responded with, “Yeah! Right! In the middle of the afternoon!” “Well,” said the mother, looking somewhat surprised, “they often do that on Saturday afternoon.” As Brian was trying to figure out whether ballroom dancing had become the latest craze among teenagers or whether this was just a strange family he was dealing with, something else was said that made him realize he must have misunderstood something. Once he realized that, he was able to quickly figure out what he should have heard.
What made this misunderstanding possible was that the comment “she had gone to a ball with some friends” made just enough sense to be misleading. If he had perceived the mother to have said “she had gone to a small with some friends,” a statement that makes no sense, Brian would have probably asked for clarification before responding. Instead, he incorrectly interpreted what he heard as an awkward lie told by a protective seven-year-old brother. Whenever misperceptions and misinterpretations make no sense to observers, their experience is one of nonunderstanding, and when things make no sense, interaction becomes virtually frozen while observers attempt to make sense of things. As we saw in Chapter 1, misunderstood actions always make sense, and precisely because of that, they often produce responses that don’t. Nevertheless, numerous studies of conversation reveal the amazing ability of humans to make sense of nonsense. This ability allows many conversations to continue for several turns before the interactants realize that they have been talking past each other. In fact, after relatively brief conversations, actors might never realize that they have completely misunderstood one another.
A study by Harold Garfinkel (1967) vividly illustrates the ability of people to make sense of nonsense. In an experiment conducted at UCLA, student subjects were told that research was being done on a new psychotherapy technique which involved subjects’ asking a counselor a series of questions that could be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.” Unbeknownst to subjects, the counselors’ answers were predetermined and thus completely random. Nevertheless, subjects were able to interpret the answers in such a way as to render them germane to their particular problems. After the counseling session subjects expressed the belief that the counselors had understood and helped them work through their problems.
Responding to the Outrageous: Strategies for Avoiding Miscoordinated Responses
Misunderstood comments or actions that are recognized as improper or out of place create a different kind of problem for observers, who must attempt to formulate appropriate responses to inappropriate acts. In some cases, however, actions appear inappropriate only because they have been misunderstood. Reactions based on misunderstandings, therefore, are likely to appear inappropriate to the original actor. As a result, interact-ants who are both acting and responding in ways that seem appropriate to them will appear inappropriate to each other. What a mess!
Inappropriate acts pose serious threats to social interaction. Thus, it is not surprising that humans have developed a variety of strategies for dealing with them. One of the most common strategies is to simply ignore perceived improprieties in the hope that they will not be repeated. Pretending that untoward acts never occurred is more common in some cultural and situational contexts than in others. For example, this practice is more common among adult peers than among childhood or adolescent peer groups. Young children are especially quick to criticize peers whose behavior they consider out of line. Comments such as “No, that’s wrong” or “That’s not how you do it” are common among children, who have not yet learned the subtleties of politeness. According to social psychologist John Kinch (1973), however, receiving such criticism from other children teaches the child the importance of seeing things from the perspective of the other and helps him or her learn valuable role-taking skills. Although it will never be easy to accept criticism, being criticized is a common, accepted, and valuable part of the childhood experience. As we mature into young adults and learn to behave consistently in ways others consider more or less appropriate, we are subjected to less and less overt criticism from older adults and from peers. As criticism from others becomes less common, however, we become more emotionally sensitive to it, if and when it does occur. Such increased sensitivity to criticism from others makes most of us more tolerant of others who make mistakes and less inclined to overtly criticize them, knowing all too well that the shoe often changes feet. Moreover, unlike young children, adults know that others do not necessarily share their perceptions of reality. This in turn leads to the realization that those who decline opportunities to challenge the untoward behavior of others not only reduce their own chances of being criticized, they also protect themselves from having their perceptions of reality challenged by anyone who might have a different view of things. There is a certain irony in all this, for by challenging perceived improprieties, children allow each other the chance to see that their actions have been misunderstood. By ignoring such behavior, however, adults who have been misunderstood are not afforded that opportunity by their more civilized peers.
