Studies in ETHNOMETHODOLOGY HAROLD GARFINKEL University of California, Los Angeles Penrice Hatt, Ne., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey(© 1067 by Prexnce-Hats, Isc, Englewood Cus, Now Jersey All rights reserved, No part of this book ‘ay be reproduced is any form or by any means ‘witout permission in weting fom the publaker Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 67-2565, Curent printing (last dit) woeT6s4 gad Prewmce Hass lerensamraty Ine, London Prevrice Hatt or AUrraatis, Pr. Lo. Syney Prevrice Hatt or Caxans, roy Toro Provrice Hatt or Inoue Pavatz Lyo, New Deh Phnvrict Hatt oy Jara, tne, Tokyo To ABRAHAM GARFINKELPreface In doing sociology, lay and professional, every reference tothe “real world,” even where the reference i to physical oF biological events, isa reference to the organized activites of everyday life ‘Thereby, in contrast to certain versions of Durkheim that teach that the objective reality of social facts & sociology’s fundamental pein- ‘ple, the lesson is taken instead, and used as a study policy, that the objective reality of socal facts ar an ongoing accomplishment of the concerted activites of daily life, with the ordinary, artful ‘ways of that accomplishment being by members known, used, and taken for granted, i, for members doing sociology, a fundamental phenomenon, Because, and in the ways itis practical socology’s fundamental phenomenon, it is the prevailing topic for ethno. methodological study. Ethnomethodblogical studies analyze every- day activities us members’ methods for making those same activities isibly-rationsband:-reportableforalrpractical- purposes, Le, “ac countable," as organlzations of commonplace everyday activities. ‘The reflexivity of that phenomenon isa singular feature of practical actions, of practical circumstances, of common sense knowledge of Socal structures, and of practical sociological reasoning. By pemnit- ting us to locate and examine their occurrence the reflexivity ofthat phenomenon establishes ther study “Their study is directed to the tasks of learning how membersva STUDIES Iv ETHNOMETHODOLOGY seta, orlnary activites const of methods to mae practical ac oun pert ceeumsancer common tense lege of social ‘encase olga rnonng ely dof eng th foal properties of commmonplas, praca coo So son tn tn ct ting nn ts of hose settings The formal proper ban he gua tees fom oo ether source, aid ino other ay, Because this to ou study tsk amor bo accel by fee invention, cone Stacie unl tering occupy, or bak reviews, ad 010 ‘posal ntti pi to thw de fom ay erst thw ‘Bo onpantatinlly stated methods of racial reasoning Sin ty, ere an be nahing to quae! with ero comet about pac fi solopa sesning and xetse profesional socal fngusts aepracal Cough and rowgh cep at guarels beeen thse doing profesional ingles snd ethnometboslgy Mey be of terest © phenomens for ehonetodolgel side, thee quired seed not be taken seriou ‘tometbolgil suds ave tot dete to formulating o arguing conecves, They ste socks when they are done a ois: Aibough they ae dred tothe popuation of manual 0 soc Spal mcs, these are In no soy supplement 0 “andar Procedure but are dint from them. They do ot formulate a Ea for praca eto, ar was being found abot practi Texos that they were beter or wore than they ae usual racked tp tobe Nor ac thy serch of humanist agument, nor db they enange Ino enmurge pormiave cso af ier. Deri put en yar group of icening so has be ding cimmethedobpia tudes dy to day concerns: Egon Dito, ‘Ro V. Cleourel Linkey Charl, Cig McAndrew, Mica Moerman, Edward Rose, Harvey Sacks, Emmanuel Schegloff, David Sodhow, D. Lawrence Wider, tnd Doo Zimmerman, Harvey Sacks frst enone portal beeaose hs extoordary Writings deste ve seve rel rors. “Through tues made have been made avaable whose se as eased dma of slo phenomena: the formal properties of common sous actives a «practi organizational Tetmplshment An early body of ork of considerable seis now ‘Sher pln orn pres This volume spat of Ut ary comps. te A later, very large set of materials is cusently circulating prior to publication. Findings and methods are becoming available at an in- reasng rate, and itis pointless any longer to doubt that an m= mense, hitherto unknown domain of social phenomena has been uncovered. ‘The studies in this volume were writen over the last twelve years regret a certain unity inthe collection that was obtained by pondering and rearranging tets. 1am saddened by that practice for in the way it assures to the collected articles an overall “good sense” it will certainly have sacrificed news, The articles originated from my studies of the writings of Taleot Parsons, Alfred Schuty, ‘Aron Gurwitsch, and Edmund Husserl, For twenty years thei wrt ings have provided me with ineshaustible dteetives into the world of everyday activites. Parsons’ work, particulary, remains amesome for the penetrating depth and unfailing precision ofits practical sociological reasoning on the constituent tasks of the problem of social order and it solutions, ‘The completion of these studies was made materially possible by the following grants and fellowships. Studies reported in the papers on routine grounds, the documentary method, and passing were supported by a Senior Research Fellowship, SF-1, from the US, Poblie Health Service. Investigations of common understand ings and coding pracies were supported by Senior Research Fel- lowship SE-S1 from the US. Pubic Health Service, Grant Q-2 from the Research Section of the California State Department of Mental Hygiene, and Project ACAFOSR.157.65 of the Behavioral Sciences Division of the Air Foree Office of Scientile Research. ‘The work upon which the paper on the ratonalities is based was Initiated while the author was a member of the Organizational Be- havior Projct, Princeton University, and was completed under a Senior Research Fellowship, SF-81, from the U.S. Public Health Service. The author is indebted tothe Interdisciplinary Program in the Behavioral Sciences at the University of New Mexico, Summer, 1958, under project AF 49(655)-98 of the Behavioral Sciences Dit. sion, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, ARDC, and the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology was privileged to spend the academic year 1960-1964 as a Fel- Jow in the Center for the Scientife Study of Suicide of the Losx STUDIES iN ETHNOMETHODOLOGY Angeles Suicide Prevention Center. Iam indebted to Drs, Edwin S. ‘Shneldiman, Norman L. Farborow, and Robert E, Litman for their spilt. ‘The investigations of the work of the Paychistrie Outpatient CCinio of the UCLA. Neuropsychiatric Institute were supported by Grants A-7 and Q.2 from the Reseach Section of the California State Department of Mental Hygiene, and Senior Rescarch Fellow thip SF-81 from the US. Public Health Service. ‘The investigation of sta uses of clinic folders was supported by Grant Q.2 from the Research Section ofthe California State Depart :ment of Mental Hygiene, the senior author's Senior Research Pellow- ship SF-81 from the US, Publie Health Service, and the Confer. ‘ences on Ethnomethodology under Grant AF-AFOSR-278-62 ofthe Behavioral Sciences Division of the Alr Force Offce of Scientific esearch. Harry R. Brickman, M.D, and Eugene Pumpian-Mindlin, MD, former Directors of the Peychiatric Outpatient Clinic of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, greatly facilitated the inquiries. Drs. Leon Epstein and Robert Ross, encouraged the cine studies and administered Grants A-T and Q-2 from the California Department of Mental Hygiene ‘when they directed its Research Section, Particular gratitude is extended to Dr. Charles E. Hutchinson, ‘Chief of the Behavioral Seiences Division, Air Foree Office of Sci entific Research, whose Division supported the Conferences on Ethnomethodology with Grant AF-AFOSR-278-62 to Falwarl Rose and me, and Studies of Decision Making in Common Sense Situs- tions of Choice with Grants AF-AFOSR757-85, and AF-AFOSR- 1757-86 to Harvey Sacks, Lindsey Churchill and me ‘The study of methodological adequacy benefited in many im portant ways from the ertiesms of Drs. Richard J. Hill, Eliot. Mishler, Eleanor B. Sheldon, and Stanton Wheeler. Thanks are due to Egon Bitner, when he was my research assistant, for coding the ceases, and to Michael K. Mend forthe caleulatons. The paper re {quired the advice of Professor Charles F. Moselle, Department of Statistis, Harvard University, and the inventiveness of Professor Wilfred J. Diton, Schoo of Public Health, University of California, [Los Angeles. Profesor Dixon devised the method for sing ehi square to evaluate data involving conditional probabilities. With his permission the method is reported in Appendix 1 Only Tam re- sponsible for the paper's shortcomings Tam grateful to my stadents Michael R. Mend and Patricia Allen for their asistance with the clinic and reliability studies. Peter Meflugh, when he was a graduate student at UCLA, assisted me with the “counseling” experiment, David Sudniow worked to the Timits of his patience to improve the writing. Robert J. Stoller, Egon Bitter, and Saul Mendlovte collaborated im the studies that cite them as co-authors, The study of jurors is based on interviews with jnrors done by Mendlovitz and me when we were afliated with the Jury Project of the Law School ofthe University of Chicago. Debts are owed to very particular persons: to James H. Clark, friend and editor; and to old frends: William C. Beckwith, Joseph Bensman, Heinz and Ruth Ellersleck, Erving’ Coffman, Evelyn Hooker, Duncan MacRae, Jr, Saul Mendlovitz, Eliot G. Mishler, Henry W. Riecken, Jr, Wiliam 8. Robinson, Rdward Rose, Edwin ‘. Shneidman, Melvin Seeman, ad Eleanor B. Sheldon. [My lovely fe knows this hook with me. Hav. GanrorestAcknowledgments Chapters One (in part), Two, Thre, and Eight were previ cusly published. Chapter One includes material from "Practical Sociological Reasoning: Some Features in the Work of the Los “Angeles Suicide Prevention Center,” in Essays in Self Destruction, ceted by Edwin §. Shneidman, Intemational Science Pres, 087, in press Chapter Two is reprinted with revisions from Socal Prob lem, Winter, 1964, Vol 1, No.8, pp 25 280. Chapter Thee is r= printed with pomason of the Macaill Company from Theories of the Mind, cited by Jordan M, Scher, the Fro Press of Clencoe The, New York, 1962, pp. 680712. Chapter Eight orginally ap peated in Behaviorl Science, Vol 5, No, Janvsry, 1960, pp. 72 3 Tt ako appeared in Decision, Values, and Groups, Vo. edited by Norman F. Washvume, Pergamon Pres, In, New York, 1962, pp. SD4S24. Iam indebted to these sources for thei pension to rit T wish ao to thank the RAND Corporation for permis to reprat the detailed excerpt from the monograph by Olaf Helmer and Nichols Rescher, On the Epistemology of the Inexact Sciences, P.1513 Santa Monies, California: RAND Corporation, October 13, 1955, pp. 614 Chapter Seven, “Methodologial Adequacy in the Quantitative Study of Selection Criteria and Selection Practices in Paychiatic (Outpatient Clinics” was drafted in Marc, 1900. No updsting of thexv STUDIES in ETANOMETHODOLOGY lst of studies was done after the original Ist was assembled in March, 1960 and so several studies are conspicuously absent, eg, Elliot Mishler and Nancy E, Waxler’s study, "Decision Processes i Psychiatric Hospitalization,” American Socalogical Review, Vol. 2, No. 4, August, 1963, p. STBSST; and the long series by Anita Bahn ‘nd her associates atthe National Insitute of Mental Health, A re- view of studies was done orginally inorder to discover the "param ters” ofthe selection problem and to enrich thelr discussion. At the time the paper was vriten the task of reporting what had been found out about admissions to psychiatric clinics was of secondary interest, and is now immaterial Contents ONE What is ethnomethodology? Two ‘Studies of the routine grounds of everyday activities THREE ‘Common sense knowledge of social structures: ‘the documentary method of interpretation in lay and professional fact ining FOUR Some rules of correct des ‘hat jurors respect % 1mPy STUDIES IN ETANOMETHODOLOGY FIVE Passing and the managed achievement ‘of sex status in an intersexed person, part Meth ‘quantitative study of selection eriteria and selection practices in pychiati outpatient clinics EIGHT ‘Tho rational properties of scientific common sense activities ‘Appendix to chapter ive 16 ONE What is ethnomethodology? ‘The following studies seek to treat practical activites, prac: tical circumstances, and practical sociological reasoning as topis, fof empirical study, and by paying to the most commonplace ati. ities of daily life the attention wsually accorded extraordinary ‘events, seek to lear about them as phenomena in their own right.“ ‘Their central recommendation is thatthe activities whereby mem hers produce and manage settings of organized everyday. allie are identical with member’ procedures for making those settings “seeountable” The “rellesive,” or ~incamate” character of account ing practioes and accounts makes up the crux ofthat recommenda: tion, When I speak of acconntable my interests are directed to such matters as the following. 1 mean observable-and-reportable, ie, available to members as situated practices of looking-and: telling. 1 mean, too, that such practices consist of am endless, on fing, contingent accomplishment; that they are carried on under the auspices of, and are made to happen as events in, the sam forinary airs that in organizing they describe; that the prac: tices are done by parties to those. settings whose skill with, knowledge of, and entitlement tothe detailed work ofthat accom. plishment-whose competence-they abstinately depend upon, ree- ognize, use, and take for granted: and that they take thei competence for granted ise furnishes partes with a setting’distinguishing and partiular features, and of course it furishes them as well as resources, troubles, projets, and the fest ‘Some strictorally equivocal features of the methods and results| by persons doing sociology, lay and professional, of making prace tical activites observable were epitomized by Helmer and Res cher! When members” accounts of everyday ctivitios are used fs prescriptions with which to locate, to Hlentiy, to analyze, to Classify, to make recognivable, oF to And one's way around in com- parable oceasons, the prescriptions, they observe, are law-like, patiotemporlly restricted, and “loose.” By “loose” is meant that though they are intendedly conditional in thei logical form, “the nature of the conditions i sich that they ean often not be spelled ‘out completely or fll.” The authors cite as an example « state- tment about sailing Beet tactics in the 18th century. ‘They point ‘out the statement eatries as a test condition reference to the state (of naval ordnance In elaborating conditions (under which such a statement would hold) the historian delineates what is typical of the place and period, The full implications of such relerence may be vast and inexhaustible, for instance --- ordnance soon ramifes tia metal working technology into metallurgy, mine ing, ete. Thus, the conditions whieh are operative ia. the formulation of an historical Iaw may only be indicated in a ideneral way, and are not necessarily, indoed, in most cases ‘cannot be expected to be exhaustively articulated. This char fcteristie of toch laws is here designed as loseness ‘A consequence of the looteness of historical laws 4s that they are not universal, but merely quastgeneral in that they dint of exceptions. Since the conditions delimiting the area ‘of application of the law are often not exhaustively atiew Tated. 8 supposed violation of the law may be explicable by showing that a legitimate, but as yet wnformulated, precon ‘ition of the law's applicability is not follled in the case ‘under consideration, Consider that this holds in every particular case, and holds not bby reason of the meaning of “quaslaw,” but because of investi- ‘tors’ actual, particular practices. "Olaf Hales sod Nicholas Resher, On the Epitonaogy ofthe tneract spe HS ne Ms tn! BAN pr ke, Further, Helmer and Rescher point out, ‘The laws may be taken to contain a tacit caveat of the ‘usually” of “other things being equal” type. An historical law is Uhus pot still universal in that t must be taken as applicable to all cases falling within the scope of its ex: plctly formlated or formulable conditions, rather, it may be thought to formulate relationships which obtain generally (oF better, which obtain "asa rue Such "aw" we will term quasélow, In order for the law to be valid it is not necessary that no apparent exceptions occur, Tt is only necessary that, if an apparent exception Should occur, an adequate explanation be forthcoming, an explanation demonstrating the exceptional characterise of the ease in hand by establishing the violation of an appropri ate, if hitherto unformuleted, condition of the laws apples Bilt. ‘These and other Features can be cited for the cogeney with which they describe membery accounting practices, Thus: (1) ‘Whenever a member is requted to demonstrate that an account analyzer an atl stution, he invariably makes use of the prac tices of “et cetera,” “unless” and "Tet it pass" to demonstrate the rationality of his achievement. (2) The definite and sensible char acter of the matter that is being reported is settled by an assign ment that reporter and auditor make to each other that each will have furnished whatever unstated understandings are requite. Much therefore of what is actually reported is not mentioned. (3) Over the time for their delivery accounts are apt to require that “auditor” be willing to wait for what will have been sad in order thatthe present significance of what has been said will have be- fame cer. (4) Like conversations, reputations, and careers, the particulars of accounts are built up step by step over the actual Uses of and references to them. (5) An account's materials ate apt to depend heavily for sense upon their serial placement, upon th relevance tthe auultor’s projects, o upon the developing course Of the organizational occasions of thee use In shor, recognisable sense, or fact, or methode character, of Impersonality, or objeciviy of accounts are not independent of the socially organized occasions of theie ws, Their rational features consist of what members do with, what they “make of” the se-‘counts inthe socially organized actual occasions of their use. Mem- 1 bers accounts are cefleively and essentially ted for their rational features to the socially organized occasions of their use for they are features of the socially organized occasions of their use “That tie establishes the central topic of our studies: the rational accountability of practical actions as an ongoing, practical accom- plishment. I want to specly the topic by reviewing three of its constituent, problematic phenomena. Wherever studies of prac: tial action and practical reasoning are concerned, these consist of the following: (1) the unsatisfied programmatic distinction be- tween and substitutability of objective (contest free) for indesteal expressions; (2) the “uninteresting” essential relexivity of accounts of practical actions; and (3) the analyzabilty of acionsimcontext fs & practical accomplishment. The unsatisied programmatic distinction between ‘and substttebilty of objective for indexicel expressions Properties that are exhibited by accounts (by reason of their being features ofthe socially organized oecasons of thet se) are available from studies by logicians as the properties of indexical’ expressions and indesical sentences. Husserl” spoke of expressions whose sense cannot be decided by an auditor without hi neces sarily knowing or assuming something sbout the biography and, the purposes of the user of the expression, the circumstances of the utterance, the previous course of the conversation, or the par. ticular relationship of actual or potential interaction that exists Detween the expresior and the suditor. Russell? observed that descriptions involving them apply on each occasion of use to only ‘one thing, but to diferent things on diffrent occasions. Such eX pressions, wrote Goodman, are used to make unequivocal state- rents that nevertheless seem to change in truth value. Each of ther utterances, “tokens,” constitutes a word and refers to a cer 2 n Marvin Father, The Foundation of Phnemenolny(Corbrlge, Mas. chute) Hat Unites Pras 1843), pp 23728 "SteectdRamell nguyen an rath (New Yok: W. W, Nee Campa, Tne th pp ola. "ReimCoodian, The Sacre of Aypeamanee (Cambriie, Mase toate Harvard Untenty Pr 1850, 9 3 s tain person, time, or place, but names something not named by some replica of the word. Theie denotation is relative to the / speaker Their use depends upon the relation of the user to the object with which the word is concemed, Time for a. temporal indevical expression is relevant to what it names. Similarly, just, ‘what region a spatial indevical expression names depends upon the location ofits utterance. Indexical expressions and statements, ‘ontaining them are not frecly repeatable, in a given discourse, not all their replicas therein are also translations of them. The list can he extended indefinitely Virtually unanimous agreement exis among students of prac- tical sociological reasoning, laymen and professionals, about the properties of indexical expressions and indexical actions. Impres- sive agreement exists as well (1) that although indexical expres- Sons “are of enormous utility” they are “awkward for formal Aiscourse; (2) that_a distinction between objective expressions nd indexical expressions is not only procedurally proper but un svoidable for whoroever would do science, (3) that without the distintion between objective and indesieal expressions, and with ‘vt the prefered nse of objective expressions the victories of gen eralizing, rigorous, sient inguvis~loge, mathematics, some of the plysieal sciences—are unintelligible, the vietores would fal, tnd the inexact sciences would have to abandon their hopes; (4) that the exact sciences are distinguishable from the inexact siences by the fact that in the ease of the exact sciences the distinction betoveen end substitution of objective for indexical expressions for problem formulation, methods, Andings, adequate demonsteation, Adequate evidence and the rest i both an actual task and an factual achievement, whereas inthe ease of the inexact seiences the availsbilty of the distinction and substitutability to actual tasks, practices, and revulls remains nrealieably programmatic, (5) that the distinction between objective and indexial expressions, insofar asthe distinction consists of inquires’ tasks, ideals, wns, resources, achievements, and the rest describes the dillerence be. twveen sciences and artsme,g, between biochemistry and dock mentary flming (8) that terms and sentences can be distinguished as one or the other in accordance with am assessment procedure that makes decidable their character as indexieal or objective expressions; and (7) that in any particular case only practical dif taulies prevent the substitution by an objective expression for an {ndexical expression Features of indexcal expressions motivate endless methodologl- cal ses dieeted to their remedy Indeed, attempts to rid the practices of seience of these nuisinoes lends to each sesence its distinctive charater of preoccupation and productivity with meth- fodological issues. Research practitiones’ studies of practical acti ites of a science, whatever their science, afford. them endless ‘occasions to deal rigorously with indexical expressions. ‘Areas in the socialsciences where the promised distinction and promised substtatabiity ccous are countless. The promised Aistinetion and substitutability are supported by and themselves support immense resources directed to developing methods forthe strong analysis of practical actions and practical reasoning, Prom- ‘seal applications and benefits are immense Nevertheless, wherever practical actions are topics of study the promised distinction and substitutability of objective for indexical fxpressions remains programmatic in every particular case and in every actual oceasion in which the dsinetion or substitutability must be demonstrated. In every actual ease without exception, con- ditions will be cited that a competent investigator willbe required to recognize, such that in that particular case the terms of the demonstration can be relaxed and nevertheless the demonstration bbe counted an adequate one. We leam from logicians and linguists, who are in vitually unan- mous agreement about them, what some of these conditions are. For “long” texts, or “long” courses of action, for events where members’ actions are featutes of the events their actions are ac- complising, or wherever tokens are not used oF are not suitable 18 proxies for indexical exprssions, the programs claimed demon strations are satisfied as matters of practical social management. ‘Under such coneitions indexial expressions, by reason of thelr prevalence and other properties, present immense, obstinate, and Inremediable nuisances to the tasks of dealing rigorously with the phenomena of structure and relevance in theories of consistency proofs and computability, and i attempts to recover actual as com- pared with supposed common cond and common talk with full, ‘ruetural particulars. Drawing upon their experience in the uses 7 of sample surveys, and the design and application of measurements fof practical actions, statstial analyses, mathematical models, and ‘computer simulations of social proceses, professional sociologists tare able to document endlessly the ways in which the program: ‘atic distinction and substitutability is satsGed in, and depends ‘upon, professional practices of socially managed demonstration. In short, wherever studies of practical actions are involved, the Aistinetion and substitutability is always accomplished only for all, practical purposes. Thereby, the frst problematic phenomenon Is recommended to consist of the reBexivity of the practices and attainments of sciences in and of the organized activities of every day life, which isan essential reflexivity. The “a teresting” essential reflexivity of accounts FFor members engaged in practical sociological reasoning-at we shall sce in later studies, for aff personnel at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, for staf users of psychiatric cline folders at U.CLA, for graduate student coders of prychiatic records, for jurors, for an intrsexed person managing sex change, for professional sociological researchere—their concerns re for what is decidable “for practical purposes” “in light of this situ tion,” “given the nature of actual ceumstances," and the like. Practical circumstances and practical actions refer for them (0 many’ organizational important and serious matters: to resources, ims, exeuses, opportunities, tasks, and of course to grounds for arguing or foretlling the adequacy of procedures and ofthe fnd- Ings they yield. One matter, however, is excluded from their inter sts: practical actions and practical circumstances are not ia themselves a topic, let alone a sole topic of their inguties; nor are their inguties, addressed to the tasks of socologieal theorizing, undertaken to formulate what these tasks consist of as practical actions. Inno cate it the investigation of practical actions under- taken in order that personnel might be able to recognice and describe what they are doing in the fist place. Least of all are practical actions investigated in order to explain to practitioners thelr own talk about what they are doing. For example personnel at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center found it alogether incongruous to consider seriously that they be so engaged in thework of certifying mode of death that a person seeking to commit fiicde, and they could concert their elforts to assure the um ‘equivocal recognition of “what really happened.” "To say they are "not interested” in the sad of practical actions is not to complain, nor to point to an opportunity they mis, nor i it a disclosure of eror, nor is it an itonie comment. Nether Is i the case that because members are “not interested” that they are “precluded” from sociological theorizing. Nor do their inquiries pireclide the use of the rule of doubt, nor are they precluded from Inaking the organized activities of everyday Ife sclentifealy prob- Tematies, nor docs the comment insinuate a difference between “basic” and “applied” interests in research and theorizing ‘What docs it mean then to say that they are “not interested” in studying practical actions and practical soclological reasoning? And ‘what isthe import of such a statement? ‘There i feature of members scoouns that for them is of such singular and prevailing relevance that 1 controls other features fn thei specif character as recognizable, rational features of prac tical sociological inquiries. The feature is this, With respect to the problematic character of practical actions and to the practical adequacy of thei inquises, members take for granted that a mem Ther mast atthe outset “know” the settings in which e is to operate if his practices aze to serve as measures to ring particular, lated, features of these setings to recognizable account. They treat as ‘the most passing matter of fact that members! accounts, of every sort, in all thet logical modes, with all oftheir uses, and for every ‘method for their asombly are constituent features of the settings they make observable. Members know, require, count on, and rake use of this refeaiity to produce, accomplish, recognize, oF omonstrate rtionaladequacy-forallpractica-purposes of their procedures and findings. "Not only do members-the jurors and the others—take that re fervty for granted, but they recognize, demonstrate, and make ‘observable for each other the rational character of their actual, fd that means their occasional, practices while respecting that reflexivity a an unalterable and tmavoidable condition of their inquiries ‘When I propote that members are “not intersted” in studying practical actions, Ido not mean that members will have none, a tle, of a Jot of st. That they are “not interested” has to do with reasonable practices, with plausible argument, and with reason able findings. Tt has 10 do with treating “accountable forall prac: tical-punposes” as a dicoverable matter, exclusively, only, and entitely. For members to be “interested” would consist of their undertaking to make the “rexive” character of practical activities observable; to examine the artful practices of rational inquiry as ‘organizational phenomena without thought for corectives oF iron. Members of the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center are like ‘members wherever they engage in practical sociological inquties though they would, they can have hone of i ‘The onalyzabilty of ectionsin-contoxt (98a practical accomplishment Tn indefinitely many ways member inquires are constituent features of the settings they analyze. In the same says, their in- quires are made recognizable to members as adequste-orall-pac- ‘ueal-purposes. For example, at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, that deaths ate made accountabl-forall-practial-purposes are practical organizational accomplishments, Organizatonally, the Suicide Prevention Center consists of practical procedures for ac- complishing the rational accountability of suicidal deaths as ree- fopnizable features of the settings in which that accountability Tn the actual occasions of interaction that sccomplishment for members omnipresent, unproblemati, and commonplace. For ‘members doing sociology, to make that accomplishment a topic of practical sociological inquiry seems unavoidably to require that they teat the rational properties of practical activities as “anthropo- logically strange.” By this I mean to cal attention to “rellxve" practices such as the following: that by his accounting practices the member makes familar, commonplace activities of everyday life recognizable as familar, commonplace activities; that on each ‘occasion that an account of common activities is used, that they be recognized for “another fst time": that the member teat the processes and attainments of “imagination” as continuous with the ‘other observable Features of the settings in which they occur, and of proceeding in such a way that at the same time that the member“in the mids” of witnesied actual settings reeognizes that wit reseed settings have an accomplished sense, an accomplished fac ticity, an accomplished objectisity, an accomplished. familiarity, an accomplished accountability, for the member the organizational hhows of these accomplishments. are unproblematic, ane. known vaguely, and are known only in the doing whichis done skilfully, reliably, uniformly, with enormous standardization avd as an un soountable matter. "That accomplishment costs of members doing, reengniring, and using ethnogeaphies. In anknown ways that accomplishment {s for members a commonplace phenomenon. And in the unknown, ‘ways that the accomplishment is commonplace it i for our Inter. ‘ess, an awesome phenomenon, for in ss unknown ways st consists (A) of members uses of concerted everyday activities as methods with which to recognize and demonstrate the isolatable, typical, uniform, potential repetition, connected appearance, consistency ‘equivalence, substitutability, directionality, anonymously describ: able, plinfl-in short, the rational properties of indexical expres. ‘sions and indesial actions. (2) The phenomenon consists, too, of the analyzablity of setions-in-contert given that not nly does no concept of contextin general exit, but every use of “contest” with ‘out exception is itself extentilly indesca ‘The recognizedly rational properties of their common sense in quiris-their recognized consistent, or methodic, ot uniform, oF planful, ete. character~are somchow attainments of members con: certed activites. For Suickde Prevention Center staff, for coders, for jurors the ational properties of thelr practical ingulses some hhow consist in the concerted work of making evident from frag ment, fom proverbs, from passing remarks, from mimor, from partial desriptions, from “codified” but estentilly vagne oat Togues of experience and the like how a person died in society, oF by what extera patients were selected for prychiateic treatment, for which among the slterative verdicts was correct. Somehow is the problematic crux of the matte, ‘What is ethnomethodlogy? ‘The earmark of practical sociological reasoning, wherever it oc: ‘uss is that it Seeks to remedy the idexical propeties of members! ” talk and conduct. Endless methodological studies are directed to the tasks of proving members a remedy for indesical expressions in members abiding attempts, with rigorous wes of ideals to dem- onstrate the observabilty of organized activities in actual occa Slons with situated particulars of tak and conduct, ‘The properties of indesca! expressions and indexica actions are ‘ordered properties. These consst of onganizationally demonstrable fense, of facticity, or methodic use, or agreement among “cultural colleagues” Their ordered properties consist of organizatonally ‘demonstrable rational properties of indexical expressions and in- ‘erica actions. Those ordered properties are ongoing achievements, of the concerted commonplace activities of investigators. The de- ‘monsrable rationality of indexcal expressions and indexical ac: tions retains over the course of its managed production by rmembers the character of ordinary, familar, rotinized practical ércumstances, As process anil attainment the produced rationality of indevcal expressions consists of practical tasks subject to every ‘exigency of organizational situated conduct. use the term “ethnomethodology” to refer to the investigation ‘of the rational properties oF indexical expressions and ater prac tical actions as contingent ongoing accomplishments of organized autiul practices of everyday life. The papers of this volume treat that accomplishment as the phenomenon of interest. They seek to speci ts problematic features, to recommend methods for is ody, but above all to consider what we might leam definitely bout i. My porpose in the remainder of this chapter i to char- acterize ethnomethodology, which T have done by presenting three Studies of the work of that accomplishment together with a con: cluding recitation of study policies. PRACTICAL SOCIOLOGICAL REASONING: DOING ACCOUNTS IN "COMMON SENSE SITUATIONS OF CHOICE” The Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center (SPC) and the Las Angeles Medical Examiner Coroners Oifiee joined forces in 1957 to fomish Coroners Death Certificates the warrant of scientific authority “within the limits of practical certainties imposed by the state ofthe art.” Selected cases of “sudden, unnatural death” thatwere equivocal between “suicide” and other modes of death were refered by the Medical Examiner-Coroner to the SPC with the request that an inquty, called “psychological autopsy.” * be done. “The practices and concems by SPC. staff to accomplish their in: ‘uiries in common sense situations of choice