Do Unto Others?

Despite a widespread acknowledgement of the relationship between account offerings and facework, little research has provided evidence showing that different types of accounting moves actually foster diverse assessments of attentiveness to face. Following Goffman (1955, 1967), we coded the primary types of challenges, offerings, and evaluations from interactions between friends who discussed a previous failure event by the speaker. We analyzed the codes—and the complexity of the sequences—for differences in participants’ judgments of attentiveness toward other‐face. Not every accounting form resulted in significant differences; nevertheless, either the speakers or their partners perceived most forms differently in some way. Additionally, elicitors viewed more complex (i.e., longer) account sequences as less attentive to their own negative face, but accounters viewed more complex (i.e., more varied) offerings as more attentive to others’ negative face. Qualitative analyses revealed additional discourse forms that may count as offerings and evaluations, including a more direct form of self‐oriented facework, requests for advice from the accounter, rejections of account suggestions, and requests for information and acceptance.     

Banality Reinvestigated: A Computer-Based Content Analysis of Suicidal and Forced Death Documents*

Suicide and simulated notes and forced-death documents were processed on the Harvard III Psycho-Sociological Dictionary. For each text, frequencies of related words were generated; these were contrasted with each other and with baseline data using z scores. The results indicated that the suicidal groups were more “deviant.” Other findings are concreteness and constriction of focus for suicides—a pattern suggesting denial just prior to the deed. The forced-death group seemed to be more meaningfully in contact with life and aware of responsibility. The simulated group appeared to be fabricating a popular stereotype rather than exhibiting empathy. Implications were discussed.