An alternative to ignoring perceived improprieties, especially in talk, is to employ hedging actions. Hedging actions are intentionally ambiguous responses that are used when observers find it difficult to ignore untoward acts but do not want to directly confront actors. Actors sometimes make it impossible to ignore them, as when they explicitly ask for confirmation with such phrases as “Isn’t that right?” or “Don’t you agree?” Rather than answering directly, we might abruptly change the subject or use such noncommittal replies as, “Well, I don’t know,” or simply “ummm.” The problem with hedging responses is that because they do not explicitly confront or confirm the perceived untoward behavior, different actors will interpret them differently. The assertive actor is likely to take anything less than an outright rebuke as a confirmation, whereas the timid actor is likely to take anything less than an obvious confirmation as a rebuke. I have talked to numerous people who have been in otherwise pleasant situations in which someone made an uninvited and unappreciated racial or ethnic slur. These comments, usually directed at groups not represented in the immediate situation, are often made in such a way as to invite a response. This places observers in the uncomfortable position of having to confront someone who may have been quite congenial to everyone present, even though they have expressed attitudes that are not considered acceptable to those same listeners. It appears that in situations such as this, many people try to ignore the insulting comment or respond in a very noncommittal way, hoping that the speaker gets the hint. Because of their inherent ambiguity, however, hedged responses can easily lead to further misunderstandings, as when prejudiced individuals assume that anyone who does not openly disagree with them must surely agree.
There is less danger of the proliferation of misunderstandings when observers respond directly to the perceived impropriety. Responses such as “What did you say?” “What do you mean?” “Do you really believe that?” “Why do you say that?” “Why did you do that?” “I disagree!” or simply “No!” directly challenge the action, although some do it more aggressively than others. Direct challenges usually invite some form of explanation, justification, excuse, or apology from the actor. As mentioned above, the advantage of challenges is that they allow the actor to clear up any possible misunderstanding. The disadvantage, of course, is that they can lead to open conflict.
As much as we might want to avoid directly confronting people when they act inappropriately, it is sometimes necessary. Here is one of the many areas of social interaction where style is often more important than content. If we are too direct, we run the risk of offending the actor and creating conflict, but if we are too indirect, the actor may not take our hint and continue or repeat the offensive behavior. Knowledge of the other person is vital in choosing the right strategy, because some people are much more sensitive to criticism than others. No matter who we are dealing with, however, it is always important to make it clear that we are critiquing the action rather than the person. Qualifying phrases, such as “I know you would never do anything to intentionally hurt my feelings,” go a long way toward softening the blow of the challenges that follow them. Also remember the importance of timing, which was discussed in Chapter 2.
Validating Misunderstandings: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Whenever we misunderstand an action, our responses are essentially responses to something different from what was intended. When we hear a statement incorrectly, we hear something that was not said, something that exists only in our mind. As a result, responses that are rooted in misunderstandings are inherently misguided. No matter how unrealistic the understandings on which responses are based, however, the responses themselves are real and instantly become an important part of the ongoing social situation. One of the unfortunate results of misunderstandings is that they can set in motion a series of responses and actions that reinforce the misunderstanding. For example, if I misunderstand an innocent comment as an insult and respond with what I consider a counterinsult, that is likely to lead the original actor, who sees no justification for my insult, to retaliate. That retaliation, unfortunately, will reinforce my original misunderstanding.
The mechanism through which misunderstandings alter reality is what sociologist Robert Merton (1949) termed the self-fulfilling prophecy. The self-fulfilling prophecy is possible because, as a famous sociological axiom states, situations that are perceived as real are real in their consequences. That is, our responses to events are based on our subjective and often biased perceptions and interpretations of what is going on. When incorrect perceptions or interpretations lead to inappropriate responses, those responses nevertheless represent actions to which the other must in turn respond. It is because of this reciprocity that misunderstandings become part of a reality of their own making. As the following example shows, this can happen even among people who know each other intimately.