repeated the features Of practical inquiries that were encountered in other situations studies of jury deliberations in negligence cases; clinic stall in Selecting patients for outpatient psychiatric treatment, graduate Students in sociology coding the contents of clinic folders into a ‘nding sheet by following detailed coding instructions; and count- Tess professional procedures inthe conduct of anthropological, linguistic, socal psychiatric, and sociological inquiry. The follow: ing features in the work at SPC were recognized by staff with frank acknowledgement as prevailing conditions of their work and as ‘matters to consider when assessing the efficacy, efficiency, or i telligiblty of their Work=and added SPC testimony to that of rors, survey researchers, and the rest (G2) An abiding concer on the part of all parties for the tom- poral concerting of activities; (2) a concem for the practical ques- tion par excellence: “What to do next”, (3) a concem on the inquirer part to give evidence of his grasp of "What Anyone Knows” about how the settings work in which he had to accomplish his inquiries, and his concern to do so in the actual occasions in ‘which the decisions were to be made by his exhibiable conduct {in choosing (4) matters which atthe level of talk might he spoken of as “production programs,” “laws of conduct.” “rules of rational "The flowing references coal egos on the “peli atopy” proce deyelped at te Low Angler Suse Penton Center. Theodore EGirey, "The Porense Patolor atthe NtlieDiscpiary.Approch f Dette Emagen Self-Beanetin, al Edwin 6 Sete (item ‘onl Slece Pres, 1967), fm pss, Todor J Cpe. “The Rae of Th Soul Seen ye: MedicnLngi Calton of Death fen. Sue In The Cry or Hel el Nornan Le Farr” ae nS Shona (ew veek_ McGraw ill Hook Comput 1001): Evi. Shietdnan ad ‘Neoar 1 Fathso “Sample lvetasoy of Equal Stila Death a The Ci for Hp, Raber Lsme, Theoare J Copiny, Ewin 8. Shel tan, Noman Le Eetarow, anf Nara D. Technic, "nvetitiey of guia Si Jownal of the mercan Meda section, 184 (1983), S235" ant Biwi 8 Shaaidman “Orntatene ow Deathe A itl ‘Ape of the Sy of Liven The Study of ie Robert W. White {Rey eh et ea ot) spel he feria oh decision-making,” “causes” “conditions.” “hypothesis testing.” models.” “rules of inductive and deductive inference” in the actual situation were taken for granted and were depended upon tw consist of recipes, proverbs, slogans, and partially formulated plans of action (3) inquires were required to know and be skilled fn dealing with situations “of the sort” for which “rues of rational decision-making” and the rest were intended i order to “see” or bby what they did to insure the objective, effective, consistent, com- pletely, empirically adequate, ie, rational character of recipes, Drophesies, proverbs, partial desriptions in an actual occasion of the use of rules; (6) for the practical decider the “actual ecca- sion” as a phenomenon in i own right exercised overwhelming priority of relevance to which “decision rules” or theories of de- sionsmaking were without exception subordinated in order to fssese their rational features rather than vlee ergy; (7) Snaly, tnd perhaps most charateristelly, all of the foregoing feature, together with an inguirer's “system” of altematives, his “decision” rethods, his information, his choies, and the rationality of his accounts and actions were constituent parts of the same practical ‘@rcumstances in which inguiers did the work of inquiry feature that inquiters if they were to claim and recognize the practicality ofthe efforts knew of, required, counted on, took for granted, ‘sed, and glossed. "The work by SPC members of conducting their inquiries was part and parcel of the day's work. Recognized by stall members fs constituent features of the day’s work, their inquiries were thereby intimately connected to the terms of employment, t0 various intemal and external chains of reportage, supervision, and review, and to sar organizationally supplied "priorities of rel fevances” for assessments of what “realistically” “practical,” oF reasonably” needed to be done and could be done, how quickly, with what resources, sseing whom, taking about what, for how Tong, and +0 on. Such considerations furnished "We did what we ‘could, and for all reasonable interests here i what we came out swith" Hs features of organizationally appropriate sense, fact, i Penonality, anonymity of authorship. purpose, reproducibility fe, of a properly and visibly rational account of the inquiry. ‘Members were required in their occupational expacities to For rmulate accounts of how a death realy-forall practical purposes“ sroois 1 ehouetHODOLoOY happened. “Realy” made avoidable reference to diy, ordinary cccuputioal workings. Members alone were ettled to invoke such workings as appropriate grounde for recommending the ex Tonable character of the rest scithout ncesty for furshing tpecifer On occasions of challenge, onary occupational work ihe would be sted explcly, in clevant parts Otherwise those features were divengaged from the product In thelr place an ae fount of how the ingury war done made out the howewas act Alive a5 appropiate to usual demands, osal attainment, tool races, end to usa talk by SPC personel talking at Done file proesonal practitioners shout sush demands, aol tn: trea and uel practices. ‘One of several titles (relating to mode of death) had to be assigned to each cate. The elletion consisted of legally possble {Smintins of four elementary poailities-natura dea, acc ‘dnt suicide, and Homicile® Al Ges were 40 admintered as to fot only withtand the varieties of equivcaton, ambiguity, and improvisation that arose i every acta oceson of their was bt the iles were so administered fo incite that ambigiy, ie fealty, and nproviation, It wae pat of the work not ony that cauiocaity iva trouble-isporhape a toubleut a the pra: loners were directed to the cites fn order to tite the ambigllyor the equivocal, to nvte the inprovition, orto Invite the temporing. and the rst Te not that the investigator, Inving lst files performed an Ingury that proceeded sep tvs to etal the grovnde for electing nog them The Formal Sav mo "Hlere is what we di and among the titles as gone of ‘our revareh thi te Bally interprets in» est fashion what wo found out” Instead titles were contnoally posted and fore {OKI An inquiry was apt to be heavily guided by the Ingulrers tse of inagined stings in whch the tle wil have boon “sed by one or staer loterested party, including the decor, and thi was done by the inguirers inorder to deride, using whatever Satu’ might have bee seared oot, that that “Satan” ould be “The posble combinations include the following: tral, acea; a cite, Ide posite sels poe sie, posible natu eens) ‘Show or soe andeteried, Chetsen) nt! or se, adden, ‘iceecad aur we sells deeneiods ao (among) satura or ne carer meld, eden. re used to mask if masking needed to be done, oF 19 equivocate or loss, or lead, or exemplify if they were needed. "The prevailing feature of sn inquiry was that nothing sbout it remained assured aside from the organized occasions of ts uses. Thus a routine in- Guiry was one that the investigator wsed particular contingencies to accomplish, and depended spon particular contingencies to ree- fognize and to recoromend the practical adequacy of his work. When astessed by a member, 12, viewed with respect to actual practices for making it happen, a routine inquiry i not one that fs aceomplshed by rule, or according to rules, It seemed much more to consist of an inguisy that is openly recognized to have fallen short, but in the same ways it falls short its adequacy is adkaowledged and for which no one is offering or calling particu larly for explanations. ‘What members are doing in their inquires is always somebody ‘lcs business in the sense that particular, organizational located, locatable persons acquire an interest in light of the SPC mem- ber’ account of whatever i that will have been reported to have “really happened.” Such considerations contributed heavily to the perceived feature of investigations that they were dicted in their purse by an account for which the claim wil have been advanced ‘that for all practical purposes itis correct. Thus over the path of has inquiry the investigators task consisted of an account of how 2 particular person died in society that Is adequately told, sul ‘ently detailed, clear, ete, forall practical purposes. “What really happened” over the course of arriving at it, a6 wel as after the "what relly happened” has been inserted into the fle and the tite has been decided, may be chronically reviewed as well as chronically foretold in light of what might have heen done, for what will have been done with those decisions. Ii hardly news that on the way to a decision what « decision will have come to was reviewed and foretold in light ofthe anticipated consequences of u decision. After « recommendation had been made and the fononer had signed the death cortieate the result can yet be, as they say, “revised,” It ean still be made a decision which needs to bbe reviewed “once more Inquirers wanted very mach to be able to assure that they could come out a the end with an account of how the person died that ‘would permit the coroner and his staf to withstand claims arguing6 spies enmiowstoo0.0 cal as to mode of death. That death they use as a precedent with ‘hich various ways of living i seciety that could have terminated with that death are searched out and resd “in the remains’ in the seraps of this and that like the body and its trappings, medicine bottles, notes, bits and pleces of clothing, and other memorabilia stuff that can be photographed, collected, and packaged. Other “re. mains” are collected too: rumors, passing remarks, and stories materials in the “repertoires” of whosoever might be consulted via, the common work of conversations. These tchatsoever bits and pieces that a story or a rule or a proverb might make intclligible fare used to formulate a recognizably coherent, standard, typical, cogent, uniform, planfal, te, a. professionally defensible, and thereby, for members, a recognizably rational account of how the society worked to produce those remains. Thi point will be easier to make if the reader will mult any standard textbook in forensic pathology. Init he wil fnd the inevitable photograph of victim with a slashed throat. Were the coroner to se that right” to ree: ‘ommend the equivocality ofthe mode of death be might say some: thing lke this: "In the case where a body looks lke the one in that, picture, you are looking at a suicidal death because the wound shows the ‘hesitation cus’ that accompany the great wound. One ‘ean imagine these euts are the remains ofa procedure whereby the tim frst made several preliminary trials of a hesitating sort and then performed the lethal shsh. Other courses of action are imag inabe, too, and so ents that look like hesitation cuts can be pro- duced by other mechanisms. One needs to start with the actual Aisplay and imagine how diferent courses of actions could havebeen organized such that that picture would be compatible with {One might think of the photographed display asa phase-of-the fction, In any actual display is there course of action with which that phase is uniquely compatible? That is the coroner's question.” "The coroner (and SPCers) ask this with respect to each partic~ ay ease, and thereby theie work of achieving practical decidabil- ity seems almost unavoidably to display the following prevailing land important characteristic, SPCers must accomplish that decid- bility ‘with respect t0 the “thiss": they have to start with this much, this sight; thie note; das clletion of whatever is at hand. ‘And whatever i there is good enowgh in the sense that whatever is there not only will 60, but dees. One makes whatever is there do, 1 do not mean by “making do” that an SPC investigator is too tly content, of thst he does nat look for more when he should. Thstead, I mean: the whatever its that he has to deal wit, that is what will have been ased to have found out, to have made de: Cable, the way in which the society operated to have produced that pictur, t0 have come to that scene as its end result, In this ‘way the remains on the sla serve not only as a precedent but as a foal of SPC inquiries. Whatsoecer SPC members are faced with fnust serve as the precedent with which to read the remains 0 35 to see how the solely could have operated to have produced what 4s atthe inquirer has “in the end,” “nthe Boal analysis” and “in ‘any case” What the inquiry can come to is what the death PRACTICAL SOCIOLOGICAL REASONING FOLLOWING CODING INSTRUCTIONS Several years go amy co-workers and I undertook to analyze the caperience of the U.CL.A. Outpatient Clinic ia order to answer the questions “By what eniteria ae its applicants selected for teat- ment?” To formulate and to aner this question we used a version fof e method of eohort analysis that Krasner and his associates * had tsed to deserbe load snd flow characteristics of patients in mental hospitals. (Chapters Six and Seven report furler aspects ofthis re- M1 Kramer, HL, Colisein RH, Il apd NA. Ihe, “Arians cf 1 EM Meth to the Stay of Monta. Haya Pepaltons, gchar Research Royo of te Amerson Phin Aneto, Tone, 1186, 9p. 878 : search) Suse ates of “et cata “ake inten ‘prveloial teing” “ihe eofeence “intestmeat ond Cla? wee cece wie ets ees teak Figure 1. Any path from est contact to termination was called a FIGURE 1, Creer paths of psians of payhonie ene We wished to know what characteristics of patients, of clinical ‘personnel, of their interactions, and of the tree were associated ‘with which careers. Clinic records were our sources of information, ‘the most important of which ware intake application forms and case folder contents. In order to obtain a continuing record of, ptient-clinc case transactions from the time of a patient’ inital contact until he terminated a “Clinic Career Form” was designed tnd inserted into ese folder Beas hint fldrs contin tee fords that clinic personnel provide of their own activites, almost all of these sources of data were the results of self-reporting Procedures, ‘Two graduate students in Sociology at UCLA. examined 1.552 lini folders for the information to complete the items of « Coding Sheet. A conventional reliabikty procedire was designed and con ducted with the aim of determining the amount of agreement between coders and hetwoen successive trials oftheir coding, Ac cording to conventional reasoning. the amount of agreement fur rishes one set of grounds for lending eredence to coded events 28 actual clinic events, A exitcal feature of conventional elabltymms rcpt noma spoken accomplish the cling. codes were assuming nowledge of the Saregama tionsinrat ens Shen ng wont Seater dak ce wees mice mean car re Se Tepes th i tle a Sonate erie ich aired en ac te wk soi eit ec imeeal 9 woe fase tars See here Scie nt en ay Ma oa era a ce areata spb mah tence cae ne Staaten ice ale Pn set new ee 2S rs a and “factum valet” (Le,, an action that i otherwise prokbited by 8 rule is counted correct once iti done). For convenience let me call these “ad hoc" considerations, and call thelr practice “ad hoe- Jing” Coders used the same adhoc considerations in order to ee. ognize the relevance of the coding istructions to the organized activities ofthe clini. Only when this relevance was cleat were the coders sitiied that the coding instructions analyzed sctally en- ‘countered folder contents so as to permit the coders to teat folder contents as reports of "real events” Finally, ad hoc considerations ‘were invariant features of the practices of “ollowing coding in- structions.” Attempts to suppress thes while retaining an unequit- ‘cal sense to the instructions produced bewilderment om their pat. Various facets of the "aes" reliability study were then devel: ‘oped, at frst in order to see if these results could be Bry estab lished, and after it was clear, to my satisfaction, that they could, 0 ‘exploit their consequences forthe general sociological character of the coders’ methods of interrogation (as well as contrasting meth- fds) as well as for the work that i involved in recognizing of claiming that something had been done by rule—that an action had followed or had been “governed” by instructions, ‘Ad hoc considerations are invariably relevant considerations in| Aeciding the it between what could be sead from the cline folders and what the coder inserted into the coding sheet. No matter how definitely and elaborately intractons had been writen, and de- spite the fact that strict actuarial coding rules could be form lated for every item, and with which folder contents could be mapped into the coding sheet, insofar as the lai had to be ed vanced that Coding Sheet entries reported real events of the clin {c's activites, then in every instance, nd for every item, “et cetera,” “unless” “let it pass” and “factum valet” accompanied the coders rasp of the coding instractions as ways of analyzing actual folder contents. Their use made it possible, es well, fr the coder to read 4 folders contents as a report about the events that the Coding Sheet provided and formulated as events of the processing tre. ‘Ordinarily researchers treat such ad hoc procedures as Hawesd "Davi Maras ml of an iefermatiosmathing game wa tke to de foe the, meng fant scan metho! ir Inerpsting” See Bl na gues and Anca Pico of See 3h Non sums oes feeding Os mite te ocanone fn whch “et cete td ta tacts though ad foe ese thi se wer Fi tc ck Sy ce Pe eee Se ran i gone ait te ha hie Seer Touch ir oon a tet heir teh so Fatieiahs cantina re mab Soe Beh Su nt ce a se may ede nea ely So ae rp rasemria hepa eee ry goat ine we i a a ie ce ae re ce a now ga oe Sate ae oe en ond te ee Ce a a fe Poe el nate Se Pe re oe ae id a se ab ace ae i ay sty oe), caper lr ms oe bac oon Se eel ee be folder. This he accomplishes in something like the way that one a ‘must know the orderly ways of English usage in order to recognize fn utterance as a word-n-Eaglsh or know the rules of « game to ‘make out s move-ina-game, given that altemative ways of making out an utterance or a board play are always imaginable. Thereby. the coder recognizes the folder content for “whet it actually fan “See what note inthe folder‘ really talking about’ Given tis, if the coder has to be satisfied that he has detected 8 real clinic occurrence, he must treat actual folder contents a3 standing, proxy for the soclalorderin-and-o-clinicactiviis, Ae tual folder contents stand to the socially ordered ways of eine activites as representations of them; they do nat describe the order, nor are they evidences ofthe order. Iti the coder’s use of folder documents as sign-functions to which I mean to. be pointing in saying that the coder must know the order ofthe clini activites that he i looking at in order to recognize the actual content as an appearance-ofthe-order. Once the coder can “soe the sytem” in the conten, iti possible forthe coder to extend and to otherwise Interpret the coding instructions—to ad hoe them=so a to mai tain the relevance ofthe coding instructions tothe actual contents, tnd in this way to formulate the sense of actual content 50 that it ‘meaning, even though it is transformed by the coding, is preserved inthe coder’ eyes as areal event ofthe clinic's actual activites, ‘There are several important consequences (1) Characteristcally, coded results would be treated as i they were disinterested descriptions of clinic events, and coding rules are presumed to back up the claim of disinterested description But if the work of ad hocing is required to make such cms intel Tigbl, ican always be anguedand so far I do not see a defensible reply—that the coded results consist of a persnasive version of the socially organized character of the clini’ operations, regardless of what the actual order is, peshapsivdependently of what the actual order is, and even without the investigator having. detected the sctual order. Instead of our study of patients clinic careers (a8 well, 85 the multitude of studies of various socal arrangements that have been carried out in similarly conventional ways) having deverbod the order ofthe clini’ operations, the account may be argued to consist of a socially invented, persuasive, and proper way of talk {ng about the elinic as an orderly enterprise, since “ater all” the sccount was produced by “Scentife procedures.” The account™ ries M emoneHoDo.oor would be itself part of the actual order of the clini’s operations, In much the same way that one might treat a person’ report on his own activities av a feature of his activites. The actual order would remain to be described (2) Another consequence arses when we ask what i to be made of the care that nevertheless so assiduoesly exercised in the de sign and vse of coding instructions for interrogating, actual con- tents and transforming them into the language of the coding sheet? If the resulting account is itself a feature of the clinic's activites, then perhaps one ought not read the coding instructions as a way of obtaining a scientife description of the clinic’ activities, since this assumes thatthe coding language, in what iti talking about, is independent of the interests of the members that are being ‘served in using it, Coding instrtions ought to be read instead as ‘consisting of a grammar of rhetoric; they furnish a “social seiencs” ‘way of talking so as to persuade consensus and action within the practical circumstances of the clin's organized daly activities, a {rasp of which members are expected to have asa matter ofcourse, By referring to an account ofthe eine that was obtained by fllow- ing’ coding instructions, i is posible for members with diferent Interests to persuade each other and to reconcile their talk about line affairs in an impersonal way, wile the matters that ate really being talked about retain their sense, for the “discussants” as a legitimate or illegitimate, a desiable or undesirable, an advan taged or dsadvantaged state of aflais forthe “discussants” in their ‘ceupatonal ives, It furnishes an impersonal way of character fing their afsirs without the members relinquishing important or- ‘anizationally determined interests in what the account, in their tyes is “after all” all about. What it all about isthe clini order ‘whove real features, a any member knows that Anyone Knows, are ilways none of somebod)-else-inthat organization's busines. PRACTICAL SOCIOLOGICAL REASONING: COMMON UNDERSTANDING Sociologists distinguish the “product” from the “process” mean Ings of a common understanding, Ax “produc,” a common under- standing is thought to consist of shared agreement on substantive Inatters, a8 “process,” consists of various methods whereby some- thing that a penton says dos scout ace wth Ta iit Rogen an Verena dt Charter ao method aid ewledge, Weber proved soya an authority for this distinction. = provided siete A atlas of sudet experiences in reporting commonplace comeraton igget tse ether te or “poco po js common nding cms of anne enpor ose oF meet work. The expences suet sme Series segues he fac that ae ees omen ending, Se essary an operation str {i Caer Teo orth npr in wich tents wer sshd orp comton converts by og 08 he I de 8 hot at he prs sty dtl one gt ae they and trp ware the) wee big aoa, Te flog cllany pred ere vwsuaxn: Dana succeeded in This afternoon as Twas bring ptting’a penny ining Dana, our four-year-old son, A parking meter to- home from the nursery school, ay without being he succeeded in reaching, high picked up, enough to puta penny in 8 parking meter when we parked fn meter zone, whereas before he had always had to be picked up to reach that high, wore: Did you take him to Since he put a penny in a meter the record store? that means that you stopped while he was with you. 1 know that you stopped atthe record store either on the way to set him or on the way back. Was on the way back that he ‘was with you or did you sop there onthe way to get him and. somewhere ole on the way Tack? ossaxp: No, to the shoe repair No, I stopped atthe record store shop. fon the way ta get him and stopped atthe shoe repir shop con the way home when he was ‘with me,% uot IN eHROMETHODOLOOY 1 know of one reson why you raight have stopped at thoe repair shop. Why did you infact? warn; What for? ossaxo: [got some new shoe As you will remember I broke a Iaces for my shoes. shoe lace on one of my brown ‘oxfords the other day so T ‘Hopped to get some new laces. wore: Your loafers need Something ese you could have new heels badly. gotten that T was thinking of. You could have taken in your black loafers which need heels badly. You'd better get them taken care of petty Soon. Students filed out the left side ofthe sheet quickly and easily, Dut found the right side incomparably more dificult. When the assignment was made, many asked how much I wanted them to write. AS T progressively imposed accuray, carty, and distinet- hese, the task became incressingly laborious. Finally, when T re (ured that they assume T would know what they had) actualy talked about ony from reading Iterally what they wrote literally, they gave up with the complaint that the task was impossible “Although their complaints were concerned with the laborious: ness of having to wite “more, the frustrating “more” was not made up of the lage labor of having to reduce a mountain with Duckets. Tt was not their complaint that what was talked about ccosited of bounded contents made so vast by pedantry that they Ticked sulfeient time, stamina, paper, drive, or good reason to write “ell of ik Instead, the complaint and is circumstances Seemed to consist of this f, for whatever a student wrote, 1 was Able to persuade him that & 88 not yet accurate, distinc, or clear foush, and if he remained wiling to repair the ambiguity, then fhe retumed to the task with the compat that the writing itself developed the conversation as branching texture of relevant mat {ers The very way of accomplishing the tsk anutipied ts Features, ‘What task had 1 set them such tha it required that they waite more"; such that the progressive imposition of accuracy, clarity, and literalness made it iereasingly dificult and fnally impossib 7 and such that the way of accomplishing the task mutplied its features? If 4 common understanding consisted of shaned agree- rent on substantive matters,their task woukd have been identical With one that profesional sociologists supposedly address The tsk ‘would have been solved at professional socilogits are apt to pro pote its solution, as follows Students would fst distinguish what was said from what was talked about, and set the two contents into a correspondence of sign and referent, What the porties said would be treated as a sketchy, partial, incomplete, masked, elliptical, concealed, ambig tous, oF misleading version of what the partie talked about. The task would consist of filling out the sketchiness of what was s3 What was talked shout would consist of elaborated and come: sponding contents of what the parties said. Thus the format of Jeftand right hand columns would accord with the “fet” that the contents of what was said were recordable by writing what tape recorder would pick up. The right hand column would require that something "more" be “added.” Because the sketchiness of what was said was its defect, it would be necessary for students to look ete: ‘where than to what was said in order (4) to find the correspond Ing contents, and (b) to find the grounds to argue—becsuse they would need to argue—for the corrtness of the correspondence. Because they were reporting the actual conversation of particular persous, they would look for these farther contents what the conversitonalist had “in mind” or what they were “thinking.” or what they “believed” or what they “intended.” Furthermore, they ‘would need to be assured that they had detected. what the con Yersationalists actually, and not supposedly, hypothetically, image Inably, or possibly had in mind. That is to say, they would need to cite observed actionsobserved ways that the parties conducted themselves-in order to furnish grounds forthe claim of “actually.” ‘This assurance would be obtained by secking to establish the presence, in the conversational” relationship, of warranting ve- tues such as thir having spoken honestly, openly, candidly, sin cerely, and the like. All of which is to say that stents would invoke thelr knowledge of the community of understandings, end thelr knowledge of shared agreements to recommend the adequacy of their accounts of what the partis had been talking about, ie, ‘what the parties understood in common. Then, for anything thestudents wrote, they could assume that I, as a competent co. member of the stme community (the conversations were afterall Commonplace) should be able to see the correspondence and its grounds, 1 did not see the correspondence or if I made out the fontents diferently than they did, then as long as they could con tinue to assume my competencete,, as long as my alterative Interpretations did not undermine my right to claim that such alter natives needed to be taken seriously by them and by me-I could ‘be matte out by the students as insisting that they Furnish me with finer detailing than practical considerations required. In such case they should have charged me with blind pedantry and should hhave complained that because “anyone can see” when, forall prac tical purposes, enough is enough, none are so blind as those who sell not se. “This version of their task accounts fr their complaints of having to-write “more.” It allo accounts for the task’ increasing laborious: nes when elarity and the like were progressively imposed. But it {doesnot account very well forthe inal impossibly, for it explains fone facet ofthe task’ “impossibility” as students’ unwillingness to {go any further, but it does not explain an accompanying sense, thames, that stidents somehow saw thatthe tsk was, in principle, ‘unsccompishable, Finally, this version of their tsk does not ex plain at all their complaint that the way of accomplishing the task tnulkplied its features. "An alternative conception of the task may do better. Although it may at frst appear strange todo so, suppose we drop the asump- tion that in order to describe a usage as a feature of a community fof understandings we must atthe outset know what the substantive ‘Common understandings consist of, With i, drop the assumptions focompanying theory of signs, according to which a “sign” and “ref- ferent” are respectively properties of something said and some- thing talked about, and which in his fashion proposes sign and referent to be related as corresponding contents. By dropping such {theory of signs we drop aswell, thereby, the possibility that an invoked shared agreement on substantive matters explains a usage 1 these notions are dropped, then what the partes talked about could not be distinguished from how the partes were speaking. An txplanation of what the parties were talking about would then con- Sst entirely of deseribing how the partes had been speaking: of furnishing a method for saying whatever isto be sad, like talking ‘gnmonymousl, talking lronieally, talking metaphorically, talking cepticaly, taking nareatively, talking in a questioning or answer ing way, lying, glossing, double-talking, and the ret In the place of and in contrast to « concer for a difference be tween what was said and what was talked about, the appropriate difference is between a language-community member's recognition that person is saying something, te, that he was speaking, on the ‘one hand, and how he was speaking on the ether. Then the recog nized sense of what a person said consists only and ently in recognizing the method of his speaking, of seeing howe he spoke. T suggest that one not read the right hand column as correspond ing contents of the let, and thatthe students’ task of explaining ‘what the conversationalists talked about did not involve them in laborating the contents of what the conversationalists sai Tsug- fest, instead, that their written explanations consisted of their attmpts to instruct me in how to use what the parties suid as @ method for seeing what the converstionalists sai. T suggest that Thad asked the students to furaish me with instructions for recog nizing what the partis were actually and certainly saying. BY persuading them of altemative “interpretations.” by insisting that ambiguity stil remained, I had. persuaded them that they had demonstrated to me only what the parties were supposedly, or probably, or imaginably, or hypothetically saying. They took this 0 mean that their insructions were incomplete; that their demon- stratons failed by the extent to which thei instructions were in- complete: and thet the diference between claims of actully” and “mupposely” depended on the completeness of the ntructions, We now see what the task was that required them to wite “more.” that they found increasingly dificult snd fnally impossible, and that became elaborated in its features by the very procedures for doing it. Thad set them the task of formulating these instruc: tions so as to make them “increasingly” accurate, clear, distinct, and finally literal where the meanings of “increasingly” and of clarity, acuraey, distinctness, and literalness were supposedly ex- plained in terms of the properties of the instructions themselves and the instructions alone. I had required them to take om the in possible task of “repairing” the essential incompleteness of any set of instructions no matter how carefully or elaborately waiten they20 nies IN EmINOMEHODOLOOT might be, I had required them to formulate the method that the parties had used in speaking as rules of procedure to follow in ‘rd to say what the partes sai, rules that would withstand every txigency of situation, imagination, and development. I bad asked them to describe the partes’ methods of speaking as if these meth- fds were somorphie with actions in strict compliance with a rule Of procedure that formulated the method as an instructable matter. ‘To recognize what is stid- meant to recognize how a person is Speaking, ee, to recognize that the wife in saying “your shoes need heels badly” was speaking aaratively, oF metaphorically, oF ‘euphemisticlly, or doubletalking. "They stumbled over the fact thatthe question of how a person fs speaking, the task of describing a person's method of speaking, {s not saisied by, and {snot the sume as showing that what he ‘aid accords with a rule for demonstrating consistency, compati- bility, and coherence of meanings. For the conduct of thelr everyday affairs, persons take for granted that what is said will be made out according to methods thatthe parties use to make out what they are saying for its clear, fonstent, coherent, understandable, or planful character, é2, as Subject to some rules furisdition—in @ word, as rational, To see the “sense” of what is suid isto accord 9 what was sald its char liter “as a rule” “Shared agreement™ refers to various social meth ‘ods for accomplishing the members recognition that something eas Uaidacording-o-arule and not the demonstrable matching of sub- Stance matter. The appropriate image of a common understand. ing is therefore an operation rather than 4 common intersection of overlapping sets. "A person doing sociology, be it lay or professional sociology, ‘ean treat a common understanding as a shared agreement on sub- Santive matter by taking for granted that what i said will be made out in accordance with methods that need not be specified, ‘which isto say that need only be specified on “special” occasions. ‘Given the discovering character of what the husband and wife were talking about, its recognizable character for both entailed ‘he use by each and the attribution by each to the other of work ‘whereby what was said is or will have been understood to have Tecorded with their relationship of interaction as an involable rule Of their agreement, as an intersubjectvely sed grammatical a scheme for analyzing each others tek whose use provided that they would understand each other in ways that they would be un- derstood. It provides that nether one was entitled to call upon the other to specify how st was being done; nether one was entitled to claim that the other needed to “explain” himself In short, a common understanding, entailing a t does an “inner temporal course of interpretive work, necessarily has an operational structure. For the analyst to disregard its operational structure, 8 to use common sense knowledge of the society in exactly the ways that members use it when they must decide what persons are really doing or rally “king about” ‘logy-are aquired and assured only through particular, located ‘organizations of artful practices. (2) Members to an organized arrangement are continually en: gaged in having to decide, recognize, persuade, or make evident the rational, fe, the coberent, or consistent, or chosen, or planful, for effective, or methodical, or knowledgeable character of such Sctvities of their inquiries as counting, graphing, interogation, ‘Sampling, recording, reporting, planning, decision-making, and the rest It isnot sitisfactory to describe how actual investigative pro