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Misunderstandings as Accounts *
Author(s) -
Young Robert L.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
sociological inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.446
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1475-682X
pISSN - 0038-0245
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-682x.1995.tb00416.x
Subject(s) - variety (cybernetics) , attribution , epistemology , sociology , identity (music) , context (archaeology) , social identity theory , social psychology , psychology , computer science , social group , artificial intelligence , philosophy , aesthetics , paleontology , biology
This article introduces the misunderstanding account as a verbal device that is used to normalize a variety of troublesome social situations. Through such accounts social interactors are able to handle the untoward or problematic actions of one another while avoiding individual attributions of responsibility and providing a satisfactory context for the construction of future cooperative acts. A classification of the types of situations that elicit misunderstanding accounts and the implications of such accounts for social identity are discussed.