On the basis of years of experience, Bill was convinced he could tell by her tone of voice when his wife Andrea was angry about something. Arguments often ensued when Bill heard that tone of voice and asked Andrea why she was upset. His steadfast insistence that she was upset while she denied being upset led to numerous heated discussions. In the course of these discussions, Andrea often became upset, which, in Bill’s mind, validated his original assessment. Essentially, Bill’s perception of Andrea’s mood led him to react in such a way as to alter her mood in the direction of his perception. But Bill’s self-fulfilling prophecy didn’t end here. Because he understood to some extent what was going on, Bill would often keep his perception of Andrea’s mood to himself so as not to make her more upset. When Bill talked to me about this, I asked him to describe how he typically would handle the situation if he heard that tone of voice and decided not to confront Andrea about it. He responded that he would usually just leave her alone and hope she would work out whatever was bothering her. He was quick to point out that this rarely seemed to work, however, as Andrea’s anger would eventually surface. Each occasion of this sort further reinforced Bill’s conviction that he was more in touch with his wife’s moods than she was. Was he, or was he creating a self-fulfilling prophecy? Bill’s tendency to ignore his wife when he perceived her to be angry was probably based on his admitted desire to be left alone when he was in a bad mood. But Bill also acknowledged that Andrea was a worrier and sometimes kept him awake at night talking about things she was concerned about. Is it possible that what Bill saw as anger was in some cases Andrea’s frustration over not being able to resolve something that was bothering her? If so, his tendency to ignore her when she was worried and perhaps needed someone to talk to might have caused her to become angry. As a result of perceiving her to be angry when instead she might have been worried or anxious, Bill responded in ways that eventually made Andrea angry.
One of the arenas in which the self-fulfilling prophecy has been the most obvious is the classroom. A series of studies has shown the importance of teacher expectations on students’ academic performance. In a classic study of this phenomenon, social psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (1968) tested students at a San Francisco grade school and then provided teachers with a list of students who they claimed, on the basis of the test scores, could be expected to spurt ahead during the year. Teachers were instructed to watch the students’ progress but not report the results to the students or their parents. At the end of the year, students who had been identified as likely “sputters” had indeed increased their IQ scores by ten to fifteen points more than their classmates. The results of this study are dramatic because the “spurter” group in fact had shown no more potential for rapid advancement than other students, for they had been chosen completely at random for that group by the researchers. The only real explanation for their superior achievement during the year was their teachers’ expectations.
Unfortunately, it also works the other way around—negative expectations tend to lower student performance. Considerable research shows that poor academic performance makes the student develop negative attitudes toward school, which in turn leads to a host of behavioral problems both inside and outside of school. Most children start out wanting to do well in school, but for a variety of reasons—including teacher and parent expectations—many do not. The frustrations growing out of a failure to keep up in the early years of school often produce aggressive responses that subsequently lead to the child being labeled a troublemaker by classmates, teachers, and school administrators. Children who are given this label are more likely to be placed in lower tracks, where teachers expect poor performance. They are also less likely to be encouraged or allowed to participate in extracurricular activities that keep them busy and teach them valuable social skills. Thus the self-fulfilling prophecy sets up some children for failure and turns them into troublemakers. By failing to understanding this process and the motives behind early disruptive acts, parents, teachers, and other students react in ways that limit opportunities for such children to develop into successful adults.
The self-fulfilling prophecy is most likely to manifest itself in relationships in which one individual is especially sensitive to the perceptions of the other. In parent-child relationships, for example, children tend to base their sense of self-worth on their parents’ expressed judgments of them. If parents make a clear distinction between their displeasure with the child and their displeasure with the child’s behavior, the parent sets up expectations for more positive behavior in the future. Comments such as “You are a good boy, but you did a bad thing” are preferable to “You are a bad boy,” because “bad boys” are often bad whereas “good boys” only rarely do bad things. As suggested earlier, the same principles apply to adults in a variety of situations.
“I Could Have Died . . .”: Emotional Reactions to Misunderstandings
Responses to misunderstood acts usually produce additional misunderstandings that ultimately create an emotionally unpleasant situation. The two emotions most often associated with misunderstandings are embarrassment and shame. Although embarrassment is somewhat less personally traumatic than shame, it is nevertheless an unpleasant experience. According to sociologist Erving Goffman (1956), embarrassment is the result of the awareness that our public image has been discredited. Goffman argues that consciously or unconsciously, when in the presence of others we wish to project an image of ourselves that they will view positively. Embarrassment occurs as a result of events that discredit our projected image. Andre Modigliani (1968) suggests that embarrassment also involves a temporary loss in self-esteem; we become embarrassed by events that make us feel bad about ourselves. Fortunately, embarrassment is a temporary state. Unfortunately, however, it is not a feeling that we can easily hide from others because it manifests itself in two easily recognizable symptoms: blushing and what Arnold Buss calls the “silly smile.”