edures, as constituent features of members’ ordinary and o ganized affairs, are accomplished by members as recognizedly {ational actions im actual occasions of organizational circumstances by saying that members invoke some rule with which to define the a ‘coherent or consistent or plnful, ie, rational, character of thls actual activities. Nor is it satisfactory to propose that the rational properties of members’ inquires are produced by members’ com- Pliance to rules of ingulry. Instead, “adequate demonstration,” Fadequate reporting.” “saicent evidence,” "plain talk” “making too much of the record,” “necessary inference,” “frame of restricted altematives,” in short, every topic of “logic” and “methodology,” including thete two tiles as well, are glosses for organizational phenomena. These phenomena are contingent achievements of of fanizations of common practices, and as contingent achievements they aze variously avaiable to members as norms, tasks, roubles. (Only in these ways rather than as invariant categories or as general principles do they define “adequate ingury and discourse.” (3) Thus, a leading policy isto refuse serious consideration to the prevaling proposal that eficiney, efficacy, effectiveness, tel Higibility, consistency, planfulnes, typicality, uniformity, repro ucbility of activites-Le., that rational properties of practical Actvities-be assessed, recognized, categorized, described by using fre or a standard obtained outside actual settings within which such properties are recognized, used, produced, and talked sbout by settings’ members. All procedures whereby logical and method- ‘logical properties of the practices and results of inguiies are assessed in thelr general characteristics by rule are of interest a phenomena for ethnomethodologieal study but not otherwise Structurally difering organized practical activities of everyday life are to be sought out and examined for the production, origins, recognition, and representations of rational practices, All "logial” and “methodological” properties of scton, every feature of an actvitys sense, facticty, objectivity, accountability, communality {i to be treated as a contingent accomplishment of socially organ- ized common practices, (4). The policy is recommended that any’ social setting be wiewed as self-organizing with respect to the intelligible charscter oF is own appearances as ether representations of of as evidences ‘of-asocial-order. Any setting organizes its activities to make its ‘properties as an organized environment of practical activities de- tectable, countable, recordable, reportable, tell-a-story-abovtable, analyzable~in shot, accountable. ‘Organized social arrangements consist of various methods foraccomplishing the accountabity of « settings’ organizational ways fs.a concerted undertaking, Every claim by practitioners of effec: tiveness, clarity, consistency, planfulnes, or eflciency, and every consideration for adequate evidence, demonstration, description, fr relevance obtains itschatacter asa phenomenon from the coxpo> te pursuit of this undertaking and from the ways ia which var (us Organizational environments, by reason of their characteristics fs organizations of sctivities, “wustain” “facta,” “resist,” ee. these methods for making their affairs accountable mattersforall- practical: purposes Tn exactly the ways that a setting is organized, it consists of ‘members’ methods for making evident that settings” ways as cleat, Coherent, planfl, consistent, chosen, knowable, uniform, reproduc. {ble connections,-ie, rational conncetions. In exactly the way that persons are members to organized affairs, they are engaged in Serious and practical work of detecting, demonstrating, persuading through displays in the ordinary occasions of their interactions the appearances of consistent, coherent, cleat, chosen, planful arrange tents, In exacly the ways in which a setting is organized, it con- tists of methods whercby its members are provided with accounts of the seting as countable, storyable, proverbial, comparable, pic- tumble, representable~te,, accountable events, (3) Every kind of inquiry without exception consists of or- ‘ganized artful practices whereby the rational properties of prov- ferbs, partially formulated advice, partial description, elliptical frpressons, passing remark, fables, cautionary tales, and the like fre made evident, are demonstrated "The demonstrably rational properties of indexical expressions and indexical actions is an ongoing achievement of the organized Activities of everyday Mfe. Here is the heart of the matter. The ‘managed production of this Phenomenon in every aspect, from very perspective, and in ever stage retains the character for mem. bere of serious, practical tasks, subject to every exigency of or {ganizationaly situated conduct. Each of the papers inthis volume, dn one way or another, recommends that phenomenon for profes: sonal sociological analysis Two Studies of the routine grounds of everyday activities The problem For Kant the moral order “within” was an awesome mystery, for sociologists the moral order “without” is a technical mystery. From the point of view of sociological theory the moral order con- sists of the rule governed activities of everyday lie. A society's members encounter and know the moral order as perceivedly nor- ‘mal courses of action-familiar scenes of everyday affairs, the ‘world of daly fe known in common with others and with others taken for wanted, ‘They reler to this world the “natural facts of He" which, for members, ae throwgh and through moral facts of life. For mem- bers not only are matters so about familia seenes, but they are so Dpecause i is morally right or wrong, that they are so. Pamir scenes of everyday activites, treated by members as the “natural facts of life” are massive facts of the members’ daily existence both ar res) world and asthe product of activities ip a real word, ‘They furnish the "ix." the "this eit” to which the walking tate re- tums one, and are the points of departure ond retum for every rmodieation of the world of daily life that is achioved in play, reaming, trance, theater, sclentiie theorizing, or high ceremons.36 swiss emNOMETHODOLODY In every discipline, humanistic oF scent, the familia common sense work! of everyday life ie a matter of abiding interest. In the socialsciences, and in sociology particulary, ss a matter of ‘esenial preoccupation. It makes up sociology’ problematic sub- ject matter, enters the very constitution of the Sociological attitude, tnd exercises an odd and obstinate sovereignty over sociologist claims t9 adequate explanation Despite the topics centlity, an immense literature contains little data and few methods with which the essential features of socially recognized “familiar scenes” may be detected and related to dimensions of social organization. Although socologits take socally structured scenes of everyday lfe as a point of departure they mrely se, ar task of sociological inquiry in its own right, the general question of how any such common sense world is pos sible: Instead, the possibilty of the everyday world is either set- ted by theoretical representation or merely assumed. AS © topic land methodological ground for sociological inquiries, the definition (ofthe common senso world of everyday lif, though itis appropr- ltely a project of sociological inquiry, has been neglected. My ‘purposes in this paper are to demonstrate the essential relevance, fo sociological inquiries, of a concer for common sense activities 25 topic of inquiry ints own right and, by reporting a series of suds, to urge its “rediscovery.” Moking commonplace seenes visible {In accounting for the stable features of everyday activites soci- ‘logists commonly select familiar settings such a5 familial house- Tolls or work places and ask forthe variables that contribute to their stable features, Just as commonly, one set of considerations tte unexamined: the socially standardized and standardizing, “seen ‘but unnoticed,” expected, background features of everyday scenes. The member of the society uses background expectancies as a scheme of interpretation, With their use actual appearances are for hima recognizable and intelligible as the appearances of fa milige-events, Demonstrably he #8 responsive to this background, 1 The work of Ald Sct td i fons 2, i « magica ercep- ton, Reade wh ace sented wth wits wl gaze how ey 1 per adhd 7 while atthe same time he sat loss to tel us specially of what the expectancies consist. When we ask him about them he hat Title or nothing to say. For these background expectancies to come into view one must cither be a stranger to the "Me as usual” character of everyday scenes, ar become estranged from them. As Alfred Schut2 pointed ‘ut, a "special motive” is required to make them problemati. Ia the sociologists’ case this “special motive” consists in the program. mati tack of treating a societal members practical circumstances, ‘which include from the members point af view the morally neces- sary character of many’ of its backround features, as matters of theoretic interest. The seen but unnoticed backgrounds of every= day activities are made visible and are described from a perspec. tive in which persone live out the lives they do, have the children they do, fool the felings, think the thoughts, enter the relation ships they do, alin order to pennit the sociologist to solve his theoretical problems, ‘Almost alone among sociological theorists, the late Alfred Schutz, in series oF classical sties ofthe consittive phenom- «nology of the world of everyday life, desribed many of these seen ‘but unnoticed background expectancies. He called them the “ati- tude of daily if.” He refered to thelr scenie attebutions as the “world known in common and taken for granted.” Schute’funda- mental work makes it possible to pursue further the tasks of cla fying their nature and operation, of relating them tothe processes of concerted actions, and essigning them their place in an empirically Jmaginable society "The studies reported in this paper attempt to detect some ex: pectancies that Tend commonplace scenes their familiar, Iifo-ae ‘usual charaeter, and to relate these to the stable social structures ‘of everyday activities. Procedurally it is my preference to start with familiar scenes and ask what ean be done to make trouble. The ‘operations that one would have to perform in order to muliply the senscless features of perceived environments; to produce and 4 Ae Sate, De Sl fou Det Srey Wel (Wen: Va van is Sct, Colca opr The Palo cal es. i Macs Nee Ha ri id yale Pope Niet 180th; Collet Paps Sader m Penomewoorad Pog, SS ie age Mins Ni, oe)sustain bewilderment, consternation, and confusion; to produce the socially structured alfects of sniety, shame, gu, and indigna- tion: aud to produce disorganized interaction should tell us some- ‘thing about how the structures of everyday activities are ordinarily tnd routinely produced and maintained ® "A word of reservation, Despite their procedural emphasis, my studies are not properly speaking experimental. They are demon trations, designed, in Herbert Spiegelbeeg’s phrase, as “aids to a Siuggish imagination.” T have found that they produce reflections ‘hough which the stringeness of an obstinately familiar world can be detected, ‘Some essential features of common understandings Various considerations dictate that common understandings can rot possibly consist of a measured amount of shared agreement [mong persons on certain topics, Even ifthe topics are limited in ‘number and scope and every practical dificulty of assessment is forgiven, the notion that we are dealing with an amount of shared fagreement remains essentially incorrect. This may be demon strated as follows ‘Students were asked to report common conversations by writ. ing on the left side of a sheet what the parties actualy said and fon the right side what they and their partners understood that they were talking about. A student reported the following colloquy between himself snd hi wile sesno: Dana suceeded inhi fternon a Las bringing iting a penny in Dan, vr four-year-old 00, Parking meter today, home from the nursery school hout being picked he succeeded in reaching high o {hough fo pot penny ina purbng meter when ‘we poked Ie meter parking one, whereas beove he has abvays Tin to be plcked up to reach that high Obvenl, a knowles of tow the srr of tua aves are ast peolcol thai pest ty toll hom we mht pron! fr the Reve proacn of deed dram » wire: Did you take him to Since he put a penny fo a meter the record store? that means that you stopped while he was with you, Tow that you stopped at the record ‘ore either on the way to {et him or on the way Back. Was fon the way back, 50 that he was with you or did you sop there onthe way to get him and somewhere ele on the way back? usnann: No, to the shoe No, stopped atthe record store separ shop. fom the way to get hin and Stopped atthe shoe ropa otheway tome mene was vk me wore: What or? hoo of one reson why you rnght have stopped st the Sepa chp Wy dd you srsmunm: 1 got some new As you will remember I broke a shoe fees for my shoelace on one amy brown hoes. taxfords the other day 501 stopped to get some nev laces. wun: Your loafers need Something ele you could have new heels badly. gotten that Twas thinking of You could have token in your blick Toafers which need Ihels badly. You'd better get them taken cate of pretty soon, ‘An examination of the colloquy reveals the following. (a) There ‘were many matter that the partners undertood they were tlle {ng about that they did not mention. (b) Many matters that the partners understood were understood on the basis not only of what was actually said but what was left unspoken. (e) Many matters were understood through 4 process of attending to the temporal series of utterances as documentary evidences of 4 developing con versation rather than as a string of terms. (d) Matter that the ‘wo understood in commen were understood only in and through‘0 soles N emmonemoooicoy 1 course of understanding work that consisted of testing an actual Iinguistic event as “the document of.” as "pointing to,” as standing fon behalf of an underlying patter of matters that each already ‘supposed to be the matter that the person, by his speaking, could be telling the other about. The underlying pattern was aot only derived from a course of individyal documentary evidences ut the documentary evidences in their tom were interpreted on the basis of “what wes known” and antcipatorly knowable about the underlying patteras’ Each was used to elaborate the other. (e) In attending to the utterances as events the-converstion each party made references to the biography and prospects of the present interaction which each used and attributed to the other as a com- ‘mon scheme of interpretation and expression. (f) Each waited for Something more to be suid in order to hear what had previously been talked about, and each seemed willing to wat. ‘Common understandings would consist of 8 measured amount fof shared agreement i the common understandings consisted of ‘events coordinated with the successive positions of the hands of the clock, ie, of events in standard time. The foregoing results, Deeause they deal with the exchanges of the colloquy as event cconversation, ange that one more tne parameter, at Teast, 1s ‘equlted; the role of time asi is constitutive of "the matter tlk bout” as a developing and developed event over the course of faction that produced i, as both the process and product were known from within this development by both parties, each for Iimself ae well ae on bebalf of the other "The colloquy seveals additional features, (1) Many of its ex- pressions are rich that their sense cannot be decided by an auditor Unless he Knows or assumes something about the biography and the purposes of the speaker, the circumstances of the utterance, the previous coutse of the conversation, or the particular relation: ship of scteal or potential teraction that exists between user and ‘andor. The expressions do not have a sense that remains identical ‘through the changing. ocosions of their se. (2) The events that were talked about were specially vague. Nt only do they not “karl Mannheim nhs ey “On the Interpretation of Welch (in nas the Stsigy of Kewl, anand od Pua Reem (New eat Onley Pro 1082, 3353), reed fo this wok asthe "Secs tn ew dl a Coie a frame a cleanly restricted set of possible detenminations but the Aepicted events include as their essentially intended and sanc- tioned features an accompanying “fringe” of determinations that fare open with respect to intemal relationships, relationships to ther events, and relationships to retrospective! and prospective possibilities. (3) For the sensible charaeter of an expression, upon As occurrence each of the conversationalists as auditor of his own, 15 well as the other's productions had to assume as of any present accomplished point in the exchange that by waiting for what he for the other person might have said st a later time the present significance of what had already been said would hve been lar fied. Thus many expressions had the property of being. progres sively realized and realizable through the further eourse of the conversation, (4) It hardly needs to be pointed out that the sense of the expressions depended upon where the expression occurred In serial order, the expressive character ofthe terms tht comprised it, and the importance #0 the conversationalits of the events depicted “These properties of common understandings stand sn contrat to the features they would have if we disregarded their temporally ‘constituted character and treated them instead as precaded entries fon a memory drum, to be consulted as a definite set of alterative ‘meanings from among which one was to select, under predecided conditions that specified in which of some set of alRerative ways fone was to understand the situation upon the occasion that the necessity for a. decision arose, The latter properties are those of Strict rational discourse as these are idealized in the rules that de fine an adequate logical proo. 'For the purpose of conducting their everyday offi persons refuse to permit each other to understand "what they are realy talking about” inthis way. The antiipation that persons will under. stand, the occasionality of expressions, the specific vagueness of references, the retrospective-prospectve sense of a present occur rence, waiting for something later in order to see what was meant before, are sanctioned properties of common discourse. They fur nish a backround of seen but unnoticed features of common die ‘course whereby actual utterances are recognized as events of comm ‘mon, reasonable, understandable, plain talk, Persons require these ‘properties of discourse as conditions under which they are thema spies IN erINoMeHO90L06y selves entitled snd entitle others to claim that they know what they are talking about, and that what they are saying i under standable and ought to be vnderstood. In short, their seen but ‘unnoticed presence is used to entitle persons to conduct thelr com- ‘mon conversational alfairs without interference. Departures from Such usages call forth innediate attempt to restore aright state of asin, ‘The sanctioned character of these properties i demonstrable at follows, Students were instricted €9 engage an scqsintance or & fiend in an ordinary conversation and, without indicating that ‘what the experimenter was asking was in any way unusual, to in sist thatthe person clay the sense of his commonplace remarks ‘Twenty-three students reported twenty-fve instances of such en: counters. The following are typicel excerpts from their accounts case 1 “The subject was telling the experimenter, a member ofthe sub- fects car pool, about having had a Hat tire while going to work the previous day. (8) Thad a ft tire (E) What do you mean, you had a fat tro? She appeared momentarily stunned. Then she answered in a hostile way: "What do you mean, “What do you mean?” A #at tire 4 a fat tre, That is what I meant, Nothing special. What a czy question!” case 2 (S) Hi, Ray. How is your gil friend feeling? (E) What do you mean, “How is she feeling?” Do you mean physical of mental? (5) I mean how is she feeling? What's the matter with you? (He looked peeved.) (E) Nothing Just explain a lite clearer what do you mean? (5) Skip it How are your Med School applications coming? (2) What do you mean, “ow are they?” (8) You know what T mean, (2) I really don't (S) Whats the matter with you? Ate you sick? CASE "On Friday night my husband and I were watehing television. My hosband remarked that he was tired, | asked, “How are you tired? Physically, mentally, or just bored?” (8) T don't know, 1 guess physically, mainly (5) You mean that your muscles ache or your bones? (5) T guess so. Don't be so technica (After more watching) (8) All these old movies have the same kind of old iron bed- stead in them (5) What do you mean? Do you mean all od movies, o some ‘of them, or just the ones you have seen? (S) What’ the matter with you? You know what I mean, (2) Lwish you would be more specif. (5) You know what 1 mean! Drop dead! CASE 4 During a conversation (with the E's female Sancee) the E ‘questioned the meaning of various words used by the subject For the frst minote and a half the subject responded to the questions as if they were legitimate inquiries. Then she re. Sponded with “Why are you asking me those questions” and repeated this two or three times after each question. She be- fame nervous and jittery, her face and hand movements Uncontrolled. She appeared bewildered and complained that vas making her nervous and demandod that I “Stop it Tho subject picked up a magszine and covered her face Sho ppat down the magazine and pretended to be engrossed, When shed why she was ooking at the magazine she closed her ‘mouth and refused any further remaks CASE 5 My fiend said to me, “Hurry or we will be late” I asked hi ‘what did he mean by late and from what point of view did it have“ stuns eTinoueT#oo0L00Y ‘reference, There was a Took of perplexity and cynicism om his face. “Why are you asking me such silly questions? Surely I don't have to explain such a statement, What is wrong with you today? Why should Thave to stop to analyze sucha statement? Everyone under- stands my statements and you should be no exception!” case 6 ‘The victim waved his hand cheery. (S) How are you? (E) How am I in regard to whit? My health, my finances, my School work, my peace of mind, my’... {5} (Red in the face apd suddenly out of control) Look! 1 was just tying to be polite. Frankly, I don't give a dam hhow you are case 7 My frond and 1 were talking about a man whoso overbearing attitude annoyed us My friend expressed his feling. (S) Tm sick of him (E) Would you explain what is wrong with you that you are sick? (8) Are you Kidding me? You know what ¥ mean, (E) Please explain your atiment, (8) (He listened to me with a puzzled look.) What came over you? We never talk thi way, do we? Background understandings and “adequate” recognition of commonplace events What kinds of expectancies make up a “seen but unnoticed” background of common understandings, and how ate they related to persons! recognition of stable courses of interpersonal transae- tons? Some information can be obtained if we ft ask how a per- son will look at an ordinary and familiar scene and what will he ‘soe in it ifwe require of him that he do no more than look st it ‘something that for him i “obviously” and “eally” isnot 4s Undergraduate students were assigned the tak of spending from Bfteen minutes to an hour in their homes viewing its acttes ‘while assuming that they’ were boarders in the household, They were instructed not to act out the assimption. Thirty-three ste ‘dents reported their experiences, In their writen reports students “behaviorized” the household scenes, Here 18 an excerpt from one account to ilstrate my resning ‘A short, stout man entered the house, Kissed me on the ‘cheek and asked, “How was school” I answered politely. He Wwalked into the kitchen, kised. the younger of the ‘wo ‘women, and ssid hella to the other, The younger woman {sked me, “What do you want for dinner, honey?" T answered, “Nothing.” She shrugged her shoulders and said ‘no more, ‘The older woman shuld around the kitchen muttering, The man washed his hands, sat down at the table, and picked up the paper. He read until the two women had finished putting the food on the table. The three sit down, They exchanged {dle chatter about the day's events. The older woran sid something in a foreign language which made the others laugh. Persons, relationships, and activities were described without re- spect for their history, for the place of the scene in a st of devel oping life cizcumstances, or for the scenes as texture of relevant events forthe parties themselves. References to motives, propriety, subjectivity generally, and the socially standardized character of the events were omitted. Descriptions might be thought of as those of a keyhole observer who puts aside much of what he knows in ccomnon with subjeets about the scenes he i looking a, as i the ‘writer had witnessed the scenes under a mild amnesia for his com: smon sense knowledge of socal structures. ‘Students were surprised to see the ways In which member treatments of each other were personal. The business of one was treated asthe business of the others. A person being enticized was unable to stand on dignity and was prevented by the others from taking offense. One student reported her surprise at how freely she had the run of the house. Displays of conduct and feeling fceurred without apparent concem for the management of im: pressions. Table manners were bad, and family members showed4“ sums 1 emNOMETHODOLOOY tech other litle politeness. An cary casualty in the scene was the faily news of the day which turned into trivial tlk ‘Students reported that this way’ of looking was dificult to sus tain. Familiar objectepersons obviously, but furuture and room arrangements as well-tessted students’ efforts to think of them. Selves as strangers. Many became sincomfortably aware of how habitual movements were being made, of how one was handling the sverware, or how one opened a door or greeted another mem ber. Many reported thatthe attitude was dificult to sustain because with it quareling bickering and hostile motivations became di fomftingly visible. Frequently on account that recited newly vis. thle troubles was accompanied by the student's assertion that his scout of faly problems was nota “true” picture; the family was ‘ally 4 very happy one, Several students reported mildly oppres- Sve feeling of “conforming to a part” Several students attempted to formulate the "real me” as activites governed by rules of con- duct but gave # up as a bad job. They found i more convincing to think of thenselves in “usual” cicumstances a “being one’s real self” Nevertheless one student was intrigued with how deliby ferately and succesfully he could predict the other's responses t0 his actos, He was not troubled by this feeling ‘Many accounts reported a variation on the theme: “I was glad ‘when the hour was up and I could return tothe real me. Students were convinced that the view from the boarders ati tude wis not their real home environment. The boarders attitude produced appearances which they discounted as interesting incon grities of litle and misleading practical import. How had the familiar ways of looking at their home environments been altered? How did ther looking ifr from usual? Several contrasts to the “usual” and “required” way of looking are detectable from theie accounts. (1) In looking at their homes, fs boarders they replaced the mutually recognized texture of events ‘with a role of interpretation which required that this mutual tex. tute be temporarily disregarded. (2) The mutually recognized texture was brought under the jurisdiction of the new attitude as 4 definition ofthe essential structures of this texture, (3) This wae done by engaging in interaction with others with an atutude whose ‘ature and purpose only the user knew about, that remained nds: Closed, that could be either adopted or put aside ata time of the PARTASL EL) o & a user's own choosing, and wat a matter of wilful election, (4) The attitude as an intention was sustained as a matter of personal and willed compliance with an explicit and single rule, (5) in which, Tike a game, the goal of the intention was identical with looking at things under the auspices of the single rule itself. (6). Above ooking was not bound by any necessity for geasing one's inter- ‘ests within the attitude to the actions of others. These were the matters that students found strange ‘When students sed these background expectancies not only as ways of looking at familial scenes but as grounds for acting in them, the scenes exploded with the bewilderment and anger of family members. In another procedure students wore asked to spend from Steen minutes to an hour in their homes imagining that they were board ers and acting out this assumption. They were instructed to conduct themselves ina cieumspect and polite fashion. They were to avoid getting personal, to use formal addvess, to speak only when spoken to. Tn nine of forty-nine cases students cither refused to do the assignment (Ave eases) of the try was “unsuccessful” (four cases) Four ofthe "no try” students said they were afraid to doi; fith ‘tid she preferred to avoid the risk of exciting her mother who had a heart condition. In two of the “unsuecesful” eases the family ‘treated it asa joke from the boginning and refused despite the com tinuing actions of the student to change. A third family took the view that something undislosed was the mater, but what it might bbe was of no concer to them. In the fourth family the father and mother remarked that the daughter was being “extra nice” and undoubtedly wanted something that she would shortly ceveal Tn the remaining four-fiths of the cases family members were stupefled. They vigorously sought to make the strange action i teligible and to restore the situation to normal sppearances. Re ports were filled with accounts of astonishment, bewilderment, shock, anxiety, embarrassment, and anger, and with charges by. various family members thatthe student was mean, inconsiderate, sellsh, nasty, or impolite. Family members demanded explans. tons: ‘Whats the matter? What's gotten into you? Did you get fred? Are you sick? What are you being s0 superior about? Why fare you mad? Are you out of your mind or are you just stupid? One4 supe my enNoMETHODOLOSY student acutely embarrassed his mother in front of her frends by faking if she minded if he had a snack fom the refrigerator. “Mind you have a litle snack? You've been eating litle snacks around Therefor years without asking me. What's goten into you?” One tmother, afurated when her daughter spoke to her only when she ‘ras spoken fo, begun to shriek in angry denunciation of the daugh ler for hee disespect and insubordination ‘and refused to be falmed by the students sister. A father berated his daughter for Ding insufiiently concemed for the welfare of others and of acting like a spoiled ebild ‘Occasionally family members would Brst teat the stodent’s ac- tion as a cue fora joint comedy’ routine which was soon replaced by ititation and exasperated anger atthe student for not knowing. ‘when enough was enough. Family members mocked the “polte- hes” of the students~"Certainly Mr. Herzberg!"—or charged the Student with acting like a wise guy and generally reproved the “politeness” with sateasn. “Explanations were sought in previows, understandable motives ‘of the student: the student was “working too hard” in schoo; the Student was “ll”, there had been “another fight" with a fiancee. When offered explanations by family members went unacknowl- edged, there followed withdrawal by the offended member, at- tempted isolation of the culpat, retaliation, and denunciation. “Don't bother with him, bes in one of his moods again"; "Pay no attention but jost wait until he asks me for something’; "You're fentting me, okay TTL ext you and then some”; “Why must you flways create friction in ove family harnony?” Many accounts re- ported versions ofthe following confrontation. A father followed his son into the bedroom. "Your Mother is right. You don't look ‘well and you're not talking sense. You had better get another job that doesrt require such Tate hours.” To this the student replied that he appreciated the consideration, but that he felt fine and only wanted a litle privacy, The father responded in a high rage, T dont want any more of that out of you and if you cant treat ‘your mother decently youd better move out!” "There were no cases in which the situation was not restorable pon the students explanation, Nevertheless, for the most part family members were not amused and only rarely did they find the experience instructive as the student argued that it was supposed ” to have been. After hearing the explanation s sister replied coldly, ‘on behalf ofa family of four, "Please, no more ofthese experiment. Were not rats, you know." Oceasonally an explanation as ac- cepted but silt added offense. In several cases students reported that the explanations left them, their families, or both wondering how much of what the student had said was "in charscter" and how much the student “really meant” Students found the assignment difficult to complete. But in contrast with onlookers accounts students were likely to report that diffculties consisted in not being treated as if they were in the role that they were attempting to play, and of being confronted with situations but not knowing how a boarder would respond. ‘There were several entirely unexpected findings. (1) Akhough many students reported extensive rehearsals in imagination, very few mentioned anticipatory fears or embarrasmment. (2) On the ‘other hand, although unanticipated and nasty developments fre ‘quently occurred, in only one case did a student report serious regrets. (3) Very few students reported heartfelt rele when the hour was over. They were much more likely to repott partial rele They frequently reported that in response to the anger of others they beeame angry in retum and slipped easly into subjectively recognizable felings and actions. In contrast to the reports of the onJooking “boarders” very few reports “behaviorized” the seene. Background understandings and social affects Despite the interest in social affects that prevails in the social sciences, and despite the extensive concer that clinical psychiatry pays them, surprisingly ile has been weitten on the socially struc. tured conditions for their production, The role that @ background ‘of common understandings plays in their production, control, and recognition i, however, almost terra incognita. This lack of atten: tion from experimental investigators is all the more remarkable if ‘one considers that it i precisely this relationship that persons are ‘concerned with in their commen sense portrayal of how to con: duct one's daily affair so as to solicit enthuse and friendliness for avoid anxiety, gut, shame, or borodom. The relationship be tween the common understandings and social affects may be50 sums IN eHNOUETHODOLODY Shenton fe ing et stip toture atone tat volved the pruston of bewilderment nd cen etn vu sae aw cng att at eke Sat ip hives om seman tel snl cb es Seapine ye see dy of Sta, se tpl i ee see Er ooneeniet i Sr adept St ocr nen anemia das a fee oe Sie atl tm Se oped a Be sete ur acy pee pes Ses soe Sra ct tn ton tt nat SeeRiryo ir patn ses mtg wae hr’ Fociabed sept nic ce See tana pete Sse oh ns Mla ha pees rs a Por pe cng esr iar aru fe ep re wo emer ie oe nelly tiers Mt Saber fic ty ad mt he ena reel ht ee fh ding tip ofa cated ne a) tthe ter pn SRST ett pn tee of emmy eas eee be deh sete soe ed SC ne oe ont ee sh tee el he el eA nti eee tne Mintle Re caries barrie lane Peel See eae ee eet crear teat Bik eee ieee es as ca ie pina cea a Seacrest eager aia Nah Rnd tafe ncnrandreathad wo Pane cere cae fanart Ghat cate aetna arr Coo ee Sais eee ee Fics Reimar oe Skea ” the demand for jutifestion, and when i wes not fortheoming as “anyone could st" esl ao be, anger or the experiment we expected embarasanent to seul frm the Jepar, under te ie of his vic, baween the lser thing tate expernentrs hallengs of “what anyone coud soe" mada hi onto be and the comprtent persone with eens knew hinge lle allt te bet whih de pocodureroyued tht cul ni ca. Like Santayana lock, thi formation was miter sight nor vwrong, Although the procedure produced what we anipated ti furnished us and the expeimentes th more than we had bargained for ‘Students were isc to engage someone in conversation and to imagine ud wet onthe assumption that what the oer person aig wa dct by hd ash wee hea Ses. They were to atu thatthe ther person was ting ‘trick them or mislead them. a Pe Tn only two of thityfve accounts did students attempt the assignment with strangers Most stuns were af Ut such Situation would ge ot of and so they selected rnd, tome test fy enters hey opt eno Fehearsal in imagination, much review of pole omen and deliberate selections among persons. tH See The ate wa dill fo tna cary though, Stadents reported acute aware of bangin an arial gana beng ‘table “to lve the pare” and of requnty being “at 2s stat to do neat” Ih the eos of ltening fo the other peson, ‘pernenters would bw st of the aspen. One Sule Spoke for soverel when she sid she was unable to get ay ree Tease so mich of her efit was dived fo matting a at, {ie of distant that she was unable to follow the consenaton She sid she was unable to imagine how hr fellow converte alts might be deceiving her bee they were talking sa sch fncosaqoetat mato With many stadents the assumption tht the other penon was ot ha espa a a's ted we 2 the attation tat the other person wap angey wth thes a hited them. On the oer hand any victiny,altbough hey cone Dhhined that the student had mo reson to be angry wih Sencffeed nso attempts at explanation and coniaton. When this was of no aval thre flloned frank displays of anger and “agus ‘ntiipted and acute embarrassnent sity materialized for the two students who atempted the procedure with stangers. ‘Mer bndgering a bus driver for assrunces that the bus would Zens the set that she wanted and receiving several assurances {ovum that indoed the bus did pass the stet, the exasperated bus “ver shouted so hat all pusengers overheard, "Look lady, old You once, dit 1? How tay times do C have tal youl” She Feported “shrank to the back ofthe bust sik as Sw as Teould Inthe seat. {ad gotten good case of cold fet, a Aaming Face, tnd tong dike for my ssgament “There were very few seforts of shame or embarrassment from stalnts who tried it with finds and family. stead they were Surprised, and so were we, t0 find as one student reported that once {stated ating the roe of hated person T actually exe to feel somewhat hated and by the te I let the table Twas quite angi.” Even moe surprising to us, many reported that dey Found the procedure enjoyable and thi ncaded the real anger not only of others but ther own, Aithough stodent explanations easily restored most stations, some episodes “tamed serious” and left residue of dstrbance for one or both partis that offered explanation aid not reave “This can be ilstrated io the report of a student housewife Who, at the conclsion of dinner, end with some teplaton, questioned ier Iusand about having worked Inte the night before ad red 2 question about his actualy having plyed poker os he calmed fn an evening ofthe week before, Without asking hin what heb {ctualy dane she indicated an explanation wap call for. He r- plied satestialy, "You seem to be uncary about something. Do ou Know what might beP This conversation would no doubt Ihake more sense if T knew too." She sceused him of dlberstely {voiding the sje, although the subject had not been mentioned He iste that se tll hin what the subject was. When she did to sy, he asked diet, "Okay, wha the joke?” Instead of re- pibing "gave bis lng, hur ok” He became visibly upset, Eocame very solitons, gentle, and. persuasive, In response, dhe 8 acknowledged the experiment. He stalked off obviously unhappy and for the remainder of the evening was sullen and suspicious. She, in the meanwhile, remained atthe table pigued and unsettled about the remarks that her statements had drawn forth about his rot being bored at work “with all the insimistions it might or could mean” particulary the insinuation that he was not bored at work but he was bored with her and at home. She wrote, "L ‘was actually bothered by his remarks... - felt more upset and worried than he did throughout the experiment ..