Matthew M. Hollander

Do Unto Others . . . ? Methodological Advance and Self- Versus Other-Attentive Resistance in Milgram’s “Obedience” Experiments

We introduce conversation analysis (CA) as a methodological innovation that contributes to studies of the classic Milgram experiment, one allowing for substantive advances in the social psychological “obedience to authority” paradigm. Data are 117 audio recordings of Milgram’s original experimental sessions. We discuss methodological features of CA and then show how CA allows for methodological advances in understanding the Milgramesque situation by treating it as a three-party interactional scene, explicating an interactional dilemma for the “Teacher” subjects, and decomposing categorical outcomes (obedience vs. defiance) into their concrete interactional routes. Substantively, we analyze two kinds of resistance to directives enacted by both obedient and defiant participants, who may orient to how continuation would be troublesome primarily for themselves (self-attentive resistance) or for the person receiving shocks (other-attentive resistance). Additionally, we find that defiant participants mobilize two other-attentive practices almost never used by obedient ones: Golden Rule accounts and “letting the Learner decide.”

Asking to Speak to Another: A Skill for Soliciting Survey Participation

This article is in the vein of applied conversation analysis, dealing with a problem of declining participation rates for survey interviews. When calling a household to request participation in a survey, interviewers may ask for a preselected “sample person.” We first explore how interviewers design this request in a more or less presumptive way, depending on how and when they identify themselves. Secondly, we analyze different linguistic structures that embody degrees of entitlement. Thirdly, we examine greeting items for their degree of ceremoniousness and in terms of what work they do when not part of an explicit greeting sequence. We examine other features of asking to speak to another as well, including “please” and references to the sample person. Our strategy for analyzing survey interview data is to explore the design of “switchboard” requests in ordinary telephone calls. We relate our analysis to previous research that addresses whether the detailed practices for asking to speak to another matter for obtaining consent to do an interview. We draw implications for obtaining participation in the survey interview and other kinds of phone call solicitations. Data are in American English.

Assessing the experience of speed dating

We use conversation analysis and a research design modeled on speed dating to examine college-aged speed daters’ assessments of their experience of this activity. In getting acquainted, participants solicit and provide accounts of the experience that treat it delicately and impersonally. Further, participants collaborate to claim a shared naivete toward speed dating, thereby presenting themselves as ordinary college students having a new experience. Non-standard assessment sequences throw such patterned practices into relief, and feature the disclosure of personal troubles occasioned by the experience. Our findings have implications for the study of assessments, impression management, acquaintanceship, and relationship initiation.

From “Ridiculous” to “Glad to Have Helped”: Debriefing News Delivery and Improved Reactions to Science in Milgram’s “Obedience” Experiments

Commentators on Milgram’s classic and controversial experiments agree that better integration of theories of “obedience to authority” with current archival research on participants’ viewpoints is essential in explaining compliance. Using conversation analysis, we examine an archived data source that is largely overlooked by the Milgram literature, yet crucial for understanding the interactional organization of participants’ displayed perspectives. In hundreds of interviews conducted immediately after each experiment, participants received one of two types of debriefing: deceptive or full. Analyzing 56 full debriefings from three experimental conditions, we find they featured interactional structuring as news delivery sequences and that debriefing news could transform initially ambivalent or negative assessments of the experiment into positive ones. Such findings reveal limitations of engaged followership, the currently dominant theory of “obedience.” Following discussion of improved assessments’ relevance to public attitudes toward science, we conclude that multiple social psychological processes were at work in producing Milgram’s results.

Ethnomethodology and Social Phenomenology

Ethnomethodology (EM) is a theoretical paradigm created by American sociologist Harold Garfinkel. It is one of the twentieth century schools of sociology strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl’s philosophy of phenomenology. Although EM is similar in certain respects to the various strands of social phenomenology created and influenced by Alfred Schutz and his students, its approach to the empirical study of social action differs in several important ways, with key tenets involving indexical expressions, accountability, and reflexivity. After presenting examples of classic EM research by Garfinkel and his colleagues, and discussing the relationship between EM and the related field of Conversation Analysis, we conclude the chapter with a review of recent and ongoing developments in EM, highlighting its contemporary relevance to studies of social praxis (e.g., culture, morality), embodied action, solitary social action, and the interaction order.

“So, why did you decide to do this?” Soliciting and formulating motives for speed dating

We bring a conversation analytic perspective to the phenomenon of soliciting and providing motives for participation in speed dating. Using data from three speed-dating events, we analyze how college-aged volunteers in a research study collaboratively formulate motives for participation and identities as speed daters. The findings reveal detailed and sequentially organized procedures by which participants display, monitor, and enforce normative expectations about how people of their age should treat this institutional activity. In particular, participants use a three-turn motive solicitation sequence to produce ‘casual’ accounts for participation that suggest a disinvested orientation toward speed dating. In the few cases in which what might be considered the ‘obvious’ motive for speed dating is invoked – meeting someone to date – it tends to be done ironically. When offered in earnest, however, interlocutors withhold alignment with this motive and treat it as accountable.

Improving the ED-to-Home Transition: The Community Paramedic-Delivered Care Transitions Intervention-Preliminary Findings: Paramedic-Delivered Care Transitions

To describe a novel model of care that uses community‐based paramedics to deliver a modified version of the evidence‐based hospital‐to‐home Care Transitions Intervention (CTI) to a new context: the emergency department (ED)‐to‐home transition.