Misunderstandings often lead to embarrassment by creating situations in which we are made to appear conspicuously inappropriate or incompetent. Recall the clerk-customer misunderstanding described at the beginning of this chapter. As a result of mishearing the clerk’s statement, “That will be seven sixty-five, please,” the customer acted in a way that discredited her status as a competent shopper. The clerk’s response to her mistake made her realize that the positive status she had enjoyed only a moment earlier had suddenly become discredited. This led her to blush with embarrassment and quickly flee the situation.
The customer became embarrassed because her misunderstanding led her to act in a way that appeared incompetent. However, we also can become embarrassed as a result of perfectly appropriate actions being misunderstood. Suppose you are shopping, and upon being told that the price of your merchandise is seven sixty-five you correctly repeat that amount to the clerk in order to verify what you have heard. Suppose, however, that the clerk misunderstands what you have said and instead of responding “yes” or “that’s right,” she says, “No, it’s seven sixty-five.” Although you have correctly understood the clerk and accurately repeated the price she quoted, she misunderstands you and acts as though you are the one who made the mistake. In addition to feeling somewhat frustrated and perhaps a bit angry, most of us also would feel slightly embarrassed in this situation. Any time our public image is discredited, even though we may have done nothing to deserve it, we feel at least slightly embarrassed because we appear incompetent or inappropriate in the eyes of someone else.
The perception of competence is especially important to those in positions of power. The following is a Washington Post article that was reprinted in the Dallas Morning News on June 18, 1994.
WASHINGTON—The Clinton administration Friday disowned statements by Jimmy Carter in North Korea, saying the former president evidently had misstated US. policy despite earlier consultations between Carter and officials in Washington.
In an embarrassing split, administration officials said that they could not explain why Mr. Carter said in North Korea that the United States had dropped its recent proposal for sanctions against the country, a day after President Clinton had said the diplomatic drive for sanctions would continue.
Because former President Carter was an unofficial yet high-profile representative of the United States government, his statements to the North Koreans were taken as an indication of U.S. policy. Unfortunately, because Carter’s statement contradicted one President Clinton had made the day before, the Clinton administration was made to appear confused about its own foreign policy. In the conduct of foreign policy, often such internal confusion is taken as a sign of incompetence. Fortunately for most of us, our most embarrassing moments are much less public.
Embarrassment tends to be restricted to a particular situation. It is the result of perceived inappropriate or incompetent actions or performances in specific situational settings. Inasmuch as we are all occasionally guilty of inappropriateness or incompetence, such performances are not necessarily seen as indications of character flaws. When they are seen as reflecting personal flaws, however, the emotional reaction is much stronger and longer lasting than simple embarrassment. Failures in situational performances produce embarrassment; failures of character produce shame. The shamed individual shows many of the same symptoms as the embarrassed individual, although the effects are more pronounced and more lasting. The embarrassed individual might wish to avoid the gaze of others until the feeling of embarrassment passes, but the shamed individual will often attempt to permanently avoid anyone who has witnessed his or her disgrace.
When misunderstandings are seen as a product of who we are rather than what we do, our reaction is likely to be one of shame. Shame involves a feeling of self-disgust, and the loss in self-esteem associated with it is considerably greater than that associated with embarrassment. According to Arnold Buss, shame is the result of a sense of failure, or of actions that we perceive as immoral, antisocial, or disappointing. How can something as innocent as a misunderstanding produce shame? Psychiatrist Donald Nathanson (1992) argues that shame produces a sense that others see us as defective, regardless of what others might really think. The importance of the other is also emphasized by sociologist Charles H. Cooley (1902), who says that what we believe about others influences whether or not we feel shamed in their presence. For example, we would feel more ashamed of displaying ignorance in the presence of someone we consider wise, or of appearing afraid in the presence of someone we consider brave. Thus, regardless of what we have done or not done, if misunderstandings lead us to believe that others judge us as being somehow defective, we are likely to experience a sense of shame.