- about how limperturbable he scemed to be.” Neither one attempted nor wanted to discuss the matter further, The following day the hus band confessed that he had been considerably disturbed and had the following reactions in this order: determination to. remain ‘alm; shock at his wife's “suspicious nature", surprise to find that ‘cheating on her was liable to be hard, a determination to make hier figure out her own answers to hee questions without any denial ‘or help from him; exteme relic when the encounter was revealed to have been experimentally contrived; but fnally a residue of uneasy feclings which he characterized as “his shaken ideas of my (the wifes) nature whieh remained forthe rest of the evening” Background underst ings and bewilderment Earlier the argument was made that the possibility of common understanding does not consist in demonstrated measures of shared Knowledge of socal structure, but consists instead and entirely in the enforceable character of actions in compliance with the ex pectancies of everyday Ife as a morality, Common sense Knowl fedge of the facts of social life for the members of the society i institutionalized knowledge of the real work. Not only docs com: ‘mon sense knowledge portay a real society for members, but in the manner of a sel fling prophecy the features of the real society are produced by persons’ motivated compliance with these background expectancies. Hence the stability of concerted actions should vary divctiy with whatsoever are the teal conditions of social omganization that guarantee persons’ motivated compliance with this background texture of relevances as legitimate order of“ saps 1 hmonsTioDoLoer beliefs about life in society seen “from within” the society. Seen from the persons point of view, his commitments to motivated compliance consist of his grasp of and subscription to the “natural facts of life in society” Such considerations suguest thatthe firmer a socital member's rasp of What Anyone Like Us Necessarily Knows, the more severe Should be hie disterbance when “natural facts of Mie” ate impugned for him as a depiction of his real circumstances. To test this sug- seston a procedure would need to modify the objective structure (of the familar, known-in-common environment by rendering the background expectancies inoperative. Specifically, this modification ‘would consist of subjecting a person to a breach of the background expectancies of everyday life while (a) making i dilfeule forthe person to interpret his situation ae @ game, an experiment, a docep- tion, a play, £2, as something other than the one known according to the atitude of everyday life as « matter of enforceable morality and action, (b) making it necessary that e reconstruct the “natural facts” but giving him inslleient tine to manage the reconstrue- tion with respect to required mastery’ of practical circumstances for which he must call upon his knowledge of the “natural facts,” and (c) requiring that he manage the reconstruction of the natural facts by himself and without consensual validation Prestmably he should have no altermative but to try to normalize the resultant incongruities within the order of events of everyday Le. Under the developing effort itself, events should lose thelr perecivedly normal character. The member should be sable to recognize un event's status as typical. Judgments of likelihood should fail him. He should be unable to assign present occurrences to similar orders of events he has known inthe past. He should be tunable to assign, let alone to “see at glance” the conditions under Which the events ean be reproduced. He should be unable to order these events to means-ends relationships. The conviction should be undermined that the moral authority of the familiar society cor es their occurrence. Stable and “realistic” matchings of intentions and objets should dissolve, by which I mean thatthe ways, other- wise familar to him, in which the objective perceived environment Serves as both the motivating grounds of felings and is motivated by feelings directed to it, should become obscure. In short, the members’ real perceived environment on losing its known-n-com- ss mon background should become “specifically senseless" dally speaking, behaviors dicted to such a senseless envionment should be those of bewilderment, uncertainty, internal conf, psychosocial isolation, acute, and nameless anxiety along) with ‘arious symptoms of acute depersonalization. Structures of inter ction should be corespondingly disorganized. ‘This is expecting quite a lot of a breach of the background ex pectancies. Obviously we would settle for less if the results of « procedure for their breach was at all encouraging abou tis formu: lation. AS it happens, the procedure produced convincing. and cesly detected bewilderment and anxiety. "To begin with, iis necessary to specify just what expectancies wwe are dealing with, Schutz reported that the feature of a scene, “known in common with others,” was compound and consisted of, several constituents. Because they have been discussed elewhere 1 shall restrict diseusion to brit entmerstion ‘According to Schutz, the person assumes, assumes thatthe other person assumes as well, and assumes that at he assumes it oF the ‘other person the other person assumes the same for him: 1, That the determinations assigned to an event by the witness ace rquired matters that hold on grounds that speciealy de tard personal opinion or scilly structured circumstances of par Hiular witneses, ie, that the determinations are required ax matters of “objective necesiy” or “acts of ature 2 That a relationship of undoubted corespondence isthe sane: tioned relationship between the-presented-appearance-ofthe-ob- ject and. theintended-object-that-presents-tslfin-the perspective- of-the-paricularappearance 5. That the event that is known inthe manner that is koown can actually and potetialy affect the witness and can be afected by his action The em td fm Max Weer ey, “Te Sol a ef i Word Roan" on Ate Wb Bon Selo was ath and. Weigh se (New Mik Ocerd Caves hey 186) SGPC have ape ean 2 Seite “Cam Serie sad Seni Interprets of Hama Action” in Colt Papers The Prion of Saal ay. 986 aed “Oh fe Realy. 0" Carta, Cer EN? and Gn Sess rgelige of Saat Stara Tans oj Fourth Wd Cons oF Sots, 4 (sn 18), 84. That the mesnings of events are produets of a socially stand ardized process of naming, reifcation, and idealization of the user stream of experince, i, are the products of a language, ‘5. That present determinations of an event, whatsoever these ‘may be, are determinations that were Intended on previous ocea- sons and that may’ be again intended in identical fashion on an indefinite umber of future occasions 6. That the intended event is retained as the temporally ident ‘al event throughout the strcam of experience. That the event has as its contest of interpretation: (a) a com- monly entertained scheme of interpretation consisting of a stand ardized system of symbols, and (1b) “What Anyone Knows” 4, a preestablihed corpus of socially warranted knowledge, 8. That the actual determinations thatthe event exhibits forthe witness are the potential determinations that st would exhibit for the other person were they to exchange postions 8. That to each event there corresponds its determinations that originate in the witness and in the other person's particular biog raphy. From the witnes's point of view such determinations are irrelevant forthe purposes at hand of either, and bath he and the other have selected and interpreted the actual and potential deter- rmination of events in an empirically identical manner that is sul- ont for all their practical purposes. 10. That thee isa charactristc disparity betwoon the publily| acknowledged determinations and the personal, withheld deter- ‘minations of events, and thi private knowledge is held in reserve, te, that the event means for both the witness and the other mare than the witness can sy 11, That alterations of this characteristic disparity remain within the witness autonomous control Tt is not the ease that what an event exhibits at a distinctive Aeterminaton isa condition of its memberhip in a known-n-the- ‘manner-of-comman-sense-cnvironment Instead the conditions ofits membership are the attubutions that its determinations, wha ever they might substanticely consist of, could be seen by the other person if thelr postions were exchanged, or that is features are ‘ot assigned as matters of personal preference but are to be seen by anyone, ce, the previously entimersted features, These and ” ‘only these enumerated features trespective of any other determi nations of an event defige the common sense character of an ‘event. Whatever other determinations an event of everyday life may eshibit—whether it determinations age those of persons’ mo- tives, their Ife histories, the distributions of income in the popula- ton, kinship obligations, the organization of an industy, or what ‘ghosts do when might fall-if and only ifthe event has for the ress the entimerated determinations is ita event in an enviton- ‘ment “known in common with others” ‘Such attzbutions are features of witnessed events that ate seen without being noticed. They are demonstrably relovant tothe com- rmon sense that the actor makes of what is going on bout him. ‘They inform the witness about any particular appearance of an interpersonal environment. They inform the witness a to the eal ‘objects that actual appearances are the appearances of, but with: ‘ot these attributed features necessarily being recognized in a de berate or conscions fashion. Since each of the expectances that make up the attitude of ally lfe assigns an expected feature t0 the actor's environment, Wt should he possible to breach these expectancies by deliberately modifying Scenic events so 2s to disappoint these atebutions. By efinition, surprise Is possible with respect to each of these ex: pected features. The nastiness of surprise should vary directly with the extent to which the person asa matter of moral necesty com: plies with their use as a scheme for asigning witnessed sppea ances ther status as events in « peroeivedly normal environment, In short, the realist grasp by collectivity member ofthe natural facts of life, and his commitment to a knowlege of them a 8 con dition of sel-esteem asa bona-ide and competent collectivity mem ber is the condition that we require in order to maximize his 51 use the tem “eompetnc” to mea the dam that cllestivty mem tu eiled to eee at het capable of managing Bis evra alas sia starter ‘That membre fae ach li for aed Trlr Telbyapeing oft prom seu owe” clletviy mem Mere ete five damit of the etoipe btn “Sonptencs adc sec Excel of ual sce” wl be urd inc Ph, dosent ty ae Popo Ince a Pye Remais:hStyn Sced Ca wert of Callas, Low Angeles TOG), The tora “elect calcnty member” re intend ct accord with Tat Po Son wager The Socal St (New Yorks The Free Pes of Clee, pe J65f) and in he gwen oto to herr of Sei. by Tet ‘aon, Edad Shi Kaper Note and Jose Re Pt (Ne Yon Te ree Brow of Clone, fe 161)so ss mn ennoustHoDo.ooy ‘onfesion upon the occasion that the grounds of this grasp are ‘made a source offreductbe incongrulty. T designed a procedure t0 breach thee expectancies while satis- fying the thice conditions under which their breach would pre sumably produce confusion, de, thatthe person could nat turn the situation into @ ply, a joke, an experiment, a deception, end the ike, or, in Lewinlan terminology, that he’ could not “leave the Bela”; that he have insulicent time to work through a redefinition of his real circumstances; and that-he be deprived of consensual support for an alternative definition of socal reality "Twenty-eight premedical students were run” individually through a three-hour experimental interview. As part of the soli tation of subjects as well as at the beginning of the interview, the ‘experimenter identifed himself as a representative of an Eastem ‘medical school who was attempting to lear why the medial School intake interview owas such a stresfu situation It was hoped that identifying the experimenter as a person with medical school ties would make it dificult for students to “leave the feld” once the expectancy breaching procedure began. How the other two conditions of (a) managing a redefinition in insufficient time and (fb) not being able to count on consensual support for an altea- tive definition of socal realty were met wil be apparent in the following description Dring the fist hour of the interview the student furnished to the “medical school representative” the medical interview facte-o lite by answering for the representative such questions a “what sources of information about a candidate are available to medical Schools”; "What kind of man are the mediel schools looking for? "What should « good candidate do in the interview?", and "What should he avoid?” With this much completed the student was told thatthe representative's research interests had heen satisfied, The student was then asked if he would eare to hear a recording of an factual interview. All students wanted very auch to hear the recording. ‘The recording was a faked one between a “medical school inter: viewer" and an “applicant.” The applicant was boor, his language ‘was ungrammatial and filled with colloquial, he was evasive, Ihe contradicted the interviewer, he bragged, he ran down other schools and professions, he insisted on knowing how he had done 2 fn the interview. Detailed assessments by the student of the re- corded applicant were obtained Immediately after the recording ‘was fished "The student was then given information from the applicant's “offcial record” Performance information, and characterological {information was furmished in that order. Performance information dealt with the applicants activities, grades, family background, ‘courses, chaity work, and the like, Characterological information ‘consisted of character assessments by "De. Gardner, the medical School interviewer” “si psychiatrically trained members of the fdmissions committee who had heard only the recorded inter- view,” and “other students” The information was deliberately contrived to contradict the principal points im the students astessment. For example, the Student said thatthe applicant must have come from a lower class family, he was told that the applicants father was vice president of firm that manufactured pneumatic doors for trans and buses. Was the applicant ignorant? Then he had exceed in courses lke “The Poetry of Milton and Dramas of Shakespeare. Ifthe student said the applicant did not know how to get along with people, then the applicant had worked ax a voluntary solicitor for Sydenham Hospital in New York City and had raised $22,000 from 30 "big ‘givers That the applicant was stupid and would not do well ina scentife eld was met by iting A's in organie and physical chem- istry and graduate level performance in un undergraduate research ‘Students wanted very much to know what “the others” thought of the applicant and had he been admitted? The student was told that the applicant had been admitted and was ling up to the promise that the medical school interviewer and the "sik psychi aris” had found and expressed ina strong recommendation ofthe applicant's characterological fitness which was read to the student [AS forthe views of other students, the student was told (for exam: ple) that thirty other students had been seen, that twenty-eight, ‘were in entite agreement with the medical school interviewer's assessment, and the remaining two had been slightly uncertain but tthe fist bit of information had seen him just as the others had, Following this the student was invited to listen to the record a second time, alter which he was asked to astes the applicant agai,60 ups enaonsrieD04oor Results. Twenty-five ofthe twenty-cight students were taken in. The following does not apply to the thtee who were convinced there was a deception. Two of these are discussed at the conch son ofthis section ‘Students managed incongruities of performance data with vig- forous attempts to make i factually compatible with their original land very derogatory assessments. For example, many said that the ‘applicant sounded like or was a lower class person. When they were tod that his father was vice president of @ national corpora- tion which manufactured pneumatic doors for buses and tains, ‘hey replied like ths: “He should have made the point that he could count on “That explains why he sad he had to work, Probably bis father made him work. That would make 2 lot of his moan unjustified in the sense that things were really nt so ba "What does that have to do with values?” ‘When told he had a straight A average in physical science courses, students begun to openly acknowledge bewilderment “He took quite a variety of courses .. . Tm bated. Prob, ably the interview wasnt very goed mitor of his character” "He did seem to take some odd courses, They seem to be fainly normal, Not normal «=. but it doesn stke me cone way of the other: “Well! I hink you ean analyze it this way. In psychological terms, See.» one possible way... now T may be all wet but this isthe way 1 Took at that, He probably suered from sn inferiority complex and that’s an overcompensation for his {inferiority comples, His great marks - his good marks are ‘ compensition for his failure "in social dealings perhaps, T dont know” ‘Whoops! And only third altemate at Goong (Deep sigh) can see why hed fel resentment about not being admitted to Phi Bet Attempts to resolve the incongruities produced by the character assesment of "Gardner" and “the other sx judges” were much less frequent thon normalizing attempts with performance inlomna- o tion. Open expressions of bewilderment and ansiety interspersed with silent ruminations were characteristic: (Laugh), Golly! (Silence) Ta think it would be the other way around. (Very subdued) Maybe Vin all wrong...» my frientation i alla. Tm completely bafled, ‘Not polite. Sel-confident he certainly was, But not polite 1 dont know. Either the interviewer was a litle ery or else Tam, (Long pause) That's rather shocking, Tt makes me have oubis about my own thinking. Perhaps my values in fe are ‘wrong, T don't know. (Whistles) I-1 don think he sounded wll brod at all ‘That whole tone of voicell I. . perhaps you noticed though, when he ssid "You should have said inthe Gist place” before he (the recorded) medical school examiner) took it swith smile, But even sol No, no T cat sce that. "You should have said that before” Maybe he was being funay though. Exercising a -. Nol To me it sounded impertinent Ugh . . . Wel, that certainly puts different slant on my conception of interviews, Gee . tht, confuses me al the more. Well. (laugh)... MBBI Ugh! Well, maybe he looked like’ a nice boy. He did... be did ‘get his point cross, Peshaps --» sing the person would make a big di ference. Or perhaps I would never make a good interviewer. (Helleetively and almost inaudibly) ‘They didnt mention any ofthe things I mentioned. (HG; Eh?) (Louder) They dit ‘mention any of the things T mentioned and 0 T feel lke a complete failure Soon after the performance data produced its constemation, stu- ents occasionally asked what the other students made of im. ‘Only after they were given "Dr. Gardner” assessment, and their responses to it had been made, were the opinions of the “ther stu- ‘dents given, In some cases the subjest was told “Thirty-four out of thirty-five before you," sometimes forty-three out of forty-five, nineteen out of twenty, fifty-one out f fifty-two. All the numbers swore large. For eighteen of the twenty-five students the delivery hardly varied from the following protocols (24 out of 35) I don't know . . I stil stick to my original convictions. T.. T- ean you tell me what == T sawa wrong. Maybe 1. 1. had the wrong ideathe wrong ‘Métide af ong. (Can you ell me? tm iterested that there Should be such disparity) Deately T= dh it would be defintely the other way. 1 cart make sense of Tm complatsly baie, belive me...I dont enderstand how T buld have been so rong. Maybe my ideas~my eval {ston of people are~just twisted. I aean maybe Thad the wrong = Maybe my sense of values = nit of or diferent. from the other thirythes: Bt T dont Ahuik asthe cc <= Because usualy in all mod tcty Lsay this | LT cam judge people. mean in ess, in organisations belong to + usualy judge them right So therefore T dont understand at all how 1 could have been so wrong T don’ think I asunder any rest or at Here tonight but I dont understand i (48 out of 45) (laugh) T dont Snow what to say nov. Tn tuoubled by my inability to judge the guy better than that. (Subdued) T shall sleep tonight, certainly (very subdued) baat it certainly bothers me. Sorry that T didnt... Welll One question that arises. T_may be wrong . - » (Can you soe how they might have seen him?) No. No, {ean see 4, no. Sure with all tat Background material, yes| but I dont see how Gardner did it without it Wel, { guest that makes Gardner, Gardner, and ime, me. (The other forty-five stu dents didnt have the background material) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tmean Tim not denying tata. mean for myself, there's 0 sense saying - -- OF course! With thelr background they ‘would be accepted, especially the second man, good God! Okay, what else? (98 out of $7) I would go back on my former opinion but 1 wouldn't go back too far I just dont see it. Why should T have these diferent standards? Were my opinions more or Tess in agreement? (No.) That leads me. to think. Thats fanny. Unless you got thirty-six unusual people. I cant under stand i Maybe ts my personality. (Doos it make any if ference?) It docs make a diference if assume they're correct, What I consider is proper, they dont. Its my att tude». sil jm all's man of that sort would alienate me, a wise guy type to be avoided, OF course you can talk like that ‘with ther fellows -- but in an interview? . .. Now Tin ‘more confused than I was atthe beginning of the entize intr « ew: think [ought to go home snd Jook in the mieror and talk to myself, Do you have any ideas? (Why? does it disturb you?) Yes it does distur me! Ie makes me think my abilities to judge people and values are way off the normal. Its not 1 healthy situation, (What diference does it make?) If T act the way [ct it seems to-me that Tim just putting my head fm the lon’s mouth. 1 did have preconceptions but they re shattered 10 hell It makes me wonder about myself. Why Should T have these diferent standards, It all points 19 me, Of the tventyfive subject that were taken i, seven were un ahle t resalve the incongruity of having Deen rong about such fn obvious matte and were unable to “se” the alkemative. The Sulering wor dramatic and warelieved. Five more resolved it with tho view thatthe medial school had accepted a good man: ve others wi the view dats had scepted & boor. Although they lange they neverteles didnot abandon thelr former views. For {hem Gardner's view ould be sen "in generl” but twas a grasp ‘without conviction. When their atenton was drawn to partion Tar the general picture would evaporate. These subjects were willing to entertain and use the “general” picture but they suffered whenever indigestible parculas ofthe same portit came isto view. Subscription tothe “genera” picture was accompanied by « reatation of charactertcs that were nok only dhe opposite of these in the subject's orginal assessment but were intenibed by super lative adjectives so that where previously the candiete. was gauche, he was now “supremely” poised; where he hed been boot Eh, he was “very” natural where he had boon hysterical, he was “very‘ealm, further, they saw the new festires throvgh a new appreciation of the way the medical examiner had born Ustning They su, for example, Hat the examiner wos amine when the plist had forgotten to ofr im «cigarette "Thre more subjects were convinced that there was a deception and acted onthe conviction throng the interview. They showed no Aisturbance. Two of thom showed acute suffering as soon as it ‘ppeared that the ateriow was Snished, and they were being dlamisted with no acknowledgement of» deception. “Three others by sufering In slence, confounded the expert renter, Without giving any ladicaton tothe experimenter, they regarded the interview ann experimental one in which they were“o subi IN eMnOMETHODOLOSY required to solve some problems and thought therefore they were Deing asked to do as well as posible and to make no changes in their opinions for only then would they be contributing to the study. They wore dificult forthe experimenter to understand du ing the interview because they displayed marked anxiety, yet their remarks were bland and were not addeessed to the matters that ‘were provoking it Finally three more subjects contrasted with the others. One of these insted that the character assessments were “semantically ambiguous” and Because there was insoicent information a “high ‘correlation opinion” was not possible, A second, the only one in the series, according to his account found the second. portrat a5, ‘convincing as the original one. When the deception was reveled Ihe was disturbed that he could have been as convinced as he was, ‘The third one inthe fae of everything showed only slight disturb ance of very short duration, However, he alone among, the sub fects had already been interviewed for medical school and had excellent medical school contacts. Despite a grade point average ‘of less than C, he estimated his chances of admission as fair and had expressed his preference fora career in the diplomatic service ‘over a career in medicine AAs a final observation, twenty-two of the twenty-eight subjects ‘expressed marked relef—ten of them with explosive expresions— ‘when the deception was disclosed. Unanimously they said that the news of the deception permitted them to setum to their former views. Seven subjects had to be convinced that there had been Aeception. When the deception was revealed they asked what they were to believe, Was the experimenter telling them that there had ‘been a deception in order to make them feel better? No pains were spared and whatever tath or lies that had to he told were told in onder to establish the trth that there had been a deception, Because motivated compliance tothe expectancies that make-up the attitudes of daly fe consist from the person point of view of his grasp of and subscription to the “natural facts of life.” vara tions in the organizational conditions of motivated compliance for Aierent collectivity members would consist of members’ diferen. tial grasp of and subseription tothe “natural facts of life” Hence the severity of the effects descubed above should vary directly “ with the enforceable commitments of members to a grasp of the natural facts of life. Further, because of the objective character of the grasped common moral order of the Facts oF collectivity life, the severty should vary with their committed grasp of the natural facts of fe and independently of “personality characteristics” By personality characteristics I mean all charateistis of persons that, investigators use methodologically to account fora perso's courses of action by relerring these actions to more or lest systematically conceived motivational and “inner hfe” variables while disregard {ng social and cultural system effects. The results of most conven tional personality assessment devices and cinial paychiateie pro- cedures satisfy this condition "Thereby, the following phenomenon should be discoversble. Imagine a procedure whereby a convincing assesanent can be made of the extent of « person's committed grasp of the “natural facts of social Ife." Imagine anather procedure whereby the extent of a person's confusion ean be assess! ranging throvgh the various grees and mietures of the behaviors desevbed before, For a st of unselected persons, and independently of personality deternin tions, the intial relationship between the committed "grasp of satura facts” and “confusion” should be random. Under the breach of the expectancies of everyday lfe, given the conditions for the ‘optimal production of disturbance, persons should shift in exhib- ited confusion in an amount that iS coordinate with the original ‘extent of their grasp of the “natural facts of life” "The type of phenomenon that I propose is discoversble is por. ‘rayed in Figures 1 and 2 which are bored on the study of the terenty-cight premedical students reported above. Prior to the troductions of incongruous material, the extent of students’ subs seription t9 a common moral order of facts of premedieal school Ife and the student” ansiety correlated~028. After the incongr ‘ous material had been introduced and unsuccessfully normalized, and before the deception was revealed, the correlation was TI Because assessment procedures were extremely crvde, because of serious erors in design and procedure, and beeaune of the post hoe Argument, these results do no more than illustrate chat 1 am tal ‘ng about. Under no circumstances should they be considered as Fralingsgu ik u yy : 3 RGUEE 1. Crnloon ofthe extent of bie wbision 0 “hw roa ese" ca an innova over of Mowledge shou! promis ie (Sowtones an lenny sere = 20) ‘The relevance of commen understandings to the fact tht ‘models of mon in socely portray him as «judgmental dope Many studies have documented the Binding thatthe social stand ardization of common understandings, irrespective of what it i that is standardized, orients person's actions to scenic events, and famishes persons the grounds upon which departures from per- ceively normal courses of afsirs are detectable, restoration is ‘made, and efforful action is mobilized ‘Social science theorists-most particularly social poychiatrss, social psychologists, anthropologists, and. socologsts-have used the fact of standardization to conceive the character and conse- nota * i i i FOURE 2. Conlon af the stent of sbjcrsstiiption 10 “the watt Yes’ cr on inftelanaled oder oh hnavadge shen! pre-med ‘Sruonca and aae arty cre = 78 quences of actions that comply with standardized expectancies. Generally they have acknowledged but otherwise neglected the fact that by these same actions persons discover, create, and $4 ‘ain this standardization, An important and prevalent consequence ‘ofthis neglect is that of being misled about the nature and cond! tions of stable actions. Ths occurs by making out the member of the society to be a judgmental dope of a cultural or psychological sort, or both, with the resule that the unpublished results of any Accomplished study of the relationship between actions and stand fardived expectations will invariably ‘contain enough incongruous ‘material to invite estential revision.By “cultural dope” refer to the man-inthe-sociologistssocity ‘who produces the stable feature of the saciety by acting in com plane with peeestablshed and legitimate altematives of action thatthe common culture provides. The “psychological dope” isthe rman-in-the psychologist ssociety who produces the stable Features (of the society by choices among alternative courses of action that, fre compelled on the grounds of psychiatric biography, condi toning history, and the variables of mental functioning. The com mon feature in the use of these "models of man” isthe fact that, ‘courses of common sense rationalites® of judgment which involve the person's use of common sense knowledge of social structures lover the temporal “succession” of here and now situations are treated as epiphenomenal "The misleading character of the use of the judgmental dope to portray the relationship between standardized expectancies and courses of action goes to the problem of adequate explanation as the controlling consideration in the investigators decision to ether consider or disregard the common sense ratonalities when decide ing the necessary relationships between courses of action, given ‘such problematic considerations as. pespectival choice, subjec- tivity, and inner time. A favored solution 8 to portray what the ‘member's actions will have come to by using the stable structures ii, what they come to-as a point of theoretical departure from Which to portray the necessary character ofthe pathways whereby the end resuk i astembled. Hierarchies of need dispositions, and ‘common culture ar enforced roles of action, are favored devices for bringing the problem of necessary inference to terms, although atthe cost of making out the person-in-socity to be a judgmental dope. low isan favestigator doing t when he i making out the mem ber of @ society to be a judzmental dope? Several examples will famish some specifies and consequences. T assigned students the task of bargaining for standard priced * Common sane atonalties ae dso’ at ken Shut, "Cerna Senne and Sci Inertia of Homan Actos” iy Collected Papers ‘The Problem of Sc Rey, pp. 3-47 ae “The Probie of Rational ‘he Soil Wert" n Calter Popers i Sade in Sot Thao, pp. U8, {hd in Chapter Eight The como sce vatoaiies were way Eon Bit Se else etm wn ton of eg o ‘merchandise. The relovant standardized expectancy isthe “istiti- tionalized one price rule” a constituent element, according to Parsons. of the institution of contract. Because of its “interal- ized" character the student-customers should have been feasfl and shamed by the prospective assigament, and shamed by having done it, Reciprocally, anxiety, and anger should have been com monly reported for salespersons. Sinty-ight students were required to accomplish one trial only for any item costing n0 more than two dollars and were to offer much less than the asking price. Another snty-reven students were required to accomplish series