Aaron Beck and colleagues (1979:179) report the following exchange between a therapist (T) and a patient (P) who was depressed and was ashamed to admit it to colleagues at work. The authors point out that patients don’t readily admit to feeling shame, and indeed in this exchange it is the therapist who uses the word shame.
P: If the people at work found out I was depressed they would think badly of me.
T: Over 10 percent of the population is depressed at one time or another. Why is that shameful?
P: Other people think people who become depressed are inferior.
Notice that the patient does not express personal feelings of inferiority over being depressed. Instead, the focus of the patient’s shame is on the way others would judge him if they knew of his depression.
Even when it is a failure to live up to our own standards that makes us ashamed, it is often the responses of others that trigger our emotional reactions. The following account was provided by Mark, a male who prides himself on being able to consume relatively large amounts of alcohol without showing any effects.
My wife and I were having dinner with some friends recently when I made a wisecrack to our waiter. Taken out of context, the comment might have sounded cruel, but it was intended as an ironic comment and I certainly did not mean it to be offensive. Well, my wife apparently didn’t see the irony and was taken aback by my comment. She suggested that maybe I had had too much to drink. I suddenly felt embarrassed and somewhat ashamed, even though I didn’t really feel that I had done anything wrong. I became flustered and snapped back, criticizing my wife for not seeing the obvious irony in what I had said. She said that she was only kidding. I realized that I had overreacted and felt even more embarrassed and somewhat ashamed of myself. Although we smoothed things over pretty quickly, we both felt pretty rotten, realizing that we had each hurt the other’s feelings and probably made our friends feel awkward.
Embarrassment and shame are both forms of social anxiety, and like all forms of social anxiety, they share an acute awareness of oneself as a social object. Recall that one of the primary differences between actors and observers is the tendency of actors to focus on environmental events while observers are focused on the actions of the actor. When we become embarrassed or ashamed our focus turns inward and we become less aware of the environmental cues that help us formulate appropriate responses to events. When Mark became embarrassed because his wife and perhaps his friends had misunderstood his ironic comment to the waiter, he became so focused on his own embarrassment that he might have failed to notice subtle cues that his wife was teasing him. Thus it is a sometimes tragic irony that feelings of embarrassment or shame increase the chances that we will act in ways that will produce further embarrassment or shame.
Both embarrassment and shame are self-perpetuating. We become embarrassed about appearing embarrassed, and knowing that our shame has been made public makes us feel even more ashamed. Each of these emotions is accompanied by an intense awareness of ourselves as public objects. Self-focus can become so intense that we forget what we are doing. This can be a serious problem if we become embarrassed or shamed while we are holding center stage, for example, while giving a public talk or performance. By becoming too focused on how we appear rather than what we are doing, we can become confused or lost, which can adversely affect our performance. I have a musician friend who occasionally forgets the words to one of the many songs he performs. This is obviously embarrassing, as everyone’s attention becomes focused on his mistake rather than the song he is singing. I have noticed that he can more quickly recall the words if he makes a public acknowledgment that he is in trouble. Once he acknowledges it, usually in a humorous way, he almost immediately remembers the words and is back on course. Public acknowledgment of something as obvious as embarrassment can help break the tension that comes from intense self-focused attention. A simple honest admission of our dilemma is often all it takes to break the negative trance and at the same time inspire some supportive sympathy from the audience. Acknowledging embarrassment, however, does not mean dwelling on it. The sooner we can return to our original course of action, the quicker the embarrassing moment will pass.
Using Misunderstandings to Make Sense of Things
Although such emotions as shame and embarrassment might be brought on by misunderstandings, the emotions often linger long after the misunderstandings have been resolved. Moreover, in trying to cope with emotionally charged misunderstandings, people are likely to act in ways that lead to further social anxiety. How do we deal with the emotional aftermath of misunderstandings in such a way as to avoid spoiling the entire occasion, creating lasting conflicts, and perhaps damaging interpersonal relationships? Sociologists have identified a variety of strategies, referred to generally as aligning actions, which people use to manage problems that arise during face-to-face interaction. Aligning actions include such strategies as (1) expressing an acceptable motive for questionable actions, (2) providing acceptable excuses and justifications, or (3) simply apologizing. These tactics and a number of others allow us to short-circuit conflicts by providing acceptable explanations for problematic behavior.