of six trials: three for items cos ing two dollars or es, and thre for items costing fy dollars or Finding: (a) Sales persons can be dismissed as either having ‘been dopes in diferent ways than current theories of standardized ‘expectancies provide, or not dopes enough. A few showed some anxiety; occasionally one got angry. (b) Twenty per cent of the single tes refused to try or aborted the effort, as compared with three per cent of those who had been assigned the series of sit trials. (c) When the bargaining episode was analyzed ns consist ing of a series of steps—anticipation of the tral, approaching the sales person, actually making the offer, the ensuing interaction, terminating the episode, and afterwards—it was found that fears ‘occurred with the greatest frequency in bodh groups in antcipa ing the assignment and approaching the sles person for the fst fry. Among the single tals the number of persons who reported Aiscomfort declined with each successive step In the sequence. ‘Most ofthe students who bargained in two or more teal reported that by the thie episode they were enjoying the assignment. (d) Most students reported less discomfort in_hargaining for high priced than low priced merchandise. (e) Following the sb epi- sodes many students reported that they had leamed to thei "sir- prise” that one could bargain in standard priced setings with some realistic chance of an advantageous outcome, and planned to do 30 in the future, purticulasly for costly merchandise Such fndings suggest that one ean make the inember of the society out to be a cultural dope (a) by portraying a member of "Tutt Panos, “Bsmoey, Pty, Money and Power” dtd mana seit, 18n sous I emousTHODOLOGY the society as one who operates by the rules when one is actully talking about the anticipatory anxiety that prevents him from per mitting a situation to develop, let alone confronting a situation, in which he has the allemative of acting or not with respect 10 a rule, of (b) by overlooking the practical and theoretical impor- tance of the mastery of fears. (e) If upon the arousal of troubled feelings persone avoid tinkering with these “standardized” ex pectancies, the standardization could consist ofan atributed stan. fardization that is supported by the fact that persons avoid the very situations in which they might leam about them, Lay as well a professional knowledge of the natare of rule gov- ‘emed actions and the consequences of breaching the roles i prom- inently based on just such procedure. Indeed, the more important the rule, the greater ithe likelihood that knowledge is based on avoided tests. Strange findings must certainly avait anyone who famines the expectancies that make up routine backgrounds of fenmmon place activities for they have rarely been exposed by in vestgators even to as much revision as an imaginative rehearsal oftheir breach would produce. ‘Another way in which the member of the society can be made a judgmental dope is by using any of the available theories of the formal properties of sigs and symbols to portray the way persons ‘construe environmental displays as signleant ones. The dope ‘made out in several ways. I shall mention two. (a) Characteristcally, formal investigations ‘have been oon ‘cemed either with devising normative theories of symbolic usages, ‘or, while secking descriptive theories, have settled for normative ‘ones In either ease i © necessary to instruct the construing mem ber to ac in accordance with the investigator's instructions in order to guarantee thatthe investigator will be able to study their usages a8 instances of the usages the énvestgator has in mind. But, fol- Towing Wittgenstein." persons actual usages are rational usages {in some “language game.” What is their game? AS long as this programmatic question is neglected, itis inevitable that person's, ‘usages will fll short. The more will this be so the more are sub- jects interests in usages dictated by diferent practical considera tions from those of ivestgatos. "Ladi Watgenten, Pouphical Incetaatons (Oxford: Baad Black. wll, 188) n (b) Available theories have many Important things to say about such sign functions as marks and indications, but they are silent ‘on such overwhelmingly more common functions as gloses,synec- ‘oche, documented representation, euphemism, irony, and double fentendre. References to common sense knowledge of ordinary af- fais may be safely distegarded in detecting and analyzing marks and indications as sign Functions because users disregard them 88 well The analysis of irony. double entende, glosses, and the like, however, imposes diferent requirements. Any attempt to consider the related charzcter of utterances, meanings, perspectives, and ‘orders necessarily requires reference to common sense knowledge of ordinary affairs Although investigators have neglected these “complex” usages, they have not put their problematic character entirely aside. In- stead, they have giosed them by portraying the usages of the member of a language community as ether culture bound or need compelled, or by construing the pairing of appearanoes and i= tended objectsthe paring of “sign” and “referrent™—as an associ tion. In each ease a procedural description of such symbolic usages 1s precluded by neglecting the judgmental work of the user. Precisely this judgmental work, along with its reanee “upon and its reference to common sense Knowledge of social structures, forced itself upon our attention in every case where incongruites were induced. Our attention was forced because our subjects had. exactly their judgmental work and common sense knowledge to contend with as matters which the incongruites presented to ther 38 practical problems. Every procedre that involved departures from an anticipated course of ordinary airs, regardless of, whether the departure was gross or sight, aroused recognition in subjects thatthe experimenter was engaged in double tall, tony, losses, euphemism, of lies. This occurred repeatedly in departures from ordinary game play Students were instructed to play tektacktoe and to mix thelr subjects by age, sex, and degree of acquaintance, After drawin the tiektacktoo matrix they invited the subject to move fist. After the subject made his move the experimenter erased the subjects mark, moved it to another square and made his own mark but ‘without giving any indications that anything about the play was, ‘unusual. In hal of 247 trials students reported that subjects tratedn soles IN emNoustHoso.06r the move as a gesture with hidden but definite signiance, Sub- jects were convinced that the experimenter was “ater something” that he was not saying and whatever he “really” was doing had nothing to do with tcktackte. He was making a sexual pass; he ‘was commenting on the subject’ stupidity he was making a sku ring or an impudent gesture. Identical ellects occured. when stu- dents bargained for standard priced merchandise, oF asked the other to carly his commonplace remarks, or joined without invita. tion a strange group of conversational, or used a gaze that during an ordinary conversation wandered “randomly” by time to varius objects in the scene, ‘Sul another way of making the person out for @ cultural dope 4s t0 simplify the communicative texture of his behavioral environ- ‘ment. For example, by giving phystal events prefered status one ‘an theorize out of existence the way the person's scene, a8 tex tute of potential and actual events, contains not only appearances and attributions but the person's own lively inner states as well ‘We encountered this in the following procedure: Students were instructed to select someone other than a family rember and inthe couse of an ordinary conversation, and without fndiating that anything unusual was happening, to bring their faces up to the subjects until thelr noses were almost touching. According to most of the 79 accounts, regardless of whether the pits were the same or different setes, whether they” were ac- fquuintances or close frends (strangers were prohibited), and regardles of age diflerences except where children were involved, the procedure motivated in Both experimenter and subject attbur tions of a sexual intent on the part of the other though confirma: tion of this intent wat withheld by the very character of the pro- cedure, Such attbutions to the other were accompanied by the person's own impulses which themselves became part of the soene 5 their not only being desized but their desiring, The uncon- firmed invitation to choose had its accompanying confictful hes- ‘ancy sbout acknowledging the choice and having been chosen. Attempted avoidance, bewilderment, acute embarassment, fur. tiveness, and above all uncertainties of these as well as tncer- taintes of fear, hope, and anger wore characteristic. These effects were most pronounced between males. Charateristiclly, expei- ‘enters were tunable to restore the situation. Subjects were only 2 partially accepting of the experimenters explanation that st as been done “as an experiment for @ course in Sociology.” They often complained, “Allright, it was an experiment, but why did you have to choose me?” Characteristicaly, subject and experimenter ‘wanted some further resolution than the explanation Furnished but ‘were uncertain about what i could or should consist of Finally, the member may be made out to be a judgmental dope by portraying routine actions as those govemed by por agrec- ments, and by making the likelihood that a member will recognize deviance depend upon the existence of prior agreements, Tht this Js a matter of mete theoretical preference whose use theorizes es- sential phenomena out of extence can be seen by considering the commonplace fact that persons will hold each other to agreements whose terms they never actually stipulated. This neglected prop- erty of common understandings has far reaching consequences when itis explicitly brought into the portrayal of the nature of “agreements.” “Apparently no matter how specie the terms of common under: standings may be-a contract may be considered the prototype they attain the status of an agreement for persons only insofar as the stipulated conditions cary along an unspoken but understood et cotera"* clause. Specie stipulations are formulated under the rule ofan agroement by being brought under the jurisdiction of the tt cetera clause, The does not occur once snd forall, hut i essen- 12 The ctor dee, it eoperting andthe comaquence of te ave ‘en pevalng topics of says cao among he tents ofthe Ca ferent on Emad tht ave ben pgs te Uy 1a Cif Los"Avale, ape te Unversity af Col sce Fel. ‘es, wih th sd t's gale the US” Ae Fee Oe of Scie Re search” Conference members ae Ean. Bite, Harld Care, Cone Ma elie, Edward Row and flay Sucks, Ducungas of esto by oe ferns pata wi be found In Egon Biter, “Radklian A Stdy of a omic” ten Sta! Ree, 3 (Demi, 1963) "82800, Harvey Sac, “Om Seca Deserton” Berkley foun Of Soctlogy 8 (1663), 116 Hard Carabel, "A Conception nad Se Fx ‘eement Wish Trt” apd Chapter One art Thee nth sume, Ex fed sue dealing wih eu proce, mth of inteosston I yor work, tonsa, ide onsite, Kiser. senses, “cl Iesbhtping” comtng, snd penalty ago wl be found np Thode tr Bn Canc, MacAndren, oe, apd Sacks ha fcr tlc gen by Be, Cartel and Sars “Rensable Aston eset al Coe er Aan, Unt of Clon,7” UDI mv erNONETHODOLODY tilly bound ta both the inner and outer temporal course of activ~ ites and thereby to the progressive development of circumstances and their contingencies, Therefore it both misleading and incor rect to think of an agreement as an actuarial device whereby per fons are enabled as of any Here and Now to predict each other's future activites, More accurately, common understandings that hhave been formulated der the rule of an agreement are used by persons to normalize whatever thir actual activities tum out t0 be. Not only can contingencies arise, but persons know as of any Here and Now that contingencies can materialize or be invented: at any time that must be decided whether or not what the partes, Actually did satisfied the agreement, The ef cetera clause provides for the certainty that unknown conditions are at every hand in terms of which an agreement, as of any particular moment, can bbe retrospectively reread to find out in Wight of present practical circumstances what the agreement “really” consisted of “in the fit place” and “ll slong” That the work of bringing present cir cumstances under the rule of previously agreed activity is some= times contested should not be permitted to mask its pervasive and routine ute as an ongoing and essential feeture of “actions in ace cord with common understandings.” "This proces, which I shall call a method of discovering agree ‘ments by eliciting or imposing a respect forthe rule of practical CGreumstances, @ a version of practical ethics, Although st has received litle if any attention by social scientists tis a matter of the most abiding and commonplace concem in everyday affairs land common sense theories of these afais. Adeptness in the de liberate manipulation of et cetere considerations for the further ance of specie advantages is an occupational talent of lawyers and fs specially taught to law school students. One should not sup- pose, however, that because it lawyer's Skil, that only lawyers fre skilled ati, or that only those who do so deliberately, do so tall The method is genera to the phenomenon ofthe society as ‘sytem of rule governed activites Tt is available 3s one of the mechanisms whereby potential and actual successes and windfalls, 1 Tne a thei tra, i estab the programmatic sk of recon strong the pce of sos ont att cay ommdate ictal Teo, andaf eng con preted atone At the bat of the stn etc poten of emg te eae 1s on the one hand, andthe dtppinimets, fsttins, and fk Seon thea, tht pecs mt ieee By fe ‘ono ekg to comply with apeeret on be angel ile ‘nee pce recs ofa soa re ‘aa see bt acute instance ofthis pheomenon wat con sety produced by» proedne in which the espermete thar lenin conmeraton we he hw ter hte hie ot In the cours f the conan th eprint pened sat fev th recrer mang, Su han Thane? ‘Srna pose as almst irably fled by the question ‘Mat ae ou going todo with Sbjct cane te reach Of te ect tt he cmveraton wos hebwoen tT at that the covert seen to have ben recorded ma ‘ated new ponies which the pris the sgt to bing der the Hsin f'n agienent ta ty he etry Cie mestned at ted i not prev) a: Te convertion, tw som t hve bean tcc hry sega frah and protesting inv of ulm test ch iC right be firme An oped pny was Cheapo tae though it had operated all along. si if that a concom forthe nature, production, and recognition of reasonable, realistic, and analyzable actions is not the monopoly of philosophers and professional sociologists, Members of a society are concerned as a matter of course and necessarily with these matters both as features and for the socaly ‘managed production of their everyday airs, The study of comn- ‘mon sense knowledge and common sense activites consists of treating as problematic phenomena the actual methods whereby members of a society, doing sociology, lay or professional, make the social structures of everyday activites observable, The “redis- covery” of common sense i possible perhaps beeaase profesional sociologists, ke members, have had too much to do with common sense knowledge of social structures as both atopic and a resource for their inquiries and not enough to do with it only and exclusively 8 sociology’s programmatic tople.THREE, Common sense knowledge of social structures: ‘the documentary method of interpretation in lay and professional fact finding Sociologiclly speaking, “common culture” refers to the s0- cially sanctioned grounds of inference and action that people se in their everyday airs and which they assume that others use in the same way. Soctally- sanctioned facteof fe-lnsociety-that-any- bona-ide-member-f-the-society-knows depict such matters as the conduct of family Ife, market organization, distributions of honor, ‘competence, esponsibility, goodwill, income, motives among mem: bers, frequency, causes of, and remodies for trovble, and the pres: ence of good and evil purposes behind the apparent workings of things. Such socially sanctioned, facts of socal life consist of de- seriptions from the point of view of the collectivity members in- terests in the management of his practical affairs. Basing our usage upon the work of Alfred Schutz we shall call such knowledge of Socially organized environments of concerted actions “commen sense knowledge of social structures. "The discovery of common culture consists ofthe discovery from twithin the society by social scientists of the existence of common the tum, “alletvty membership" I tended In set acerd wih ‘alt Pao ange in The Sak Spam an There of Sosy. Past ° fet Sct, Collated Ppa I: The Problem of Soil Rey (1062); Catlestol Payers Il Studs i Saca Fhsony 1084), Clete Pers Stu 'n Phononentopcal Pop (1908) % ” sense Knowledge of social structures. In that discovery the social scientist treats knowledge, and the procedures that societal mem: Doers use for sts assembly, test, management, and transmision, as objects of theoretical sociological interest. “This puper is concerned with common sense knowledge of so: cial strictures as an object of theoretical sociological interest. It Is concerned with descriptions of a society that its members, pro- fessional sociologists included, as a condition of their enforceable rights to manage and communicate decisions of meaning, act, rethod, end causal texture without inteference-Le,, ae a condi tion of their “competence”-use and teat as known in common with, other members, and with other members take for granted. Spe: cifcally the paper is directed to a description ofthe work whereby decisions of meaning and fact are managed, and how a body of factual knowledge of social structures is assembled in common sense situations of chotee. The documentary mathod of interpretation ‘There ae innumerable situations of sociological inguiry in which the investigator—whether he be a professional sociologist or a per undertaking an inquiry about social structures inthe interests managing his practial everyday. affirscan assign witnessed appearances to the status of an event of conduct only by lmputing biography and prospects to the appearances. This he does by embedding the appearances in his presupposed knowledge of social strictures. Thus it frequently happens tht in order forthe {investigator to decide what he fe now looking at fhe must wait for future development, only to find that these futures in turn are formel by their history and fature. By waiting to soe what will hhave happened he Teams what i war that he previously saw Either that, or he takes imputed history and prospects for granted Motivated actions, for eximple, have exactly these troublesome properties Tt therefore occurs that the investigator frequently must elect among alternative courses of interpectation and inquiry to the end. of deciding matter of fact, hypothesis, conjecture, fancy, and the rest, despite the fact that in the calculable sense of the term know.” he does not and even cannot “know” what he is doingnm sre emousTHoooweer prior to or while he is doing #. Field workers, most particulary those doing ethnographic snd lingwisic studies in settings where they cannot presuppose « knowledge of social structures, are per- hhaps best acquainted with such situations, but other types of pro- fessional sociological inquiry are not exempt ‘Nevertheles # body of knowledge of socal structures is some how assembled, Somehow, decisions of meaning, facts, method, fand causel texture are made. How, in the course of the inquiry ‘uring which such decisions must be made, does this oceur? Ti his concer for the sociolois's problem of achieving an adequate description of cultural events, an important case of which ‘would be Weber’ familiar “behaviors with a subjective meaning tached and governed thereby in their course,” Karl Manheim * famished an approximate description of one process. Mannheim called it "the documentary method of interpretation.” It contrasts ‘with the methods of itral observation, yet it has a recognizable Ft with what many sociological researchers, lay and professional, actually do. "According to Mannheim, the documentary method involves the search for... an sdentcal homologous pattem underlying a vast variety of totally diferent realizations of meaning” * ‘The method consists of treating an actual appearance as “the document of” a8 "pointing 0.” as “standing on behalf of” a pre= ‘supposed underlying patter. Not only is the underlying, pattem derived from is individual documentary evidences, but the indi- vidual documentary evidences, in their turn, are interpreted on the bass of “what is known" about the underlying pattern. Each is tused to elaborate the other "The method is recognizable for the everyday necessities of ree: copnizing what a person is “talking about” given that he does not Say exactly what he means, or in recognizing such common occur: ences and objects as mailmen, friendly gestures, and promises. It is recogalaable as well in deciding such sociologically analyzed ‘occurrence of events as Coffman's strategies for the management (of impressions, Eickson's identity crises, lesman’s types of con- Fomity, Parsons value systems, Malinowski magical practices, 2 Ka Manan, “On the Interpretation of Webamschaang” i Baye on te Seat of Rl eB n Bales interaction counts, Merton's types of deviance, Lavarsels Intent structure of attitudes, and the U.S. Census’ occupational categories. Tow ist done by an investigator that from replies to a question naire he Binds the respondent's “attitude”, that via interviews with ‘office personnel he reports their “bureaucratially organized activ. ities that by consulting eximes known to the police, he estimates the parameters of “ral erime"? What isthe work whereby the in vestigator sets the observed occurrence and the intended occur rence into a correspondence of meaning, such that the investigator finds it reasonable to teat witnessed actual appearances as evi dences ofthe event he means tobe studying? ‘To answer these questions it f necessary to detail the work of the documentary method. To this end « demonstration of the docu- mentary method was designed to exaggerate the features of this ‘method in use and to catch the work of “fact production” in Bight ‘An experiment ‘Ten undergraduates were solicited by telling them that research was being done in the Department of Psychiatry to explote alter native means to psychotherapy “as a way of giving persons advice about their personal problems” (si). Each subject was seen indi vidually by an experimenter who wat falsely represented as a stu- ent counselor in training, The subject was atked to fist discuss the background to some serious problem on which he would like advice, and then to addres to the counselor” a series of questions each of which would pemnit a "yes" or “no” answer. The subject was promised that the “counselor” would attempt to answer to the best of his ability. The experimenter counselor heard the ques- tions and gave his answers fom an adjoining room, va an inter: communication sytem. Alter deserbing his problem and furnish {ng some background to it, the subject asked his Brst question After a standard pause, the experimenter announced his answer, “yes” or “no.” According to instructions, the subject then removed aval plug connecting him with the counselor so tat the “counselor will not hear your remarks” and tapexecorded his comments on the exchange. After these were completed, the subject plugged ‘the microphone in and asked his next question, After he receivedthe answer, be again recorded his comments, and thus proceeded through atleast ten questions and answers. The subject had been told, "Most people want to ask atleast ten questions” “The sequence of answers, evenly divided between yess and nos, ‘was predecided with a table of random numbers. All subjects ask ing the same number of questions were administered the sume series of yes and no answers, Following the exchange of questions fand answers the subject was asked to summarize his impressions ‘An interview followed, ‘The following are illustrative unedited protocols, case 1 sunyecr: Ok, this is the situation that T am presented with. T hhappen to be ofthe Jewish faith and I have been dating a Gentile {irl now for about two months. My dad is not directly opposed to this situation, but I feel at the same time that ho is not exactly pleased with it. Mother feels that as Tong at Dad is not directly ‘opposed to this situation that I should go aheed and continue dat- ing until he makes some dict statement to the contrary. My reas son for feeling why he is nt too pleased with this is that he has rnever sid dont date her, but at the same time he will come up ‘with digs and sayings that make me feal very ill at ease about ‘dating the gil, My question is, do you feel under the present ci foumstances that I should continue ov stop dating this girl? Let me pt that in a postive way. Do you feel that I should continue dat fing this gil? Texrenicenren: My answer is no sunyecr: No. Wel, that is kind of iteresting. 1 Kinda feel that there i realy no great animosity between Dad and T but, well, per- haps he feels that greater dishike will grow out ofthis. T suppose for maybe its easier for an outsider to see certain things that Iam blind tot this moment Tiwauld like to ask my second question now. rmxrenncexren: Okay sungecr: Do you feel that 1 should have a further discussion swith Dad about this situation of not? Should T have further ais- ‘cussion with Dad over this subject about dating the Gentile gia? ‘xremasran: My answer is yes sunyect: Well I fel that i reasonable but I really dos't know ‘bat to say to him. T mean he seems to be not really too under- standing, In other words he seems to be afraid really to disuse the situation, I mean atleast it appears that way to me so far. But I ‘gues if i is worthwhile to me, i I really want to continue to date her that [will go on and have this discussion with Dad, I really don't know what to say because I mean Lam dating her. 1 am nat in love with her or anything but I really never know what is going to come out. I guess we should have a discussion based on what the future possiblities might be and how he would feel about that Hee may not be too stzangly opposed now because we are only dat- Jing, but perhaps he sees future complications that he would realy like to get off his chest at the moment. Yam ready for my third question now. Tf after having my conversation with Dad and he says to con tinue dating her, but at the same time he giver me an impression that he is really not, he really does not want me to date her, but he is only doing it because he wants to be « good Dad, should under these conditions, should sill date the gil? xreuncewran: My answer i yes, suapecr: Well I am actually surprised at the answer I expected {no answer on that. Perhaps this is because you ate not quite aware of my dad snd his reactions and he seems to be the type ‘of person that is sensitive and therefore he is very careful in the ‘way that he will handle things. Even though he might have said 0 ahead and date her I perhaps would feel guilty in knowing that he relly did not want me to continue to date her. Though 1 don’t know that it would actually help the situation any. So, well, perhaps we will look into this farther and that i another question, Tam ready for the fourth question now. If after having this discussion with Dad and getting « postive answer from him but at the same time felt that this was not his hhonest opinion do you think that it would be proper for me to Ihave my mother have a serious tak with him and therlore try and get @ truer reaction to Dad’ opinion on the situation? vocremneenren: My answer i yes sunyect: Well ths scoms fair to me.I feel perhaps that he would bbe honester with Mother about the situation. OF course that might present a problem. Would Mother come back and be completely2 sums 1 epmouetIo00.007 honest with me? She seems to be more liberal than Dad not to say that Mother would He about it, but she would be a Tithe more Hiberal about things like this and perhaps in er course of conversa tion with Dad she would try and present my side to him and ther fore once again I get two answers. IFT look ati that way T don't ‘ink that Lam going to get t first base anyway, but at least feel that we are moving slong some way. Iam ready for my Bh question now. ‘Do you think that I should tell this Gentile girl who 1 an dating the problem that Tam having with my folks at bome or should 1 ‘wait until well that is another question. Do you feel that T should tell the gis that I am dating the problems that 1 am having at Thome over her religion? ‘exrranesen: My answer is no, sunyrcr: Well once again 1 am surprised, Of couse, that might depend on how much you care forthe gial and how much longer T feel that I am going to be dating her, But I personally feel that it is only right to tell her for if she i perhaps thinking more serious than Tam, she might, € might be best for us to understand the full situation and if she fels that this will be a block then T feel perhaps that would end the situation right there without telling Tre. I feel that perhaps I am going to show this in diferent ways fan she will be unaware of what the real situation is and perhaps react back to ane in a certain way spoiling our dating and every- thing else ike that. 1am ready for my sath question TEL wes to fall in love with this gil and want to make plans for ‘marriage do you feel that ii fair that I should ask her to change her religion over to my belief? ‘exrennervren: My answer is no. sunyrct: Well, no, Well, this has me stymied, No. Well, 1 hon- cestly feel that have been brought up ina certain way and T believe that she has to, and I feel prety strong about the way that I believe, Not chit I am completely ophodox or anything, but of course there is allvays family pressure and things like that. And Tam quite sure tht she feels, unfortunately I have never seen a family with a split in religion that really has been able to make fa success out of i So T dont know. T think that perhaps T would bbe tempted to ask her to change. 1 dont think that T would be able to really. Lam ready for number seven. 8 Do you fs that woud be a beter ston fe wee fo gt march aod nelter one ows were wing f ta about Ue ligous aiference orto ein on ster obo nid, dha we rng urchin up in snout! rlgion ater than the two at we elev nb erecta: My answer i ye. Syacr. Well perhapr tis would be 8 sohtion. If we could finda religion tha would cops or two best 9 sera cate I vealze Ua perhaps ths might be Ieraly imposible to Ai. Podaps in a sens tht nota reign might be something Alnost made up by ores beste T honesty fel Gat religous traning mater which ele fot cured to erremrs Is tod, for everyone shuld hve a etaln amount of regi tain tg uo thes ine, Perhaps tis might be solstion to the ro ten T gc I shou follow thang ie tt frher an See say what happens. am ready for mber eight Ti we were t'get iared would K be befor us tote ina sew, Sty whew laa bein tat ith et Dens if we were geting lot of Taal pressure over ious differences? : ae erie: My anver i n. fonjecr: Wel 1 kinds tend to age with this answer. 1 feel that you would be accomplishing foo mech by suming away trom the sue and tat perops i would be one of thse tags ine tat exentully you would fut be sling Yo accept and that the fames and we would get slog harmonies fogebe ‘Atleast hope would work out tat stunt cones about Pink wu be test for bot famles together Ut we ae oa sing to work tut i we rin say fom ont problem, So we best Fema thre and ty andl work hou. ey fer mumber ae I we did get muved and were to rue oor chide do you shink that we sould explain andl our cron that we soe ad the slg diflrence or wool Se jst bing th up in this new slg, cat the vligon hat we taled bout, ad In hem bole at tht i whatwe ongnly beleved ib evanenens: My tname 0 Sonjecr: Once aio nds gre wth hs. hink they should be tld Deca undo they wil nd out. And they dd fp out at there was this dierenc that we once had they would4 ries enmiowttiooo.ocy feel that we were sneaking or tying to hide something from them tnd this would not be the best situation either. So T believe this, ‘would be the best situation. Iam ready for number ten ‘Do you feel that our children, if there were any, woul have any teligios problems themselves because of us the pasents and four diicules? ravennersren: My answer is 10, funyect: Well [really don't know sf 1 agree with that or not PPeshaps they would have trouble if confusion set in and they were to Feel that they did not know which is right and which is wrong for what sie to pick Hf they did not want to stick with their reli tion. But I kinda feel that their religion was e wholesome one ‘hich supplied the needs of a religion and that which a religion {does supply that there would not be any problems with them. But T suppose that only tine will tell f such problems would come bout: I asm Gnished with my’ comments now. rexrencsen: Okay, 1 will be right in, ‘The experimenter sppeared in the room with the subject, handed him alist of point that he might comment on, and let the room, The subject commented as follows supyecr; Well the conversation seemed to be one-sided because vas doing it all, Bu, I fee that it was extremely difclt for Mr Meffugh to answer these questions fully without having a com- plete understanding of the personalities of the diferent people Involved and exactly how involved the situation was ise. The fanswers I received 1 ist say that the majority of them were fanswered pethaps in the same way that I would answer them to Inyself knowing the differences in types of people. Ove oF two of them did come as «surprise to me and I felt that the reason per hhaps he answered these questions the way he did is forthe reason that he isnot aware ofthe personalities involved and how they are reacting ot would reuct {0-4 certain situation, The answers that 1 feceived were most of thems I felt that he was for the most part trware ofthe situation as we moved along in that I was interpreting Is answers even though they were yes or no answers as Fully reditating over these situations that 1 presented to him and they had a ot of meaning to me. 1 felt that his answers as a whole were Thelpful and that he was Tooking out for the benefit to the situation as for the most part and not to cura it oF cut if short in any means. heard what I wanted to hear in most of the situations presented at the time. Peshaps I did not hear what I really wanted to hear but perhaps from an objective standpoint they were the best answers because someone involved in a situation is blinded to a certain degree and cannot take this objective viewpoint. And therefore these answers may difer from the person who i involved in the situation and the person who is outside and can take an objective iewpoint. I honesty believe that the answers that he gave me, that he was completely aware of the situation at hand, Peshaps T guess that should be qualified. Perhaps when I sail shoald I tak to Dad for instance he wat not postive, When I said should 1 talk to Dad for instance he was not positive what T was going to talk to Dad about. In a full capacity. He knew the general topic Dut he isnot aware how clase 1 am to Dad or how involved the conversation might get. And if his saying “do tlk” in knowing that Dad will not listen, well this perhape isnt best, or if Dad is very willing to listen he says it may not help. Or dont talk, Well this ‘once again is bringing in personalities which he is not aware of, The conversation and the answers given I believe had a let of meaning to me, I mean it was perhaps what I would have expected from someone who fully understood the situation. And T fool that ithad a lot of sense to me and made « lot of sence, Well {fle that the questions that T asked were very pertinent and did help in tnderstanding the situation on both sides, that it mytlf and the answerer and my reation to the answer like I ave stated before were mostly in agreement, At times I was surprised but under- stood that because he is not fully aware of the situation and the personalities involved, case 2 svnyecr: I would lke to know whether or not I should change ‘my major atthe present time. Ihave a physics major with quite & deficit in grade points to bring up to get my C average in physis T would lke to switch over to mathematics. I have a litle dif culty in it, but I Uhink maybe T could handle it. U have failed several rath courses here at UCLA, but [have always tepested themand had C's, I have come close to getting a B in math in one Specific course because I studied litle more than in others but my question is still should I change my major? xvmuneesren; My answer is no, unyrer: Well he says no. And if 1 don't then I will have to make up my deficit in grade points which wil be awfully difcat ‘pecause | am not doing too well this semester. 11 pull through this, semester with seven units of A then I can count on possibly going fon to get my degree in physics in February, but then T have this Stigma of nuclear physics facing me. I thoroughly dislike the study fof muclear physics: Nuclear Physics 12 will be one of my required courses to got a degree in physic ‘Do you think I could get a degree in physics on the bass ofthis knowledge that T must tako Physics 124? xrennevren: My answer iS yes sunyect: He says yes. don see how I can. Iam not that good | of a theorst, My study habits are hormble. My reading speed is bad, and 1 don't spend enough time in studying. ‘Do you think that I could successfully improve my study habits? sexernnanren: My answer is yes ssenyrer: He says that [ can successfully improve my study hab its. Thave been preached to ll along on how to study properly, tbat I dont study properly. 1 don't have sulcent incentive to g> through physies or do 1? ‘Do you think 1 have sulfcient incentive to get a degree in physics? Texrenncecren: My answer Is yes. sunyecr: He says my answer is yes think possibly so if 1 did't hhave a bad scholastic record behind me to follow me up. Te would ‘be awfully dificlt to get that dezre. Do you think I could successfully do my studying while trying to keep happy relations at home with my wife and sill get my work done? I don't do my studying well at school and T don't have much incentive to stady when I am at home. But when my wife comes home, I hike to stady. Yet this keeps us from doing things, and whenever she doest do things, it gets on my nerves, ‘because there i allthis work piling wp. Do you think I could suc- csfully do my studying at home? Texrenowenren: My answer 6 90. "7 sunyecr: He says no. I dont think so either. Should I come to school every night after supper and do my studying? TEXPERDGENTER: My answer ino, sunyect: He says I shoulda’ come to school and study. Where should 1 go? Should I go to the library on campus to do my studying? EXPERIMENTER: My answer is yes. sunjecr: He says I should go to the brary to do my studying. Which brary? They may not have all the references there that may need but that isnot always necessary. I need at least three ‘more questions, Do you think I can develop sufiiently good study habits and incentive to actually achieve developing those habits such that I wouldnt have to stay up late at night and not get the ‘work done in the fist pcs? ‘exrennercren: My answer is 90 seyect: He says no. T cant develop the study habits properly to be able to pull myself through. If you don't think that I cal velop the proper stidy habits and cary them through to reach say goal do You on the basis of this sil believe that I eam get a degre in physies? rexrempereren: My answer iso. sunyect: According to that T won't get a degree. What should 1 4? Are you stil here? vexrempesyr: Yes, Lam. sunyecr: If you don't think I will make the .. . achieve the necessary goal oF improving my study habits and getting a degree in physics do you recommend that I quit school? xremanxren: My answer 5 yes. suaypct: He says T should quit school, Are you still there? xreunaeren: Yes svnyect: Uhave one more question. I would like to get a com: mission in the Air Fore. Ihave completed the Air Force RO‘.C. training program but to get a commission I need a degree. 1f 1 onit get the degree the chances are very strong that T may not get the commission although there are in's and outs that there is Still some possiblity that T may still get a commission without a egre, although this isnot desirable. The question i, will T get a ‘commision nthe Air Force?rexrenncenren: My answer i yes svayecr: He says I will got a commission in the Air Force and that is what I am looking forward to, but will Lover get a degree? If gets commission without a degree will I ever got a degree in anything? fexremneesren: My answer is no. senyecr, This Jeaves me somewhat unhappy although I don't really need a degree in the type of work that I desire to do, Are you there? Came back in ‘The subject commented as follows. ‘Walla far as what I got fom the conversation, it is rather fo! ish forme to pursue my work any further as far as getting a degree in anything, Actually 1 have felt all along that the type of work Tam Interested in which i inventing is not something that requires a degree necessurly, It roqures a certain knowledge of math and physics but it dors require a degree to do inventing, From the conversation I gather that I should just quit school and go ahead fand get my commission but how I don't know. But it would be awfully nice wo have a degree. That degree would be able to get te into other schols. Otherwise T will have the statement that T ‘went through college but I never got out. also get the impres- ‘sion that my study habits wil never improve as much a T would lke them to anyway. I will not get a degree. I will get a commis: sion and i is fruitless for me to study either at home or et schoo Especially in the evening. 1 wonder if I should do any studying at all, or if I should learn to do all my studying at school. What to 1d? 1 ave the feeling that my parents would be very unhappy and tlso my wiles parents would be very unhappy IT never did get 1 degree or at least especially right now. I have the feeling that thie past conversation is based on what one should have Teamed to do years ago, that is, a5 @ growing child, To ask themselves questions and. give himself an answer of some type, yes or no, land to think out reasons why either yes or po holds or might hold land upon the validity or the anticipation of the validity of that lanswer what one should do accomplish his goal or just exist. 1 per ‘onally think Tean do better in math than I can in physics. Bat 1 ‘won't now until the end ofthe summer. INDINGS. An examination of the protocols reveals the following: A. Getting through the exchange None of the subjects had dificalty in accomplishing the series of ten questions, and in summarizing and evaluating the advice, B, Answers wore perceived as “answers to-questions.” 1 Typically the subjects heard the experimenter’ answers as answerso-the-questions. Perceptully, the experimenters answers were motivated by the questions. 2. Subjects saw directly “what the adviser had in mind” They heard “ina glance” what he was talking about, 4, what he meant, tnd not what he bad tered, 53. The typical subject assumed, over the course ofthe exchange, snd during the posterperimental interview, thatthe answers were advice to the problem, and that this advice as a solution to the problem was to be found via the answers, 4, All reported the “advice that they had been given” and ad ressed their appreciation and criticism to that “advice.” ©. There were no preprogrammed questions; the next question ‘was moticated by the retrospective prospective possiblities of the present stuation that were altered by each actual exchange 1 No subject administered a preprogrammed set of questions. 2. Present answers altered the sense of previous exchanges 3. Over the course of the exchange the assumption seemed to ‘operate that there was an answer to be obtained, and that ifthe answer was not abvious, that its meaning could be determined by tctve search, one part of which involved asking another question so. to find out what the adviser “had in mind 4, Much effort wae devoted to looking for meanings that were intended but were not evident from the immediate answer to the duestion 5. The present answerto-thequestion motivated the succeed {ng set of possiblities from among which the next question was,70 uote ennousTHoDoLoay selected, The nest question emerged at a product of reflections "pon the previous course of the conversation and the presupposed tnderying. problem as the topic whose features cach actual ex ‘change documented and extended. The underlying “problem” was ‘elaborated in its features asa function of the exchange. The sense ‘of the problem was progressively accommodated to each present fnswer, while the answer motivated fresh aspects of the ‘under Iying problem. ‘6 The tvderlying pattems was elaborated and compounded ‘over the series of exchanges and was aesommodated to each pres- tnt “answer” so as to maintain the “course of advice," to elaborate what had “really been advised” previously, and to motivate the new possiblities at emerging feats of the problem. D. Answers én search of questions 1. Over the course of the exchange, subjects sometimes started with the reply as an snewer and altered the previous sense ofthe {question to accommodate this to the reply as the answer to the retrospectively revised question. 2. The identical utterance was capable of answering several Aiferent questions simultaneously, and of constituting an answer toa compound question that in terms of the strict logic of proposi tions did not permit either yes or no or a single yes or no. 3. The sume utterance was used to answer several different ‘questions separated in time, Subjects relerred to this as “shedding ‘ew light” on the past. 4, Present answers provided answors to further questions that were never asked E, Handling incomplete, inopproprite, and contradictory answers. 1. Where answers were unsatisfying or incomplete, the ques- tioners were willing to wait for later answers in order to decide the sense of the previous ons. 2 Incomplete answers were treated by subjects as incomplete because of the “deficiencies” of this method of giving advice. 3. Answers that were inappropriate were inappropriate for “a reason” Ifthe reason was found, the sense of the answer was there ‘upon decided. If an answer made “good sense” this was likely to be what the answerer had “advised.” 4. When answers were incongrvoss or contradictory, subjects were able to continue by finding that the “adviser” had learned ‘more inthe meantime, or that he had decided to change his mind, for that perhaps he was not sufciently acquainted with the int. facies of the problem, or the fault was in the question 50 that another phrasing was required, 5. Incongrious answers were resolved by imputing knowledge and intent to the adviser 6. Contraditories roquited thatthe subject elect the real ques tion that the answer answered which they did by furnishing the question with additional meanings that ft with the meanings "be- Ihnd” what the adviser wae advising 7. In the case of contradictory answers much effort was devoted to reviewing the possible intent of the answer so as to rid the answer of contradiction or meaninglesness, and to rid the answerer Of untrustworthiness. 8, More subjects entertained the possiblity ofa trick than tested ‘this possibilty. All suspicious subjects were reluctant to act under ‘the belief that there was a trick involved. Suspicions were quicted if the advisers answers made "good sense" Suspicions were most unlikely 0 continue if the answers accorded with the subjects previous thought about the matter and with his prefered decision. 9. Suspicions transformed the answer into an event of “mere specch” having the appeurance of coincidental occurrence with the occasion of the questione’s question, Subjects found this struc: ture dificult to maintain and manage. Many subjects saw the sense of the answer “anyway.” 10, Those who beotme suspcious, simultaneously, though tem- porary, withdrew their willingness t0 continue F. "Search" for and perception of pattern 4. Throughout there was a concem and search for patter. Pat- tem, however, was perceived from the very beginning, Patter was ely to be seen in the fst evidence of the “advice” 2. Subjects found it very dillcult to grasp the implications of randomness in the utterances. A predetermined wtterance was treated as deceit in the anrwers instead of as an vtterance that was decided heforehund and that occured independently of the subject's questions and interests.5. When the possibility of deception occurred to the subjects the advisers utterance documented the pattern of the deceit in: stead of the pattern of advice. Thus the relationship ofthe utter- fance to the underlying patter as its document remained un- changed, G. Anncers wore asigned a scene source. 1 Subjects assigned to the adviser as his advice the thought formulated in the subject's questions. For example, when sub ject asked, “Should T come to school every night aftr supper to do Imy studying?” and the experimenter ssid, “My answer is m0.” the subject in his comments said, “He said I shoulda’ come to school tnd study” This was very common, 2. All subjects were surprised to find that they contributed so actively and $0 heavily to the “advice that they had received from the adviser” ‘3. Upon being told about the deception the subjects were ia tensely chagrined, In most cases they revised their opinions abo the procedure to emphasize its inadequacies forthe experimenters purposes (which they understood still t be an exploration of, means of giving adviee). H. The cagueness of every prosent situation of further posites remained incariant to the claricaton fumished by the exchanges (of questions and answers. 1. There was vagueness (a) in the statu ofthe utterance as an snswer, (b) in is satus as an answerto-the-question, (e) in its Matus as a document of advice with respect #0 the underlying patter, and (d) i the undeelying problem. While, after the ‘course of an exchange, the utterances Furnished “advice about the problem,” their function of advice ako elaborated the entire Scheme of problematic possibilities so that the overall effect was that of transformation of the subject's stuation in which the vagueness ofits horizons remained unchanged and “problems stil remained unanswered” In their capacity as members, subjects consulted insttutional- fzed features of the collectcity as a scheme of interpretation. 1, Subjects made speciic reference to various socal structures in| Aeciding the sensible and warranted charecter of the advisers ad- ice. Such references, however, were not made to any social struc- tures whatever. Inthe eves of the subject, if the adviser was to know and demonstrate t0 the subject that he new what he was talking about, and if the subject was to consider seriously the ad viser's descriptions of his circumstances as grounds ofthe subjects further thoughts and management of these cumstances, the sub- ject di not permit the adviser, nor was the subject wing to enter tin, any model of the socal structures. References tht the subject supplied, were to social structures which he treated as actully or potentially known in common with the adviser, And then, not to ‘any social structures known in common, but to normatively valued social structures which the subject accepted as conditions that his decisions, with respect to hit own sensible and realistic grasp of his Cércumstances and the “good” character of the advisers advice, hnad to satisly. These socal structures consisted of normative fea tures of the social system seen from within which, for the subject, ‘were definitive of is memberships inthe various collectives that were referred to, 2 Subjects gave litle Indication, prior to the occasions of use of the rules for deciding fact and monfact, what the definitive ormative structures were to which their interpretations would rake reference. The rules for documenting these definitive norma- tive orders seemed to come into play only after a set of nonnative features had been motivated as relevant to his interpretive tasks, and then as a function of the fact thatthe activities of interpreta tion were wider way. 3. Subjects presupposed known-in-common features of the col leatvty a5 a body of common sense knowledge subscribed to by ‘oth. They drew upon these presupposed patleens in assigning t0 what they heard the adviser talking about, its status of docu. mentary evidence of the definitive normative features of the col lectvity settings of the experiment, family, school, home, occupa: tion, to which the subject's interests were directed, These evidences and the collectivity features were referred back and forth to each other, with each elaborating and being thereby elaborated in its possibilities J. Deciding warrant scas identical with assigning the advice ie pereeicedly normal sense ‘Through a retrospective-prospective review, subjects justifiedoy ies m ermonHoo0100" ‘the “reasonable” sense and sanctionable status of the advice a5, rounds for managing their airs. Ie “reasonable” character con- fisted of its compatibiity with normative orders of social struc tures presumed to be subscribed to and known between subject and adviser. The subject's task of deciding the warranted charac- ter of what was being advised was identical with the task of asign- ing to what the adviser proposed (1) its status as an instance of, ‘class of events; (2) its likelthood of occurrence; (3) its com- pparsilty with past and future events; (4) the conditions of its ‘ccurrence; (5) its place in set of means-ends relationships; and (6) its necessity according to a natural (ie, moral) order. The subjects assigned these values of typicality, ikethood, compara- bility, causal texture, technieal eflesey, and moral requirednest while using the insitutionalied features of the collectivity as @ ‘scheme of interpretation. Thus, the subjects task of deciding ‘whether or not what the adviser advised war “true” was identical with the tak of assigning to what the adviser proposed it per. ceivedly normal values K, Perceivedly normal calues were not 40 much “assigned” as managed. Through the work of documenting—Le., by searching for and etermining pattern, by treating the advisers answers as mot vated by the intended sense of the question, by waiting for later answers to clarify the sense of previous ones, by finding answers to unasked questions-the perceived normal values of what Was being advised were established, tested, reviewed, retained, re- stored: in a word, managed. It is misleading, therefore, to think Of the documentary method as a procedure whereby propositions are accorded membership in a sclentibe carpus! Rather the docu- mentary method developed the advice so as to be continually “membershipping” it in sociological inquiry Examples of the use of the documentary method can be cited from every area of sociological investigaion* Its obvious applica- 5G. FelicKaufnas, Methodology of th Social Sines (New Yk: Ox: ford Unter Testy 1544, pec pp 9958 "In hr atl, “nthe ftp of "Weltanshung” Manabe 9s tion occurs in community studies where warrant is asigned to satements by the criteria of “comprehensive description” and “ring Of truth" Ite use $8 found also on the many occasions of survey research when the researcher, in reviewing his interview notes oF {m editing the answers to a questionnaire, has to decide “what the respondent had in mind” When a researcher Is addressed to the “motivated character” of an action, or a theory, of @ person's com plance to a legitimate order and the like, he will use what he has Actually observed to “document” an “underlying pattern” The documentary method is used to epitomize the abject. For example, just as the layperson may say of something that “Harry” says "Isnt that just ike Harry?” the tnvestigator may use sore observed, feature of the thing he is refering to as a characterizing indicator ‘of the intended matter. Complex scenes lke Industral establish- rents, communities, or social movements are frequently described with the aid of “excerpts” from protocols and numerical tables, hich are used to epitomize the intended events. The documentary method is used whenever the investigator constructs a life history fr a “natural history” The task of historiizing the person's biog raphy consists of ising the documentary method to select and ‘order past occurrences so as to furnish the present state of allalrs its relevant past and prospects. ‘The use of the documentary method is not confined to cases of “soft” procedures and “partial descriptions” Mt occurs as well in ceases of rigorous procedhires where descriptions are intended t0 exhaust a definite feld of possible observables. In reading a journal fccount for the purpose of literal replication, researchers who attempt to reconstruct the relationship between the reported pro- ‘cedures and the results frequently encounter a gap of insullcient Information. The gap occurs when the reader asks how the in- vestigator decided the correspondence between what was actualy ‘observed and the intended event for which the actual observation is treated ae its evidence: The reader's problem consists of having Siped tat te dosimesiany wat i pooliar w We acl acces The ‘Sa he seb scenes gray terial ways of ifeing to eae Betta of nertanding nymputhetc nomen” med of ih atid of inion “oieqwetne method “Ciel che” “cpa Examples are furnished in the fist two properties, 1, From the standpoint of an adult member of our society, the perceived environment of “normally sexed persons” is populated by two sexes and only two sexes, “male” and "female: 2, From the standpoint of an adult member of our society, the population of normal persons i¢ « morally dichotomized population ‘The question of te existence is decided as a matter of motivated compliance with this population as a legitimate order. It is not Secided a8 4 mater of biological, medial, urological, sociological, Deyehiatric, of paychological fact The question of its existence is Instead decided by conelting both the likelihood that compliance to this legitimate order can be enforced and the conditions that Aetermine this Ukelhood, ‘3 The adult member includes himself in this environment and counts himself as one or the other not only as a condition of his Selfrespeet, but at « condition whereby the exercise of his rights to live without excessive risks and interference from others are routinely enforceable “4. The members of the normal population, for him the bona fide members of that population, are essentially, orginally, in the Fist place, aways have been, and always vill be, once and for all, inthe final analysis, either “male” or “female.” 5. Certain insignia are regarded by normals es essential in their Heating function? whore other quis, actions, eto this so the Ble are ese at tse, tempor, teeta, Siruntata, andthe rst. Fornonmals the possesion of pet ira imo and u vagion by 4 female ate eet insignia AP ogra feelings, activi membership obligation, and the Hee Ee tuted to penons who poses pence ad vaginas. (How Ser he ponesin ofa. penis or» vaginas bilgal event isto be datingithed tom the posession of one or the oer or toh asa ultra ever. The ferences between bloga and tultwal penises and vaginas as socially employed evidenes of ‘Satur seruliy” wil be commented on at rete gh below) (chats npn ober mae eal ade by eas for now members not only atthe point of ter frst appearance, the pons, bt even befre,Ietends a wal tthe etre frosty and to poste. The recogoton sot changed by the death of the member.* - oe mare 7. For noma tho pretence inthe envionment of sexed objets has the festue of natal mater of fc” Th nats Caries slong wih at mconttuen pan af Re mening, the Sete of lo beng right aod cone, morally proper that tbe that wey. Bosse I 4 mata mater of fat, forthe members tour soley there are only tural mules and natura fees ‘Te got erclty forte member i composed onl of pens ws tre eer one sox or the other Hence the Dona de member of the sce, wtin what he soci oa well wat Be expects tion to Sibsebefo ss commited ele sat “tral saters of fac” regarding dtrton of see pons In the Sot, Bde the cine ofthe scenes ie mology oloy, and pct thy staoge. Thee sener argue that deions shout smuty tre problematic matter. The nonnalfnds srnge and diet {0a endenc 10s” dtrtion of both male an fe tele careers among prsns, or 8 precede for desing 2 or exam the Bord of Heth ofr ie Muwest City where Ages sex brn en led to spre Agnes appa orca of th ‘et, ar mpd to have awed that inthe al ara the cx SSSR pam eal vl eh wed Ax vac tha done geste “parm” feo en, fr ‘hg ad risen whine nels were daeoed a par of eee ‘mol woud ee14 saps eHROMEHODOLODY sexuality which adds up lists of male and female characteristics fand takes the exerss asthe criterion of the member’ sex, or the practice of using the frst three years of training to decide semuaity, fr the provision for the presence in the familar society of males ‘who have vaginas and females who have penises “This “common sense” characterization 1 in no way Timited to onprofessional opinion. For example, a leading member of a prominent Department of Pryehiatry in this country commented Efter hearing about the case, “I donit see why one noeds to pay that much interest to such ences. She is afterall a very rare occur rence. These persons are after al feaks of mature” We could not have solicited a more common sense formula. A measure of the extent of the members commitment to the moral order of sexual types would consist ofthe reluctance to lend credence toa charac- terization that departed from the “natural facts of lif.” AS we shall see below, in many diffrent wavs Agnes taught us as well, though unwittingly, the institutionally motivated charactor of this reluctance T have stressed several times that for the bona file member “normal” means “in socordance with the mores” Sexuality as a natural fact of Ife means therefore sexuality as a natural and ‘moral fact of life. The member's willingness, therefore, to treat hormal sexuality as an object of theoretical intorest requires, in ‘cing for himself the real nature of sexed persons, that he Sus pend the relevance of his institutionally routinized practical cir. fumstances, We find, however, that the normal member does not treat semulity, his own or others, ax a matter of more theoretic dnterest, whereas this is im principle the limit of our investigative interest in the phenomenon of normal sexuality as it is in other sciences a8 well The normal also treats the sexed char sons popubting his everyday environment as a qu “decided by nature.” This quality, once the member's “nature” decides it, holds thereafter ttrespective of ime, occasion, crcum- stance, or considerations of practical advantage. The person's mem- bership as a normally sexed member, male or female, has the characteristic of, and i treated by the novnal as remaining i ‘variant throughout that person's biography and throughout his, future Metime and beyond, His sexual membership remains un ‘changed through any imputed actual and potential fetime. To use Parsons’ phrasing, i i “invariant to all exigencies” us 8, From the standpoint of the normal member, if one examines the population of sexed persons at one time counting the presence ‘of males and females, and ata later tine examines the population again, no tanslers will have occurred from one sex status to the other except for those transfers that are ceremonially permitted, (Our society prohibits wilful of random movements from one sex status 0 the other, Ie insists that such transfers be accom panied by the wellknown controls that accompany masquerading, play-acting, party behavior, convention behavior, spying, and the Tike. Such changes are treated both by those making the changes as well as those observing them in others as limited both by the clock as well us by occasions and practical circumstances, The person is expected “after the play” to “stop acting” On the way hhome from the party the person may be reminded that the pasty “is over” and that he should conduct himself like the person he “really &" Such admonitions as a “st line of social control” make ‘up commonly encountered sinctios whereby persons are te minded to act in accordance with expected attitudes, appearances, ‘aflations, dress, style of life, round of Ie, and the Uke that are fssigued by the major institutions. Ta our society these consist, prominently of occupational and Kinship arrangements with their {intended obligatory statuses, Their importance is this: that per. ‘sons are held to compliance with them regardless oftheir desires, ‘whether they like itor not” From the standpoint of the normal, changes of the population’ composition ean be accomplished by the paths only of birth, death, and migration. "Agnes was all too aware that an alternative path had been traveled, that it was traveled with negligible feequency, and that the transfer was harshly punishable, Like Agnes, the nornal knows that there are persons who make the change but he, as did she, counts such persons as freaks, unusual, or bizarre. Characters: tically be Bids the change self dificult to “understand” and urges ceither punishment or medical remedy. Agnes did not depart from this point of view? even though her sex was for her a matter of ‘wills election Between svaiable alternatives. This knowledge 1iNeqet, oe inferior es wth a ‘rae depen tothe pew tht rare moe accepting lal deci than the was Far lamp, nvr ly pera who ret at cate eprenedcogliate rmpaty They four ae the Sng be 9m Fathcus slut tat she old have hd to have buen onluted wih cio th Se lace16 uote i ehNousTHODCLoGY was accompanied by a burdensome necessity for justifying the lection. The election consisted of choosing to live asthe normally sexed person that she had always been “Agnes subscribed to this description of a real world even though there were for her in thst world persons, among whom she included Ihemelf, who had mide the change from one sex to the other. Her tary history stood in contrast for her to what she was neverthe- less convinced about as to her normal sexuality. In seeking a change of bith certificate Agnes treated the change as the correction of fn original error committed by persons who were ignorant of the true fats ‘Agnes held the conviction that there are not many people who could be told what she had done and who “wll really understand.” Hence, for Agnes an otherwise important common understanding with ethers had the troublesome feature that does not occur for hormals, particularly where the dichotomy of sex types is con- ‘cerned, namely, Agnes was unable to exercise the assumption that Ther circumstances, as they appeared to her would appear in a more or less identical way to her interactional partners, were they £0 texchange places, We might refer to this as the exstence of a problematic “community of understandings" by and about sexed persons treating each others sex as known ia common and taken for granted by them, 8. In the cultural environments of normally sexed persons males have penises and females have vaginas. From the point of view of normal member, wherever there are cases of rales with vaginas land females with penises there are persons who, though they may be dificult classify, must nevertheless be in principle cassifable and must be counted! as members of ene camp or the other. Agnes subscribed to this view too as a natural fact of life, even though this same population incladed at last ane female with a penis, i herself and following the operation sacluded a female with a ma made vagina, Tt iicluded others as well that she had leamed of through her resdings and contacts with physicians both in her home town and in Los Angeles. According to er account all others besides herself were personally unknown to her. 10. That Agnes could insist on her membership in the natural population of sexed persone even though she was, prior to the Dperation, a female with a penis and, following the operation, a ww female with » man-made vagina, suggests another important prop- ‘erty of a naturally sexed person, When we compare Agnes’ beliefs fot only with those of normals but with what normals believe thout persons whose genitals for ove reason or another change in ‘ppearance, or suller damage or loss, through aging, ditcase, i juris, or surgery we observe that i i not that nommals and Ages Init wpon the possession ofa vagina by females (We consider now only the ease of the normal female; the identical argument holds {or males), They insist upon the possession of ether vagina that rature made or a vagina that should have been there all along, fe, the legitimate possesion. The legitimately possessed vagina is the object of interest. It isthe eagina the person is eniled to Although “nature” is a preferred and bona‘fide source of entitle ‘ent, surgeons are at well if they repair a natoral error, Le, if they serve as nature's agents to provide “what nature meant to bbe there” Not just thie vagina but just this vagina as the case of the real thing. Tn the idential way that for a member of a lan- guage community a linguistic utterance isa ease of aword/-in-the- Tanguage, or for a gime player a move is a move-in-the game, the enital that serve the normal member as insignia of normally fexed membership consists of penises-and-vaginas-in-the-m0 forder-of-sexed-persons. (Iam speaking descriptively. I propose there “essences” as attributions that members find in their environ ments, To avoid any misunderstandings, ¥ would like to stress that, Lam talking data. Iam not arguing platonic realism as @ phlos- phy’ of socal science.) ‘Agnes experiences with a female cousin, sister-in-law, and aunt may illuminate this property. In the course of commenting on ‘what she characterized as her cousi’s “jealousy” when a male ‘stor to her brother's home who had not met either one clearly preferred Agnes to her cousin who was approximately the same fe, Agnes commented on her cousin's change in attitude from ‘one i which she was favorable to Agnes before the trip to Midwest Gity but showed strong disapproval afterwards. According. to Agnes’ comments, Agnes felt that her cousin thought of Agnes as ‘fake, not «real woman. Agnes suid of her cousin thatthe cousin felt that Agnes was a rival. (The portrayed rivalry was reciprocally felt, for Agnes said that she found i hard to “get her out of my mind") Similarly for Agnes’ sisterinlaw, a mild disapproval onv8 Tumis 1K EHNOMETHODOLODY the sisterinaw’s part prior to the Midwest City trip changed to fopen hostility upon Agnes! retuon, Agnes attributed this t0 the Svterinlaw’s resentment that Agnes was hardly the person to ‘compare herself to the sister-in-law in affairs of proper domestic fand mantal conduct. By comparison with these rials, Agnes com Imented on the dramatic change on the part of the elderly aunt ‘who accompanied her mother to Lot Angeles to eate for Agnes uring her convalescence from the castration operation. Agnes characterized the aunt asa natural female with no questions about it. The aunt, sid Agnes, reflected the attitude of other family members. Ths attitude, said Agnes, was one of general acceptance prior to the tip to Midwest City, constemation and severe dis- pproval after the return, and relieved acorptance and treatment ‘of her as-a real female after all” (Agnes quotation of the aunts remark) following the operation and during our conversations ‘hile the aunt was in Los Angeles. ‘The point: in each ease the ‘object of interest was not the possession ofthe pens or ofthe man- nade vagina, but, in the case of the cousin and sister-in-law, Agnes’ [penis was prime facie contradictory of Agnes claims, by her other Sppearances, to poseese the real thing. In the case of the aunt, Alto the vagina was man-made it was a case of the real thing since it was what she was now seen to have been entitled to all ‘long. Both the aunt and the mother were strongly impressed by the fact thatthe operation bad been done at all “in this country.” ‘That the physicians at the U.C.L-A. Medical Center by their ac- tions reconstructed and validated Agnes claim to her status a5 a ‘natural female needs, of course, to be stressed ‘Some additional features of Agnes asthe natural female require mention 'Not only did Agnes directly express the claim “I have always been a gir” but it was advanced by the device of a remarkably ‘alized biography in which evidences of her original femininity wore exaggerated while evidences of a mixture of characteristics, Tet alone clear-cut evidences of a male upbringing, were rigorously suppressed, The child Agnes of Agnes accounts didnot lke to play rough games like baseball her “biggest” problem was having to play boys’ games; Agnes was more or less considered a. sissy, ‘Runes was always the litest one; Agnes played with doll and 19 cooked mud patty cakes for her brother; Agnes helped her mother With the household duties; Agnes doesn’ remember whit kinds of silts she received from her father when she was a child. 