The use of aligning actions works fairly smoothly as long as we agree on whose behavior requires alignment and who is in the appropriate position to call for and honor or reject alignment efforts. Generally speaking, being in a position of authority is assumed to endow certain individuals with the right to call the behavior of others into account. Parents, for example, may demand that their dependent children explain or justify their behavior in virtually all areas of life. Interaction among equals, however, is considerably more ambiguous, and we often disagree over whose behavior if any should be considered inappropriate. This makes the task of alignment a complex and sometimes risky business. Asking for apologies, explanations, or justifications for behavior can lead to overt conflicts that threaten not only the immediate situation, but also long-term relationships.
Thus aligning actions designed to handle one kind of problem often create problems of their own, not the least of which is that their use requires one person to assume a level of responsibility not shared by others. Even excuses and justifications, which are designed to mitigate admitted responsibility, nevertheless assume that the behavior of one particular actor is responsible for a problem that has become the focus of everyone’s attention. Although that behavior might be overtly excused or justified, that does not completely compensate the excused individual for being singled out as a troublemaker.
An alternative and often-employed strategy on such awkward occasions is to explain away problematic behavior and the resulting social discord by reference to misunderstanding. Use of the misunderstanding concept in such statements as “You misunderstood me,” “Perhaps I misunderstood you,” or “I guess it was just a misunderstanding” is clearly an aligning action used to explain away a variety of unacceptable behaviors or interpersonal problems. Elsewhere (Young 1995b) I have referred to such statements as misunderstanding accounts. Unlike the articulation of acceptable motives, justifications, excuses, or apologies, misunderstanding accounts require no one to accept sole responsibility for the problems at hand. In fact, the essence of misunderstanding accounts is that they constitute a covert agreement between two or more individuals to overtly share such responsibility. Thus the attribution of problems to a misunderstanding represents a unique solution in that (1) no one is required to deny his or her own perceptions in favor of the other’s, (2) no one is required to assume sole responsibility for the immediate problem, (3) interpersonal relationships at least temporarily are salvaged, and (4) everyone is allowed to resume normal interaction.
Below I present a classification of misunderstanding accounts that I have gleaned from the work of other social scientists, from my own analysis of hundreds of misunderstandings described to me by students and friends over the years, and from newspaper articles in which individuals used the term misunderstanding to describe various interpersonal problems. In analyzing examples from these various sources of data, I have identified three general types of problems commonly managed by reference to misunderstanding: communication disputes, motive disputes, and propriety disputes (Young 1995b).
The first type, communication disputes, refers to those situations in which the actor and the observer do not share a common view of what the actor has said or done. The communication disputes I have analyzed seem to fall into the general categories of misspeaks (not saying what one intends to say), mishearings (inaccurately hearing what was said), and misinterpretations (interpreting the meaning of an action in a way that is at odds with the intentions of the actor). Thus, perceived communication disputes can result from the action, the perception, or the interpretation stages described above. Miscommunications may produce disputes over such issues as what was said, to whom it was said, what was meant by what was said, whether enough was said, or whether a particular thing was said at all.
A substantial number of student narratives and newspaper articles describe some form of communication dispute. In the following example, a student describes a miscommunication between him and a relative.
I was involved in a misunderstanding with my brother. The situation dealt with me because I had worked a whole summer In order to pay him for his car, at least what he had asked for it. He wanted six hundred dollars to make minor repairs on it and was practically giving it to me as a gift. Out of the kindness of my heart, I voluntarily gave hi man extra one hundred dollars. Eight months later, I still hadn’t received the car. So I asked him to return my money and he could keep or sale (sic) the car which would probably benefit him more. He didn’t want to do either of the two. He later stated that he was not getting anything from the deal. I misunderstood him from the beginning because I thought he wanted to give the car to me if I paid for the repairing.