1 once asked Agnes if she had lined up with the boys in public school. er startled and angry reply was, "Lining up with the boys for What!” When I told her I was thinking of Hining up ia danelng lass of lining up for physical examinations at school Agnes sad, “Lining up never came wp” I asked her if medical examinations with boys never happened, She agroed “That's right, they never happened.” We came to refer to her presentation of the 120 per cent female. Not only in her accounts, but at times in het conver Sations with me, Agnes was the ooy, sexually innocent, fun-loving, passive, receptive, "young thing.” AS a kind of dialectical counter: Dart to the 120 per cent female Agnes portrayed her boyfriend as 11120 per cont male who, she said, when we fst started to talk, and repeated through elght stressful weeks following the opera. tion when postoperative complications had subsided and the ro- caleltrant vagina was filly: turing out to be the thing the physicians had promised, “wouldnt have been interested in me ft all I was abnormal” The penis that was possessed ty the natural female was, repeatedly and under recurrent questioning, an accidental appendage used for the sole porpose of passing rine. The penis of Agnes’ accounts had never boon erect; she was never curious about ity it was never scrutinized by her or by others; it never entered into games with other children, it never ‘moved “voluntarily; t wat never @ source of pleasurable feeling, it had always heen an accidental appendage stuck on by a cruel trick of fate. When it was amputated and Agnes was asked now ‘that her penis and scrotum were gone what did she think of the ‘penis and scrotum that were gone, her answer was that she did not fect it was necessary to give st any more thought than one would sive to having had a painful wart that had been removed, ‘Agnes frequently called my attention to her lack of a biography that was appropriate to the fact that she was accepted by others ‘and most particularly by her boyfriend as a gil Agnes talked of the seventeen yeur gap in her Ife and indicated that her present female character was assigned by others a continuous history a8 4 female that extended to the time of her birth. She pointed out that only since the time that she made the change hd she beenable to establish a female biography of experiences which she and fothers could rave on as a precedent in managing present appear tees and circumstances. She lacked « proper biography to serve fe-a historicn prospective contert for managing current situations For others, and most particularly with her boyfriend, an all-along Female corresponded tothe antiepations that she encouraged with her boylstend, Two years of accumulating memories presented her fern source for a series of rises about which more will be Spoken below when I discuss her passing occasions and ber man- figement devices “Another feature of the normal natural female was found in ‘Agnes portrayal of and insistence upon her Ifelong desire to be the thing that she bad always known she was. Within her por- trayal, her desies came essentially from mysterious and unknown, ources, and withstood all vicistudes posed by an ignorant en Vironment that attempted to force, though unsuccessfully, an aF- Diteary line of departure from a nomal course of development. [Agnes stress repeatedly, "T've aways wanted t0 bea gil Ihave ‘ahvays felt like rk and T have always been gil but a mistaken fnvironment forced the other thing on me” On many occasions of four conversations she was asked how she accounted for the desire that withstood environmental exigencies. Her replies invariably claborated the theme, “There's no explaining i ‘Given Agnes’ subscription to the normal’ distinction between the normal natural male snd the normal natural female, thece was Jess ambiguity for Agnes in distinguishing between herself as citer a male ora female than there was in distinguishing between hrersef as a natural female and a male homosenusl. The very ex- tensiveness of the exaggerations of her feminine biography, of the Inasculinity of her boylriend, of her anaesthetized penis, and the like, fumish the feature continually insisted upon: an identification ‘which is consistently feminine. Much of the instrumental realism that she diected to the management of her chosen sexual status twas concemed with so managing her circumstances as to avoid Iwhat she treated as @ mistaken and degrading identity. Confound Ing the two were matters of objectively assessable error, ignorance, and injotice on the parts of others. Those of her defenses which fost her deatly in efeciveness and realty orientation were di rected to Keeping the distances between her natural normal femi- 1 ninty and male honoris tn wpa. Time after tine in the course of our metings when I directed the conversation to hot Sessa and transvestites Agnes had = grest eal of ico, Simaancouly managing ber fascination for the tople and th stat annity that the conversation seemed to generate. The ple tire she would present then was that of a mild Jepesion. ler ners would become impoverished. Occasionally her voce would break av she denied ioowiedge of thi or that. "Teve wae 8 e- ‘ested Insitenes tat sh was inno way comparable “Tim tke them she would contin isis "n high schon tered clea of boys Bat acted ike sie anyone with am somal ob Jem. would completely sy away fom therm and go tthe pot of being insulting fost enough to get around them «7 Sat want to feel otend taking 10 them cans somebody ‘night celate them to me. 1 dnt want toe cased with them’ ist as nora frequently wl beat los to understand “why a perio would do that" ke, engage in homoseral actives 0 dress as a member of the opposite sex did Agnes dip the Same lick of indenting for such behavior, although her ac- comission fe ‘ever with indignation, When she was invited by me to compare Terself with Homosertls and transvestites she found the com parnon repulsive, Although she wanted to now ore, when 1 peo Ped that s transvestite ho was being seen by anerrevercher tr interested in talking with her she ese to have any contac, ‘wth him. Nor would she consider talking with any of the other atin that T mentioned to her who sve were seing sro had Experiences snr to hors. When I tld her that group of about feventeen perions in San Francisco who had either received or sere pinning to have castration operation were interested Imecting and exchanging experencer wth persons with snot problems, Agoes sid that she could not imagine what they would Have to tlk with her about and insisted tht se was in no way any concen oftheir “as we have seems insted that er male gents wer a rick of fate personal misfortine, an acident, above all was beyond ty owe prea ns acne She ed het fenital 8 an abnormal growth. Ocevomly sho would speak of Boprts tumor With ge rl ota eee of erv2 ries wv enoioweoo01osy femininity, and needing essential and natural signs of female sex tality, she counted instesd the Ife-long desire to be a female and her prominent breasts, Her self described feminine feelings, be- havior, choices of companions, and the like were never portrayed fas matters of decision or choice but were treated 6 given a5 a fataral fact. As they were displayed in er accounts, their natura ‘Grercse would have been displayed from the beginning, she in- Sisted, were not for a misdirecting, frustrating, misunderstanding environment. Before all she counted her breasts as essential insignia, On several occasions in our conversations she expressed the relief and joy she felt when she noticed at the age of twelve that her breasts ‘were starting to develop. She sai that she kept this discovery from Ther mother and siblings because "it was none of their business.” e-was clear from her later remarks that she meant by this that she feared that they would regard the dovelopment of the breasts {ase medical abnormality and because of her age and incompetence night decide, regardless of and contrary to her wishes and to what the felt that she could have enforced upon them, that she receive medical attention end thereby risk their loss. She took particular Drie in the sizeof her breasts, as she did in hor measurements Prior to the operation she was fearful that “dhe doctors at U.C.L.A™ ‘would decide among themselves, and without consulting her, and at the time of the operation, that the remedy for her condition consisted. in amputating her breasts instead of her penis and Serotum, Following. the operation, because of endocrinological changes and for other reasons, she lost weight, Her breasts be- ‘ame smaller, her chest measurement dropped from 38 to 35. The ‘distress that she showed was sulicently apparent to have been ‘considered by us as one of the factors making up a short-lived ‘but severe postoperative depression, When the Departments of Endocrinology and Urology had fnished their medical work, but bafore the opertion, she permitted herself a mild optimism which she kept under heavy check by the continual reminder that the decision was no longer in her bands, and by reminding herself, Ime, Stoller and Rosen tht on prior occasions, most particularly after examinations in her home town, after permitting herself treat optimism, she had been left with “nothing but encourage- rent, Just words” When she was told to report to the U.C.LA. Medical Center and that the decision had been made to ammputate the penis and make an artificial vagina for her, she spoke of the ecision with great relief. She spoke of the medical decision as an authoritative vindication of her claims to her natural femininity. Even the complications following the operation furnished episodes ‘of pleasurable vindication. For example, following the operation she developed a mild urethral drip for which sho had been ad- vised by the physician to wear a Kotex pad. When T observed rather pleasantly that this was certainly a new experience for her, she laughed and was obviously pleased and fattere. ‘There were many occasions when my attentions Hatred her with respect to her femininity; for example, holding her arm while [guided her across the street; having lunch with her atthe Medial, Center; offering to hang up her coat; relieving her of her hand- bag; holding the automobile door for her while she entered; being solicitous for her comfort before I closed the auto door and took ‘my own seat behind the wheel. At times ike this her behavior re. minded me that being female for her was like having been given wonderful gift. Ie was on such occasions that she most clearly dis- played the characenstis of the “190 per cant female” At such times she acted like « recent and enthusiastic initiate into the sorority of her heart’ desire. ‘Achieving the ascribed propertiog ‘of the natural, normal female ‘The natural, normal female was for Agnes an ascribed object In common with normals, she treated her femininity as inde- pendent of the conditions of is occurrence and invariant to the icisitudes of desires, agreements, random or willl election, acc- ent, considerations of advantage, available resources, and oppor- tunities. It remained for her the temporally klentical thing over all historical and prospective eirumstances and possible expert fences. Tt remained the selfsame thing in essence under all aon tats “seit at lation concept” Any fst of a ob- ae tt al amis ay ange tren Faseg jek of aaron” A pero er commen Tato. bt ot beng of ie popes of gens ace bu bec a ‘ly Becase apts ee eucy etel tie way108 sruois 1m emNOMEMODOLODY imaginable transformations of setual appearances, time, and cir cumstances. It withtood all exigencies. "The asribed, normal natural female was the abject that Agnes sought to achieve for hers “Two meanings of “achievement” are meant in speaking of Agnes! having achieved her status as a female. (1) Having become female represented for her status up-erading from that of a male which ‘as for her of lesser value than the statis of a female. For her to bbe female made her s more desirable object by far in her own, eyes and, as she was realistically convinced, in the eyes of others ‘8 well, Prior to the change and afterwards as well, the change to female not only represented an elevation of herself as a worth: while person, but was a status t0 which she Bterlly aspired. (2) ‘The second sense of achievement refers to the tasks of securing and guaranteeing for herself the ascribed rights and obligations of fan adult female by the acquisition and use of sills and capacities, the efficacious display of female appearances and pesformances, and the mobilizing of appropriste felings and purposes. Asin the rormal case, the test of such management work occurred under the gize of and in the pretence of normal male and female others. ‘While her claims to her natural femininity could be advanced they could not be taken for granted. Many matters served as ob Stinate reminders that her femininity, though claimed, could be Claimed only atthe cost of vigilance and work. Prir to the opers- tion se was a female with a penis. The operation itself substituted tne set of dificulties for another. Thus, alter the operation she was ‘female with a “man-made” vagina In her anxious words, “Noth- ing that is made by man can ever be a5 good as something that nature makes” She and her boyfriend were agreed on this, In fact, her borfiend who, in her accounts of him, peided himself as ‘harsh realist, insisted on this and taught it to her to her dismayed ‘agreement. In addition, her brand new vagina proved to be re- tilitrnt and icky. Shortly ater the operation an infection de- ‘eloped from the mold. When the mold was removed adhesions formed and the canal wouk! no longer receive a penissized mold ‘Manual manipulations to keep the canal open had to be done ovt of the sight of others and with care thatthe nature ofthis private ‘work remain concealed. These manipulations caused pain, For ‘many weeks after the operation she sulfered discomfort and was was exasperated and homilated by fecal and urethral dipping. This ‘was followed by further hospitalization. There were mood changes and feclings tht she had lost the sharpness, alertness, and definite: ess of her thoughts. Unpredictable mood changes produced severe quarrels with her boyfriend who threatened to leave her if she Showed any further anger with him. In addition there was the reminder that while she now had the vagina that she had with it 4 male biography. She would say, “There is a big gap in my fe” In addition there was the fact thatthe change to a public feminine appearance had been made only thees years before. Most of her Dior rehearsals had been those in imagination, Thus she was still, Teaming to act and feel like a woman. She was learning this new role only asa fanetion of actully playing it out. There were risks and uncertainties involved, The job of securing snd guaranteeing the rights of female by coming to deserve such attbutions through hheraccomplishments~through her success in acting out the female role-thereby involved her in circumstances whose omnizelevant feature was that she knew something vitally relevant to the ac: cepted terns of the interaction that the others did not know snd that she was in fact engaged in the uncertain tasks of using ‘What were some matters thet after and/or belore the opera. ton Agnes was required to hide? 1. Prior to the operation the contradictory insignia of her femi- rive appearence; the masked male genital 2. That she was raised as a boy and thus did not have «history to correspond to her appearance as an attractive female 3, That she made the change only three years before snd was stil Teaming to act lke th thing that she wanted to be taken for. 44. That she was unable and would be unable to full the things expected of her by males who were attracted to her precisely to the extent that she succeeded in puting herself over as a sexually attractive female, 5. There was a manmade vagina 8. That she wanted the penis and scrotum removed and a vagina constructed in its place. Ater the operation that she had vagina that had been constricted from the skin of an amputated penis and labia from the skin of the lost srotum,136 suoie Ws eHNONEHODOLOSY 7. There were the matters to mask about the sexual services that her boyfriend demanded that she somehow satied ‘8. There was what she did, and with whose help, to alter her appearance. 9, There were the activites of active management of persons ‘around her in order to achieve the operation, most particularly the physicians and research personnel at UCLA, and of course the fedical personnel during the years when she Sought medical help. ‘Agnes sought to be treated and to treat others according t0 & legitimate sexual status, while there accompanied this a deep dark secret which was concerned not with the skis and adequacy with ‘which she acted out the status but with the legitimacy of her oc- Cupancy. For Agnes, acting out the new status was accompanied by the feclings that she knew something that the other person did not know, the disclosure of which, she was convinced and feared, fwould ruin her. The sex status transfer invelved the assumption of 2 legitimate status the disclosure of which involved great risks, Stats degradation, psychological trauma, and loss of ‘material fdvantages, Ths kind of passing i ently comparable to passing found in politieal underground, secret Societies, refugees from political persecution, of Negroce who become whites. In. Agnes {ase itis of particular interest because the change of sexual status ‘was accompanied by her paying marked and deliberate attention to making the new identity secure against some known ant? many unknown contingencies, This was done via active and deliberate Ianagement of her appearances before others as an object. She placed great stress om manners and proprieties and manipulation ‘of personal relationships. The work had to be done in situations Known with the most faltering knowledge, having marked uncer- tainty about its rules of practice, with severe risks and important prizes simultaneously involved, one not being available without the other, Punishment, degradation, lss of reputation, and loss of material advantages were the matters at risk should the change be etected. In almost every situation of interaction the relevance of the secret operated as backiround knowledge. Her concem to scape detection had « value of highest peonty. Almost every situation had the feature therefore of an actual or potential “char fcter and fitness" test It would be less accurate to say of her that ce she has passed than that she was continually engaged in the work of passing, Posting The work of echieving and making secure her rights to lice as 4 norma, natural female while having continually to provide for the possibilty of detection and ruin eaeried on within socially structured conditions I call Agnes’ “pasting” Her situations of actvity—a very large number of them-were chronically ones of “structured strain.” We may think of them as socially structured situations of potential and actual eriss. Sociological speaking, the stres is a “normal ste” in the Sense that the stress occurred precisely because of her active attempts to comply with a leit- ‘mate order of sex roles. Each ofa great variety of structurally df. ferent instances required vigilance, resourcefulness, stamina, sut- tained motivation, preplanning that was accompanied continually by improvisation, and, continually, sharpness, wit, knowledge, and very’ importantly her willingness to deal in “good reasone”—ie,, to either fumish or be ready to furnish reasonable justifeations (explanations) oF to avoid situations where explanations would be required Passing was not a matter of Agnes’ desire. It was necesary for hae. Agnes had to be a female, Whether she liked it or not she had to pass. She enjoyed her sucosses and feared and hated her fale ures, When I asked her to tell me the “real good things” that had Ihapponed to her she talked about her fst job after her return to hher home town; fun on group dates in her home town after the change; living with her roommate in Los Angeles; her skill at a stenographer, a succession of increasingly better jobs, the opert- ton eight weeks afterwards when the new vagina looked good, ‘vas finally healing without pain, and to the surprise ofthe surgeons was responding to her efforts to achieve five inches of depth, “OF ‘course the best thing that ever happened to me was Bill” ‘When I asked Agnes if there were any “real bad things” that had Ihappened to her, the strain in her attempt to reply was 80 evident that I found it necessary to modify the question and asked instead for some things that were “bad things but not such bad things” To this she replied, “Being noticed (in grammar and especialy138 suo. eHNOMEHODCLOSY high school) and being noticed that I didn't have any friends oF ‘companions or anything” (After pausing). “I didat have friends Ieeause T digit react normally under any kind of a relationship Tike that. T couldnt have a boyfriend. 1 didnt want a boytien. Beeaune of the way T vas T couldn't have gulirends either, so there I was... I didnt have friends because T couldn't react normally under any kind of a velationship like that." T asked why the couldn't have friends, “How could 1 have giliriends? How could T have pal?” My question: why not? “L probably felt it ‘Would be impossible, At school 1 didnt joke around with the girls fr pal around or do anything hike that because then T was being Nery conspicuous” From her other deseritions, particuaely dic ult times can be briefly, but of course not exhaustively, ent mmerated as follows: growing wp; the three years of high school; fe at home immediately after the change; th attitudes of family, neighbors and former friends after she retumed from Midwest Gity, the acute disappointment when she was told that no action oul be taken after her examinations and exploratory laparatomy in her home town; managiog her boyfriend Bill's demands for intercourse, the episode with Bill when she finally disclosed to him that she had penis between her legs; managing her conversi- tions with us at U.C.LA. io the hope that the decision would be favorable and that the operation would be done soon; her fear that the doctors would decide to amputate hor breasts instead of her penis and tht she was comasited to an operation the deision being no longer within her contol following the operation her convalescence which lasted approximately six weeks and which twas marked by a moderate depression, quickly changing moods ‘which she war unable either to contrl or to justi to herself or tw her boyfiend, and # succession of severe quarrels with her boy- friend; a recalcitrant vagina that would not heal properly and had A fraction of the depth she had hoped for, a severe bladder infec. tion that required rehosptaiation; the reduction in the size of her breasts from 28 inches to 5 and her attendant fear that the penis was after all necessary to keep her feminine appearance; hher changed relationship with Bill for three months fllowing the operation, and finaly, antiipstolly, Los Angeles, f her marriage plane did not materialize “The “real good situations” were those in which the work of 139 passing permitted her the feelings of, and permitted her to teat thers and to be teated by others a, "normal, natural gil” The “real bad things” were the situations in which the management work, for various reasons, filed or promised to fal. Oly i et spect did they acquire the dramatic features of successes or fal. ‘ues. For our interest the ertcal cases were those that had to be hhanded in their course. What kinds of situations were they? How did she manage over their course to come to terms with them? In ‘many of these situations and somehow, despite the socially struc. tured character of the exses, she achieved Some approximation to rutinized management and “Ife as usual” ‘An illustrative instance may be used to introduce our diseus- sion of these questions ‘Before reporting for a physical examination for a job that she later obtained with a large insurance company, and because she Jhad had similar previous physical examinations, Agnes decided that she would allow the physician's examination to proceed as far as her lower abdomen. Ifthe physician then proceeded or ave any indication of examining the genital area she had decided to protest modesty and if this wasn't enough to put the physician of she would simply leave, perhaps feigning modesty, or if necosary aiving no excuse. It was much to be preferred to forego the job than to vsk disclosure, with one condition being dependent of course wpon the other. Tn instance after instance the situation to be managed can be described in general us one in which the attainment of common- place goals and attendant satisfactions involved with it a risk of exposure. She employed a strategy by which she was prepared to get out from under if exponute seemed likely though at the cost of sacrificing these advantages, Her characteristic situation in ppssing was one in which she had to be prepared to choose, and. Froquently chose, between securing the’ feminine identity and accomplishing ordinary goals. Her chronic situation was one in which both conditions had to be simultaneously satisbed by her active deliberate management. The thing that she knew that others did not know was that the two conditions—managing to obtain op- portunities for insttutionalized and commonplace satisfaction, ‘while minimizing the risk of dscosure-were ranked in a Axed priority: security was to be protected fist. The common satisfac140 srupis IN emNOMETHODOLOSY tions were to be obtained only if the prior conditions ofthe secured {lenuity could be satisGed, Risks in this direction entailed the sac rife of the other satisfactions "A variety of situations furnish us with the variations on this essential theme. Possing occasions ‘To help collect my thoughts about the various occasions on whi Ages had to pas 1 ted to tink of these sitions a8 4 Yue, When I'd 50 only a comparatively sall amount of the eval that va clted from Agnes can be Hated wibout “rcmuntring severe srctralincongrates. In adition the mate Shi that oan be conceived ner the spices ofa game, while oy lactate comparisons between the, Passing oomsions, alo em not toe particular to Agner experiences fn sexual passing ‘The mater at are particular to sexual pusing are difleat to Clarify with the notion of game Beease of the stuctral incon- titer Bat are mottated by applying the model "The follwing formal properties of games facitate the analysis fone st ofthese mater but etesfere with for the ober set. Thre the pecular time stricture of gumes and events sn umes, For he players sof any present tte of the game, ere ir potently available to each the Inowledge tht bya time the imme wll have been completed. (2) It things go bly 1s powsble for player to “leave the game orto change to another one and the ie (3) To bein the game oes dfn, thes sion of the presoppostons and procedures of “seous" ie Tiany commentator on games have taken notice ofthis featare Dy speaking of the game asa artical wor in microcosm.” (8) The “Tutu! bingraphies tht are tabled for payers as fonction UF thet actual ply together fois precedents at are pareuar to tht game's nterecions. (5) An accomplied ply of «game nits ofan encapolte!epsode. The rules and actual acum flshed course of play furish the eplzode sent character as etre of relevance. (8) Characterstial,saccess and failure re desrly deldale and one or the ether Outcome i ordinany Sexy lle subject to feinterpeaton, Players new not await de- Yelopments outside of the Ply of the game in order to permit “ ‘ecisions as to what the episode was all bout. (7) Insofar as the players are committed to. compliance with the basic roles that Aefine the game, the basic rules provide for players the definitions of conssteney, effectivenes, efficiency, ie, of rational, realistic ction in that setting. Indeed, actions in compliance with these basic rules define in games “airplay” and “justice” (8) Altough strategies may be highly improvised and although the conditions of success and failure may, over the course of play, be unclear to the players the basie rules of play are known and are independent of the changing present states ofthe game and of the selection of strategies. The basic rules are available for use by players and presumed by players to be available as required knowledge that players have prior to the oecasions under which these rues might be consulted to decide among legal alternatives. (9) Within the basic rules, procedures of strict instrumental effacy ate, in prince ple, adoptable by either player, and each player can assume this for himself or for his opponent or insist upon them for himself and his opponent without impovershing his rasp of the game, ‘The game illuminates yeveal of Agnes’ passing occasions both 8a texture of relevant environmental possibilities and in its opers- tional structure. The game applies, for example, to her manage- ment of beach attie. The problematic situation was one of simultaneously accompanying friends, males and females, #0 the local Santa Monica beach without risking disclosure. Instrumental Aevies provided adequate solutions to the problem. Agnes wore ‘ight-fiting underpants and bathing sult ‘with a skirt. In her words “I don't know wi, it @ mizacle, but it doesnt show.” She ‘would go along with the crowd, reiprocating their enthusiasm for bathing, if or until it was clear that a bathroom or the bedroom of 2 private home would be available in which to change to her Dathing suit Public baths and automobiles were to be avoided, If the necessary facilities were not avaiable excuses were easy to ake. As she pointed out, oe is permitted not to be “ia the mood” to go bathing though to lke very much to sit on the beach Similarly, Agnes talked about the desirability of having « job that was comparatively close and preferably within walking dis tunce of her residence, and in any case one that permitted the use of public transportation. Akbough Agnes drove an automobile she did not own one, She feared an accident, being rendered uncon- scious, and thereby risking exposurea rope 1 ehnoueTHOBOLOOY Another example. Aftor she arrived in Los Angeles she roomed with a girlsiend. The situation was managed by a general under Standing with her roommate to respect each other privacy and to avoid nudity in each other's presence. On one cecasion a probe Tem arose for Agnes, While taking off her dress she exposed the ‘sear from the exploratory laparotomy. A friendly question from her Toommate was met by the explanation that it was an operation for fppendicits. Agnes told me that i occurred to her when she told this to her roommate that the question might remain forthe room= ate of why an appendicitis operation should leave svch a long, tnd ugly sear. She offered, therefore, the uninsited explanation ‘that “there had been complications” and counted on the fact that, the roommate did not have enough medial knowledge to know the diference "A more compliested game but nevertheless one in which game resources were employed, occurred on the occasion that her Drothers boyfriend visited his home after the brother was mar. ried. Agnes, her brother, her siterin-hw, and her cousin Alice, for whom Agnes had intense feelings of rivalry, were in the living room when the bothers boyfriend entered. Later the brother left the room with the boyfriend to see him to his ear. When the brother re-entered the room he said that the boyfriend has asked hin, "Who is that good-looking chick?” Agnes suid that her cousin Alice assumed that the boyfriend meant Alice. When the brother pointed out ironically that Agnes had boon meant, Alice became Angry. Agnes here depended spon family discipline to protect her ‘against humition. But this very family discipline, while it per mitted the victory, soured the victory as well. Agnes described a structurally similar incident when she. was shopping. with her brother and was taken by the clerk as his wife. Agnes was flattered and amused, Her brother was not amused at all She could rely ‘on her brother to respect the family secret but she could rely upon ‘hm as well to remind her later of how disapproving he was of the change ‘Dating, both in her home town and in Los Angeles before she started going with Bill, furnishes other occasions that exhibited the ‘game properties of episodic character, preplanning, and a reliance ‘upon Instrumental knowledge of rules that she could assume were Jknown and binding upon the various parties in a more oF les, simlar way, Despite an interest in pickups she refused any pick Spe Por ltredctons were the oer af the dy, ost patie lly cau they permed her to posipoe the date unt she and ber gtsends had consulted wth eachother on a character checkup for the ne propet. Nedkng was hand acording to the rule: no necking onthe fst date, maybe on the second. AB Anes suid, "If you neck witha boy onthe state and ay n0 on the second dat, then you have trouble” Some peting Wat Permitted bt ender citumstances below the walt. She de lighted in the thought tht some boy was "well" ut would ot out with wel. Tn ay ease there was cae in manbers 50 Imutple dating and house and. church parties were, peered ‘nes didnot trnk. She sid she ha never been don and sid ‘he would never permit here tobe donk One of the more intstely worked ott gumestractred op- sods ceured when Ages had to fish a trie specimen wen ‘he war examined a part of physi examination fra job ith ‘sn insurance company. On the day she applied forthe Job and 2 the tine of the personal eteriew, a pyialexaminaton sas ‘cheled forthe te diy. She had Iti tine to prepa: Te tmanage the is involved in having to expe her ody she Found i necsay t improve. She ws ased to furisha ine Spec son and was svt bythe physician to we arta in is ofc. She had expected tet with door. threat reside Inthe fast thatthe nue, Because sh was ened to enter the ofc, would come in while Ages was manpuliting her genitals. Armes made the exene to the physician alter siting on the anal but del tel doing ming that she was unable to urate but tht she ‘would be happy to ret the specimen ater in the day, When he ero the retuned to her aportment where she hada frule roommate. tt then acer to her that might e possible fom tn examination ofthe urine to deter the sex of the person Not knowing whether or mo this was so and mot knowing how thorouzh the ria would be, bt elnguiling to un ay "ks on either score he told her tomate tht she had en Kidney infection and was fad that i the infection showed up in {he rine she would be ted down fr the jo. The roma did her the favor of faring her the bottle of urine which Agnes ssbaitted a er own.on sums ehoMETHODOLOGY (On another occasion she had just obtained job ay a legal secretary a the only girl in the office fora small frm of éwo lw= yer who had jost started their practice. Agnes was delighted with the job, most particulary because she was unquaifled for it atthe time that she was hed, Her employers, not being able to afford nore, were willing to buy a lesser skilled employee for less pay. ‘This arrangement couldnt have suited Agnes more since it was both an opportunity for more interesting, work and a chance to upgrade her stenographic skills Several months after the work began, the castration operation was scheduled at U.C.LA. It was rnecesary then to arrange time ont from the job in order to have the operation, but fo arringe it as well so as to ensure that her employers would hire only & temporary replacement. Tt was her Secondary goal that she be given a letter of recommendation by them in the event that she Was not able to retum in time, and thatthe letter say that she had worked there for six months instead fof the actual two months in order that she not be required later to frplain her absence to another employer given that she already hed a work history with several short intervals, and of course in ‘order to continue working as a legal seeretary. This was managed by having the urological surgeons at U.C.LA, call her employers and tell then, in eague with Agnes, that she would be temporarily hospitalized for a severe bladder infection. ‘One of the most dramatic gumedike passing oveasions consisted in the series of events that terminated inthe trip to Midwest City, hier change, and her return home. Agnes made the tip in August, 1966, For several months prior to the trip she prepared for the change, She said that in abont (vo month's time she lost twenty five pounds, ‘This produced the attractive shape that she later ‘umed up with at UCLA. The dit was self-imposed. None of the family, said. Agnes, bad any knowledge of her intent and of the place that the developing attractive female shape had in her plans. She managed the inguiries from various family members by pro testing, "All Kinds of people go on diets, dont they?” She spent considerable time in her toom rehearsing the actions that would bbe appropriate tothe new appearance. Her family understood that the trip to Midwest City would consist of a month’ vacation which she was to spend with her grandmother. Agoes had many relatives in Midwest City who had not seen her for many yeas, She planned us rinimum contacts with them ding her say by saying with hor andootber: While be had relatives in many oter cis Mid West City was chosen bese was ange iy. According bla, atthe end of August she left her gandrthes hoe ely One moming Isvng to note or any oer indication sto her reason for leaving of her whereabouts Taking room ina down: town hotel she changed no enute ches and wet to Joa beat shop where her hain which was shor, was cropped aod rewranged inthe aan ex at Sophia Loves ad made pop She had pinned to rain in Miwest Cy ad to obtain work having picked the ly, she sid, esas was lage ema provile work opportu and messy anonymity, bl was Enge enough to pet er to avd selves they id me, he retsoned, the relives would not recognine her bec they had ot seen er for many years. Further, f she di met them, and they asked she woold deny who she was She counted for fa, “Aost people wouldnt ist tat thay Knew yay” Ay tured out “I had nat planed eaeuly enough Cofontd with the ocean of having fo eum er cv way, having to pr eb tsperonce to pen oat knowing how to proceed t os he fb that she needed, having only rade sin 9 tpi, and si ting wocerain shout Her sll as feta, he beat aghtened of the as of fase, When 1 asked why ho as able tog Tacks her grandmother se replied, “How cold I? She woul ven Yocw who I was. sha war seventy. How coud over fal her something le tha?” Pinay he had very tle money 2 shes, enough to get hone” On th evening of the dy that she made the chnge she tephoned her mar, tld et what she bad done, andy according fo Agnes ory, upon ber Inoters urging retumed home that evening by bus in her ew fa eh tp wat mes he a by wr ‘There are many oceasions which fall to satisfy various game properties. When the game is used to analyze them, the analsis Contains structural incongruitiesv6 soi 1 eHNOMETHODOLODY ‘One type of such an occasion accursed very frequently: Agnes, bby acting in the manner of a “secret apprentice” would lear, as the told it “lo act lke a Kady.” Its feature was something ike dis: Agnes and her interaction partners would be directed to 8 ‘Valuable mutually understood goal while a the same time another foal of equivalent value, to which the other person contributed, Remained known to. Agnes alone and was carefully concealed. 