A second type of problem that frequently calls forth a misunderstanding account is the motive dispute. Motive disputes are the result of different understandings of why a particular action was taken, and can be classified as those involving questions of the causes of actions and those involving questions of the intentions of actions. According to the philosopher John Dewey, motives are not internal states that govern our impulsive responses to various stimuli. They are explanations we use to make sense of observed actions. Reference to motives represents an attempt to place action within an acceptable or at least understandable interpretive context. For example, suppose you are having dinner with someone who refuses a delicious looking dessert. How might you explain this, or, indeed, how would the individual in question explain this? Typically, the explanation would involve a reference to motive, such as “He must be on a diet,” or “I’ve been having trouble with my blood sugar,” or “Thank you, but I’m too stuffed to eat another bite.” Such stated motives may or may not correspond to the internal states of the person whose behavior is being explained. However, even when we aren’t sure why we or others do or don’t do things, we often feel compelled to give a reasonable explanation anyway. Thus we attribute motives to others and to ourselves in order to satisfy the need we all have to believe that behavior is rational, or at least understandable. This view of motives is supported by the fact that they only come into question when behavior goes against our expectations. One of the problems with motive talk, as sociologist C. Wright Mills (1940) calls it, is that sometimes we simply cannot agree on which motive makes the most sense. When this happens, we may become engaged in irreconcilable motive disputes. Sometimes these disputes become so acrimonious that they can be put to rest only through the use of a misunderstanding account. The following example of a motive dispute, described by one of my students, is typical.
The latest misunderstanding I can remember happened last night in my dorm room. My roommate (also my best friend) was cleaning out her fish tank and I was holding her fish in a plastic bag. At the same time, I was looking through some pictures with my other roommate and kept feeling the fish hitting against the side of the plastic bag. I told my best friend that her fish were having fits wanting back in their tank. When I said it, she was trying her best to get finished cleaning the tank, and took my comment to be criticism. She yelled back at me that she was doing it as fast as she could. She was mad and then I got angry at her, ‘cause that isn’t how I meant my comment to be taken. We didn’t come right out and apologize to each other, but we did try to smooth everything over after it happened. Once she understood, we both more or less forgot about it.
The motive dispute here is over whether the speaker’s comment was intended as a criticism (“You are ignoring your poor fish!”) or friendly warning (“Look! Your fish really don’t like this.”). Moreover, she is not clear as to whether the term misunderstanding was actually used at the time of this conflict. Thus we only know for certain that the term was used to minimize the seriousness of the conflict after it had occurred. Whatever account was used on the spot, it was obviously successful since both parties “more or less forgot about it.” In contrast, the following example, taken from a newspaper article, illustrates the use of a misunderstanding account to try to resolve an ongoing motive dispute.
After the recent funeral for Mr. Brown—who was very popular with teammates—a few players gathered at a bar. Michael was one of them, as were Andre Waters and Wes Hopkins, who were teammates of Mr. Brown’s on the Philadelphia Eagles. Mr. Waters and Mr. Hopkins contended that Michael acted boorishly, bragging about his season and a game between the Cowboys and Eagles. “We were there mourning a teammate and a close friend we had lost,” Mr. Waters says, “and he was talking about a football game. I didn’t understand that. That just goes to show that he treasures a football game more than death, and that’s wrong. To me, it just showed a lack of respect for Jerome.” The incident was a misunderstanding, Michael says: The Jovial manner after the funeral was agreed upon beforehand—there had been a no-mourning pact. He, Mr. Brown and a few teammates made the agreement while at a bowl game in college, Michael says. They talked about how they had the best of everything, more than they could have wanted as youths. They would tell each other that when they died, they would “sit right next to God and tell him, Thank you, it was great.’” They also agreed to pour a beer on the floor in honor of the departed friend. No one was to cry (Dallas Morning News, January 10, 1993).
In this example, the protagonist, professional football player Michael Irvin, does not deny having acted in a way that might be considered inappropriate, but does deny the meaning attributed to his behavior and, by implication, the presumed motivation for it.
Perhaps the most interesting misunderstanding accounts are those that arise from interpersonal conflicts that seem to involve no actual misunderstanding at all. That is, the term misunderstanding is often used to describe situations in which interactants seem to understand each other quite well, but one or both find the other’s understanding unacceptable. In the following example, a student uses a misunderstanding account to resolve a propriety dispute he is having with a friend.
Recently I was kidding around with one of my fraternity brothers when we had a misunderstanding. I had been drinking and he had been studying in the library. I walked in his room to talk to his roommate, who was not there. He immediately started jumping on my case, telling me I had no reason to be there and I was in violation of quiet hours. I was in no violation of the house rules and became defensive, it turned into an argument, I finally walked out of the room. The next day we both apologized to each other. We found that he had been under a lot of pressure in school and I had been blowing off steam at a bar and at the time our personalities clashed.
Knowing no more than what is provided in the narrative, it appears that the argument that took place between these two students involved no actual interpersonal misunderstanding. Although one or the other might have misunderstood fraternity house rules about quiet hours, they seemed to understand each other’s behavior very well, but simply found their wishes and behaviors in conflict. One of the most important aspects of this misunderstanding account is that it provides a temporary identity for both parties that is assumed to explain their clash. In essence, it suggests that a misunderstanding took place between two people suffering from temporarily impaired selves, one due to a lot of pressure from school and the other apparently due to the influence of alcohol.
Whereas misunderstandings are things that occur between people, misunderstanding accounts are explanations that are constructed by people. Using and allowing others to use such accounts can be a handy strategy for getting out of sticky interactional problems. We should remember, however, that just because someone overtly honors an account, that does not necessarily mean he or she actually believes it. Thus, even when misunderstanding accounts are used to successfully mitigate conflicts, we should not assume that the problems that caused the original conflict actually have been resolved. If we do, we might be surprised to find ourselves in the same predicament some time in the future.
Conclusion: Clearing It Up Doesn’t Make It Go Away
In many cases, the first indication we have that our actions have been misinterpreted is when the reactions of the other surprise us. They might seem strange, out of synch, or inappropriate. I have referred to such responses as being miscoordinated. If we fail to recognize misunderstanding as the origin of such responses, we can be lured quickly into a spiral of misunderstanding and/or unnecessary conflict. Because inappropriate responses, regardless of their origin, represent serious threats to social interaction, by the time we have reached adulthood, we have developed a repertoire of behavioral strategies for dealing with them. These include ignoring the response in the hope of avoiding conflict or in the hope that further information will help us understand the motives behind the act, and hedging our follow-up actions by giving intentionally ambiguous or noncommittal replies. Because of the ambiguous nature of such responses, however, they can lead to further misunderstanding, and sometimes even create self-fulfilling prophecies. Thus it is occasionally necessary to respond more directly, such as by challenging the action or asking the other for clarification.
Of course, once we become aware of misunderstandings, our behavioral responses often are preceded by a host of emotional reactions that can interfere with our ability to respond effectively. The two emotions most often associated with misunderstanding are embarrassment and shame. Embarrassment is a temporary state induced by an awareness that our public image has been discredited as a result of a flawed or incompetent performance on our part. However, because we are all occasionally guilty of social faux pas, such failings are not necessarily seen as resulting from character flaws. When our actions are attributed to flaws of character rather than performance, however, we experience shame. The loss of self-esteem associated with feelings of shame can be considerably greater than that associated with embarrassment. Unfortunately, because both of these emotions create significant anxiety, they are likely to adversely affect our ability to effectively function and, as a result, can be self-perpetuating. As a result, an honest admission of our feelings is often the only way out of such a predicament.
Finally, it is often possible to use references to misunderstanding as a way of protecting both parties from accepting blame. This sometimes makes it difficult to know when a “real” misunderstanding has occurred and when it has not. However, if any unpleasant interaction can be successfully attributed to a misunderstanding, normal interaction can be resumed with a minimal amount of blame, guilt, or other emotional baggage.
Misunderstanding accounts are typically used to explain potential disputes regarding what was done or said or why it was done or said. In a more strategic sense, however, misunderstanding accounts allow us to lay to rest a variety of conflicts that often can be settled in no other way. Thus, ironically, although misunderstandings often derail social interaction, in some cases it can only be salvaged by an agreement to attribute an interpersonal problem to a misunderstanding. It is thus a tribute to human social ingenuity that we have learned to utilize misunderstandings, which create many interpersonal problems, as a resource for solving others.