1m ‘contrast to the episodic character of the occasions that were de Seribed previously, such an occasion was characterized by it con tinuing and developmental character. Further, its “rues” ar eared only over the course of the actoal interaction, as a funo- tion of actual participation, and by accepting the risks involved, ‘Several persons were prominent in her accounts with whom she rot only acted like a lady bot learned, from them, how to act like @ lady. An important partnernstructor was Bill's mother in ‘whose home she spent a great deal of time as a prospective aughterinlaw, Bills mother was of Dutch-Indonesian ancestry fand supported hersel asa dressmaker. While teaching Agnes how to cook Dutch dishes to please Bill, she also taught Agnes how to ‘cook in the fst place. Agnes said that Bills mother taught her ‘of present station over the coun of action ab function BF acon el Te isnot sufiient to sy at Ages situstions fre played out over tine, nor ea al sulllent to regard his tinea eek tine There a well hele Une” of olen, temembrance,sigaton apetancy. Every attempt to handle ‘gn canagenent devs” whe dep th time, does ‘re enough at long asthe occas are epi in ete formal 17 structure; and all of Goflman’s analyses either take episodes for ‘stration, or tumm the situations that his scheme analyzes into episodic ones. But strategic analyses fail whenever these events are not episodic. Then to keep the analysis in good repair, there is re quired the exercise of theoretical ingenuity, and a succession of theoretical elections, one compounded on’ the other, with the frantic use of metaphor in the hope of bringing these events to faithful sepresentation, ‘This caveat can be summarized, although poorly, by pointing out that st would be incomrect to say of Agnes that she has passed. The active mode is needed: she is pasing. Inadequate though this phrasing is, t summarizes Agnet troubles. It stands as well for our troubles in desonbing accurately and ade- quately what her troubles were. Alter enumerating some of her management devices 1 shall dis- ‘cuss her practical circumstances, to the end of treating her devices 4s manipulations of her practial circumstances conceived as & texture of relevance. Passing devices ‘Agnes used a number of devices, all of them familiar enough, in managing to give us zo information. Promsinently, she employed yemism—making the thing she was talking about out to be a vastly better, more valuable, nice, more plessant thing than it could realistically have been. Some examples: Agnes’ description of the fist job she had, following her return from Midwest City, was litle better than a “blah” response. “Oh, everything was just 0 wonderful’ “Tt was the best job I ever had"; “Everyone was s0 nice; the arrangements were so harmonious", “L etill correspond with all tho girls there"; “Tt was jut a ball; “Everyone was jus, bubbling over with friendship and cheer.” Her specific duties were slighted in her account. When she was pressody she did not find them “at all” interesting to discuss. Ako, a we have seen, the fe- male character of her early history was exaggerated while evi- ‘dences that she had been raised as « boy were suppressed. ‘Another way of withholding information was to speak in gen- crates, or to use allusion or guarded and impersonal references, ‘or to speak in the impersonal case. We camne to mean that this ‘was what she was doing when we would sy of Agnes that she was“evasive” Another favorite device was to pretend that she did aot ‘know what was being talked about, orto deny chat something that had previously boen talked about hed ever really been mentioned. ‘When we made it unavoidable that she discuss with us some- thing that she did not want to talk about she would use what we feame to call “legalisms” She would respond and insist that she ‘was responding correctly tothe literal sense of the words and the ‘question, Or if [proposed to have recalled something that Agnes hhad said on & previous occasion she would hold me to the erally accurate recollection of what exactly had been said. A favorite ‘device was to permit other persons, and, in many of our conver- satlons, me, to take the lead 50 as to se which way the wind was blowing before oflering a reply. She had a way of permitting the ‘envionment to teach her the answers that it expected to its own ‘questions, Occasionilly Agnes would give this device away by fsking me, after an exchange, whether I thought she had given a ‘onnal answer For the many situations where she knew enowgh, she would Ihave mapped out possible alterative developments beforehand and would have decided the conditions of her cholee of one course ‘or another prior to her having to exerese those choices. For ex- “mpl in providing forthe possiblity of backing out of the physical ‘examination should the physician have proceeded to examine her tenitals, Agnes considered well beforehand the variety of ways that the physician might respond when she refused to permit the ‘examination to proceed, She aid, “I have never been examined by {doctor and I dont intend to" I asked Agnes what she thought the physicians response would have been if she did not permit the genital examination. She said, “L thought he would mark it ‘under, oh idiosyncrasy or something.” ‘Where it was posible to do so and particularly where there were Important gains and important risks involved, Ages would secretly “case” the situation beforehand. She tried to make herself knowl cedgeable about critica situations before she had to encounter them. For example, she wanted very much to apply for a civil service examination but she wat afraid thatthe cul service physi- ‘al examination would be very thorough. She remembered that her andlor, a Sreman, would have had to take a col service examin tion and so arranged to talk with him. She wished to avoid having, to explain to him her reluctance to risk an examination that she right not pass: "He didnt realize anything about what 1 wae really asking him in regard to my problem. It wast posed the ‘questions in @ casual way. I said, wel, lke—you do have to take 4 physical exam, don't you? He says, oh yeah. L said Oh? What Kind? Is it a real thorough one? Do they judge how happy you are for something? No, he suid, i int that thorough, is real light ‘She was particularly adept at furnishing information that would lead the other person away from entertaining the possibility that she was raised as a male, “Frankly, I don't want anyone checking ‘up. By checking up 1 mean more or lest looking into my past Ife... T don't think it would be too possible unless they ran across something to find out anything about me when I was younger, but..." Therefore she avoided giving information on job application Yorms that would motivate employers to “check up” She deserbed her procedure in filling out job applications: “When the question is asked, Have you had any major operations? always say no. ‘Do you have any physical defects” T always say 1. ‘Would. you resent too thorough a physical examination? 1 always say no. Tsay T wouldnt protest becwuse if I say yer they ‘would probably notice that on the application and want i ex plained. So T more or less let it pass over s0 it won't become hoticeabe. If I started doing anything like that 1 would probably ‘wind up in a Jot worse situation. I mean its harder to find «fb for anything like that. Anyway, I dont think I have to be truthful, about things like that” Agnes summarized the ase for herself "Tt ‘is necessary for me to tell litle white les a lot of the time and T think there are thoso that... chose are necessary and they have to be necessary to accompish results” Some of thete litle white les were prefigured, many were im- provised, With regard to employment questionnaires her charac. teristic answers showed several festures: (1) She selected those answers that as she assessed them would appear not to require & later explanation. (2) The answers, while they were flee about her biography, were likely to be answers for the ype of female typist that she presented herself as, ansvers that set up anticipation that she was hopeful tobe able to satisfy once she was on the jb, (3) ‘She depended upon her ability to improvise satisfactory explant:70 saps 1 emiNouerHOD0.06y tions for any disoordancies that might be detected. Agnes was highly attuned to, and knew in detail, conventional expectancies in an extremely wide range of everyday situations that she had to meet: Tin aways aware” of contingences. Her awareness of rou- tine, otherwise unnoticed, workings of social structures, and her Interest in and willingness to address them as grounds of her own actions lends to Agnes’ actions their “manipulative” Bavor. To use Parsons’ phrasing im Agnes knowledge of the exigencies ofa stable ‘onder she asigned clear prionty’ of relevance to the “edaptation’ cal, Te was necessary for Agnes to continue to be alert to the tasks of ‘keeping attributions of the natural female from being confounded swith alterative attributions of male, male homosexual, and the like, An ineitable sense of double entendre occurred particularly in her disonsions with physicians and with me. Sho was subject to the limpulse to “check out,” to "set right” companions whose remarks might have been innocent enough, but whose imputation, fs she detected them, intended or net, were very uncomfortable {for her-imputations of the fake female, the freak, the male homo- ‘sexual the abnormal female, and the ike. The natural female was ‘of course the single choice. On many occasions with me Agnes insisted that T “get things right.” On many occasions she insisted that I war not saying something correctly the reason being that the priory of relevance was clouded by the wrong imputation. For example, once I reviewed some materials that she had pre- sented about her feelings atthe time that she was living with her roommate in Lor Angeles and of the fist parties that they had. She std, “I ele that they felt me to be completely: normal and itural end it more or leet gave me a stisfed natural feeling, you [know o be felt that way.” Trecaptulated “You mean to be treated aa female, i that what you're saying?” Agnes answered, "Not as 4 female, not to be treated as female—to be treated completely normally, without any regard to my problem at all” On the ocea- tions with ber on which L employed the wsage that she had been “acting ikea female” 1 would get one variation or another on the essential theme: Iam a female but the others would misunder. stand if they knew how L was raised or what I have between my lege The conversational demand that I talk of Agnes asthe natural female was accompanied by the demand, “I want you to get it m exactly right” For example, “I didnt feel assured because 1 ex- pected to act normaly. I didn't expect to actin anyother way.” Or, it wasn't that the vocation of the Best party with her room mates was “particularly delightful” 1 had characterized that ocea- sion a6 particularly delightful, to which her sharp and irritated felort was, "What do. you mean by that? Tt wast particularly Aelightfl. said it was the frst time in my life Twas having fan, going out with people, and doing diferent things... Nothing particularly delightful. Everything was, T would say, natural! Another concer of hers for my getting things right had to do with my taking notes. On one oceasion she questioned what I ras \weting down and seemed a litle uncomfortable with the fact that the sessions were being recorded, though the discomfort disap peared after about the fourth or filth session. After « moments reflection she seemed reconciled to the recording, saying “Of course you can always go back to the recording and coreect your notes. A person no matter how smart can misunderstand what Someone else is saying if itis said without the proper explans- tions-something that's said might have bearing on—Tm sore the other doctors would probably want to Histen to the conversa: tons and where there's something like they might... use i to have a bearing on the case: Finally, Agnes literally forbade me from “minmderstanding” the “reasons” and “explanations” that she forished me for her actions. She was alto’ much eoncemed to maintain the contrast between her biography and prospects, and the way in which they ‘would appear in fiction, games, play, pretending, mockery, mas 4querading, supposition, mere theorizing, and the like. Tt is possible that Agnes had herself sensed the intimate te betwoen the way Jn which later interpretations may be bound by the precedents ‘stablhed in the matvally known histories of er interactions with one person or another and, of couse, particularly in her histories with physicians and with Bill With ws, the possbiity of 4 “misunderstanding” not only metivated the further possibility ‘of an unfavorable decison with respect to the operation but, be- ‘ase of the confdence that had been brilt up, raised a nasty prospect of betrayal Several times in our talks Agnes emphasized the rehearsed char acter of something that she called “carelessness” by which shem suis IN eronerboooLosy meant the presentation of a casual appearance. She talked several times about rehearsed “carelessness” "Tt sounds like you're being tery careless but-when you notice the Greumstances, then. you ‘can tll ts not being careless tall” Agnes stressed the importance Of the appearance of castalness which was accompanied by an finer vigilance. When I remarked to er, "So while it may look as if you're being casual, you're really not, you don't fool casual. Ts that what youre saying?” To this she replied, “Not quit. I just feel festa in the sense that I feel normal and natural and everything, Dut Tin aucore «that 1... must be careful that way.” To ‘which she then added, “But remember Fn still a normal gir.” As 2 companion tactic to the rchearsed casualness Agnes sad that she preferred to avoid any fests, and that she attempted where pos Sible to asses beforchand the severity and her chances of sucooss- fully completing a test to which she might be put. She clearly preferred to avoid any tests that she thought she might fal ‘Management devices 08 manipulations ‘of @ texture of relevances: Coming to terms with “protic Sociologists have long been concerned with the task of deserib- ing the conditions of organized socal life under which the phe ‘nomena of rationality in conduct occur. One such condition is con finually documented in sociological writings: routine as a neces. sary condition of rational action, The rational properties of action that are of concem inthis respect are those which are particl to the conduct of everyday affairs. Max Weber, in his neglected distinction between substantive rationality and formal rationality, tnd alimot alone among sociological theorists, used this distinc tion between the two ses of sationalites throughout his work. "The relationships between routine and rationality are incongra> ‘ous ones only when they are viewed according to everyday com- ‘mon sense or according to. most philosophial teachings. But sociologial inquiry accepts almost as truism that the ability of 4 person to act “Tatlonaly”—that i, the ability ofa person in con ducting his everyday afate to calculate, to act deliberately; to projet alternative plans of action; to select before the actual fall fof events the conditions under which he will follow one plan oF ma another, to give priority inthe selection of means to thelr techal ‘al efficacy; to be much concemed with predictability and desirous of “surprise in small amounts; to prefer the analysis of alternatives land consequences prior to action in preference to improvisation, to be much concerned with questions of what is to be done and how itis to he done; to be aware of, to wish fo, and to exerese choice; to be insistent upon “Bne” as contrasted with “gross” struc ture in charactrizations in the knowledge of situations that one considers valuable and realistic knowledge and the rest-that this, ability depends upon the person being able to take for granted, to take under trast, a vast array of features of the social order In the conduct of his everyday allairs in order for the person to treat rationally the one-tenth of this situation that, like an iceberg appears above the water, he must be able to treat the nine-tenths that lies below as an unquestioned and, perhaps even more inter cstingly, as an unquestionable background of matters that are demonstrably relevant to his calculation, but which appear without even being noticed. In his famous discussion of the normative backgrounds of activity, Emil Durkheim made much of the point that the validity and understandabilty of the stated terms of a contract depended upon unstated and essentially unstatable terms thatthe contracting partes took for granted as binding upon theit transactions ese trusted, taken for granted, background features of a per son's situation, that i, the routine aspects of the situation that permit “rational action” are commonly refered to in sociological discourse as the mores and folkways, In this usage the mores de pict the ways in which routine is a condition for the appearance ‘of rational action or, in psychiatric terms, for the operativeness of the reality principle. The mores have been used thereby to show how the stability’ of social routine is a condition which enables Persons in the course of mastering and managing their everyday alfars to recognize each other’ actions, beliefs, aspirations, fool. {ngs and the like as reasonable, normal, legitimate understandable, and realistic ‘Agnes passing oceasions and her management devices throw {ato relief the troubled relationship in her case between routine, trust, and rationality. By considering these passing occasions and management devices with respect to this toubled relationship weoy sous w eminousoD0.05r may be able to bresk free of mere “diagnosis” or Coffman's ep sordic emphasis. One may allow, in agvoerent with Goffman, the tceuraey of Gollman's “naughty” view that members of a society ttenerally, and Agnes in a particularly dramatic way, are much con- femed with the management of impresions. We may allow, as Well the accuracy and scutencss of his descriptions of this con tem, Nevertheless if one tries to reproduce the features of the real Society by populating i with Cafiman-type members see are left ‘with structural incongeutis of the sort that were discussed in previous sections of thi paper. "A review of Agnes’ passing occasions and management devices ray be used to argue how practiced and effective Agnes was in distembling. We would have to agree with Goffman that, like his persons who are engaged in the management of impressions, she was «highly accomplished liar, and that asi isin the society produced by Gofiman’s disembling members, Iying provided for ‘Aawes and her partners conservative effects for the table features oftheir socially structured iteration, But a troublesome point in. Gofman’s interpretive procedure emerges with fll clarity when his views are sed to analyze other lspects of Agne? case, The trouble revolves around the general absence with Which dliberateness, calculation, or what Agnes calls Ther “awareness” enters as a property of the work of managing im- pressions for Goffmanis members. In the empirical applications of Goffman’s notions one is continually tempted to press the in- formant with exaspertion, “Oh come on now, you must know Detter than that. Why don't you confes?” Agnes ease helps us to sce what this trouble might be due to. "Agnes treated with debberatenes, calculation, and express man- agement ({e,, in the manner that Goffman would lke every one of his informants to confess, if his made of analysis isto be counted correct) matters that members (a) not only take under trust, but (b) requite of eachother, for their mutual judgments of normality, reasonableness, undersandabity, rationality, and legitimacy, that they treatin a tristing and trusted manner, and (e) require of fech other that evidences of trust be furnished wherever delber- lateness, calculation, and express management are used in manag- ing problems of daly life. Agnes would have wanted to act in this trusting fashion but routine es e condition for the effective ws calculated, and delberate management of practical citcumstances veas, for Agnes, specifically and chronically problematic, To have disregarded is'problematic character, she was convinced, was tO risk disclosure and ruin. A review therefore of her case permits the reexamination of the nature of practical circumstances, It leads us also to think of the work of impression management—in ‘Aunes' case, these consist of her passing “management devioe 4s attempts to come to tens with practical cicumstances as & texture of relevances over the continuing occasions of interpersonal ‘wansactions. Finally, t permits us to ask what this “preoceupe tion” for impression managements is about by seeing how a con- ‘em for “appearances” is related to this tsture of relevances. Tn the course of one of our conversations Agues had been ques- Loning the necessity for any more research. She wanted to know how it bore on her chances of the operation, She wanted 10 know ss well whether it would help “the doctors to get the “ire fact” asked Agnes, “What do you figure the facts are?” She answered, "What do I figure the facis are, or what do I think everyone ele thinks the facts ate?” This remark may serve as a theme in elab- ‘rating Agnes” pratieal circumstances as a texture of relevances The theme for her ofthe nature of her practical cieumstances wat fomished in yet another remark. Prior tothe operation I had asked hher about the discussions and activities that she and Bill might, have engaged in by way of preparation for their marriage. In het answer she portrayed her discussions with Bill as overwhelmingly ‘eoncered with the necessity for the operation, She Samy dis- ‘missed my question with the remark: "You don't talc about how much fun you're going to have in New York when you're sinking ‘on a ship in the middle of the ceoan. ... You're worried about ‘the problem that’s present” Practical circumstances ‘Agnes’ circumstances were striking in the stringency with which past and futare events were related and regulated as an arena by the clock and the eslendar, Her futures were dated futures, most particulary as present actions and ceumstances were informed by the assumption of a potential remedy for “her problems” tht had to have occurred by some definite time. That there were manyvw sre mt erinouetbooot0cy {years during which no such date had been set did not detract in {he slightest from the definiteness of this future even though its Specie calendar date was entiely unknown, Agnes was required iy specie performances not only to establish mastery over this creae but by her performances to establish her moral worth as all For her the morally worthwhile person and the “natural, ormal female” were identical. Ta the pursuit of jobs, in the man gcment of the love afer, im her ssptations to marriage, in her dhoice of companions, inthe management of Noxthwest City frends and family, the tasks of achieving the status of the normal hateral female had to be accomplished at, within, and by 2 time, Perhaps nowhere does this come out more dramatically than in the {quarrels that anticipated the diselosure to Bill, and in the terble ‘alstrance of the new vagina that made up such a centel feature OF the postoperative. depression, Her constant recourse 10 self- feassesment consisted of continual comparison of anticipated and “etual outoomes, of contioual monitoring of expectancies and pay ‘ais with strong eflorts to accommodate and to normalize the dif- ferences. Agnes expended great deal of effort wpon bringing ev more areas of her life under conceptual representation and com Hol Expectations in areas of life that to persons better able than the to take their normal sexuality for granted would appear to be far removed from the concems of criticism and review of “com: thon sense knowledge” of the socety were, for her, matters of Tntive and crtal deliberation, and the results of these delibera- tions were tied to uppermost levels in her hierarchy of plans. The fontents of biographies and futures were highly organized with ‘apect to their relevance to the achieved natural female status. 1¢ twat indeed difficult for her to ind any area that she could not in 2 few short steps make relevant to the prize "There was very litle ofa "take itor eave it attitude on Agnes part toward past, present, or Fate fall of events, Agnes reasoned 1s follows: Ihave had this tebe time in high schoo, I was with font companions a8 child, I was raised as a boy, I have this face fnd these breasts, Ive bad dates and fan with girlfriends in the formal natural way that girls do, 1 lst seventeen years because Winsunderstanding environment did not recognize the accidental character of the penis and refused to take action, hence I deserce the status that unfortunately I find myself in the postion of having ww sk fo For Aesth lool of bing esr eatnet 2 «naturel, nonmal fesse wat © mond ello She rectoned her chanes in trms of desensingess tnd lane. She fou fee let cmter tht an enmeaton fh factors oul oul ome ebay shin merely to te Held at She as female” With respect to that put as well a to er futipated vation of her cam, the eccurvence of = remedy for her conan bad morales or he thr mst be and shold bes pli ann reason forthe way Wags had Wa Spied as wel as bow they would have Goal occured. Very fo things could orc for Agnes, bearing in thelr relevance on “het problem cident or cate naer Ager a 8 "te fo search for pater and for the “god reso that things Secured a they di. The events of Agies environment cared flog for he, stoi vara fetes, that they oul actully tnd potentially alec her and could be alfeced by her, To velo to ths as Agnes egocentric, I at tat, maybe seo misleading. For Agnes her convlcion that she had ged the rer of events smanged around her in an accurate and Tete tsi eset concn Ht berate reo tested and were testable without ever spending the levane of ‘what she kre, what sh tok to be fac, suppontion, conectare td fantasy by reaon of fer boy features al sch Poston inthe teal word Eve event lath, nd th cous feature were in po way mates of theoreti intrest for ‘Agnes. The posit of conserng the wold thera jx to see where i leads"=2 pela pension and reordering of rele ‘ances that scientife thers abil eploy-was for Agnes rater of ineonseqratial ply st she would talk about i jt Swords" When she was ited to consider it otherwie, the in ‘ation amounted o bid to engage in a thestering and repag kant exerci Te was no art of Agnes concer to atti see teat of the sca tem’ Tasted she sought her rey tn adjomtment tot One could mover conde Agus reel onary pan. Sh hd “ce oa ch “nse 2 one frequently finds song homosessals who may seek oe ‘aucat shots eminent or who righ ste tat ‘onment for evidences that it was not what it appeared to ot Intel costed make fan, the Mental pe atvm rules N eniowetonot0cy ‘was hostile to and punishing of. Challenges tothe system were for ‘Agnes not even 30 much a hopeless sks, She wanted “in.” The ‘credentials committee” was at fault "Time played a pecular role in constituting for Agnes the sig- nificance of her preset situation, With regard tothe past, we have Seen the prominence with which she historcsed, making for herself tnd presenting us with a socially acceptable biography. We have “leady remarked on the fact that the work of selecting, codifying, making consistent various elements in a biography, yielded a biog- raphy that was so consistently female as to leave us without in- formation on many important points. Two yeas of arduous female activites furnished for her a fascinating put of new experiences "upon which this hitoriising process operated, Her attitude toward hher own history required ever new rereadings of the tral that ‘wound off behind her as she sought in reading and rereading the past for evidences to bolster and unify her present worth and as- Dirations. Before all, Agnes was a person with a history. Or, more pointedly. perhaps, she was engaged in hstoriizing practices that ‘were siled, unelieved, and biased. ‘On the side of future events, one is struck by the prevalence with which her expectations were expectations ofthe timing in the {all of events. There was little tolerable “slack” in ths respec. Tt ‘was to thei timing that Agnes looked to inform her of their char- eter. Events did not “ust occur” They occureed in pace, durae tion, and phasing, and she looked to these as parameters of theit rmeating and to recognize them for "what they rally are.” She had ‘nly a thin interest in events charscterized for their own sake and ‘without regard for temporal determinations such as pace, duration, ‘hasing. twas « prominent characteristic of Agnes’ “realism” that She addressed her environment with an expectation of the sched- tle fall of events, We were struck by the sharpness and extensive- ness of her recall. An important part of this impression stemmed from the ease with which she dated events and arranged recalled sequences in strict chronology. The effet of such an orientation ‘vas fo assimilate events both past and prospective to the statu of means (0 ends and lent tothe stream of experience an unremitting sense of practical purposiveness ‘With almost remarkable ease, a present state of affairs taken | for granted could be transformed into one of open problematic 9 possiblities. Even small deviations from what she both expected {nd required to happen could occur to her as extraordinarily good, ‘or bad in their implications. She had achieved, at best, an unstable routinization of her dally rounds. One might expect that her eon: ‘cem for practical testing and the extensiveness of deiberateness, caleuation, and the rest would be accompanied by the we of im: personal norms to assess her decisions of sensibility and fact, 4 that she knew what she was talking about, and that what she claimed to be so was indeed the cise, Nothing of the sort was 50 ‘Agnes did not count her assessments of sensibility and fact right, for wrong on the grounds of having followed impersonal, logico: empirical rues. Her rules of evidence were of much more teal character, They could be summarized in a phrase: [am right oF wrong on the grounds of who agrees with me. Particularly did she look to status superiors to test and maintain the diference between, what in her situation she insisted were “true facts” and. what she would count for “mere appearances” Being right or wrong was for Agnes a matter of being in essence corrector not. In matters relevant to her assessed chances of exercising her claimed rights, to the status of the natural, normal female she did not take easily to the notion of being wrong in degree. For ber the correctness of her assessments of events was a publiely verifuble one in the sense that other persons typically like her (42, normal females) would experience what she had experienced in extremely close corre- spondence to the manner that she bad experienced these events, She distrusted a characterization if its sense appeared to be pe- coulis or private to her and feared such an interpretation a6 un realistic. Wanting to place the accent of actuality on events—fearing and suspecting supposton-she insited that actual events were those which were verifiable by persons similarly situted, Silay situated, to repeat, meant situated as a normal female. While she ‘would allow that there were others inthe world with problems like hers, neither with them nor with normal females was community of understanding posible based upon their possible interchange ality of standpoints. “No one” Agnes insisted, “could. possibly really understand what 1 have had to go through.” In deciding the objectivity of her assessments of herself and of others Agnes ‘counted, before anything, and sought to take for granted that she was normal and that she ws Uke others,‘Agnes, the practical mothodalogist Agnes practies accord to the displays of normal sexuality in ordinary activities a "perspective by incongruity” They do so by making observable that and hove normal sexuality is accomplished ‘Brough witnessable displays of talk and conduct, as standing processes of practical recognition, which are done in singular and particular occasions as @ matter of couse, with the use by mem- bers of “seen but unnoticed” backgrounds of commonplace events, fand such that the situated question, "What kind of phenomenon is nonnal sexuaiy?”—» members question-accompanies that ac- Ccomplishment as a reflexive feature of it, which reflexivity the Inember uses, depends upon, and losses in order to assess and ‘demonstrate the rational adequacy for all practical purposes of ‘he indexical question and its indexieal answers. "To speak seriously of Agnes as a practical methodologst is to treat in a matter of fact way her continuing studies of everyday Activities as members’ methods for producing correct decisions about normal sexuality in ordinary activites. Her studies armed hher with knowledge of how the organized features of ordinary settings are used by members as procedures for making appear fnces-of-sexutiy-as-usial decidable as a matter of course. The Sertiny that she paid to appearances; her concerns for adequate ‘motivation, relevance, evidence, and demonstration; her seniivity to devices of talk; her skill n detecting and managing “tests” were attained as part of her mastery of trivial but necessary social task, to secure. ordinary rights to lve, Agnes was self-consciously equipped to teach normals how normals rake sexuality happen {in commonplace settings as an obvious, familiar, recognizable, natural, and serious matter of fact. Her specialty consisted of te {ng the “natural facts of life” of socially recognized, socially man- aged sexuality 8 4 managed prodction so as to be making these fats of fe tre, relevant, demonstrable, testable, countable, and availzble 10 inventory, cursory representation, anecdote, enumeri- tion, or professional psychological assessment; in short, 90 as un svoidably in concert with others to be making these facts of life ible and reportable-accountable-for all practical purposes. Tn association with members, Agnes somehow leamed that and m ow members fish foreach other evidences of thts Ive at bone als and females, She feed fom mene tow inden normal sity “witht having fo he swt fe they wee able tod phe ht woul fh sete ‘sounds or doube at's mente as seal what be appt fo be Anong the mo cia of tho pays were stated Seip of te Agns lame te el thee Darlin visit convenes se genet fees tellable, mutual biographies. oH aud Agnes methodol Practices ae our sources fatty for the fining and commended say pot, at noma sexed Fersons are cu vets nse whove threat sl Order of rst atin cont of ember rect tnd producto ratios. We lana fom Aas, who tel sted Fersons at cult vet that seer ale happen that meme err practices sane proce the sherabletllfle normal sn Atty pemons, tnd’ soon ety ect ct, Sula, pri casos trogh atl witsed day o corm tak nd smd ‘Agnes, the doer of the accountable person ‘The inordinate stresses in Agnes’ life were part and parcel of the concerted practices with normals, whereby the “normal, natural female” asa moral thing to be and a moral way to feel and act was ‘made to be happening, in demonstrable evidence, for all practical purposes. Agnes! passing practices permit us to discuss two among, ‘many constituent phenomena that made up the normally sexed person as a contingent, practical accomplishment: (1) Agnes as 4 recognizable case of the real thing, and (2) Apves the self ame person, (1) The case of the teal thing. Inthe ways Agnes counted hee self a: member to, and an object fn, the environment of normally sexed persons it included not only males with penises and females with vaginas but, because it inchided her as wel, it inchided @ female with a penis, and following the operation a female with & manmade vagina. For Agnes, and for the physicians who recom. ‘mended the operation as the “humane” thing to-do, the stzgeons Fectfed nature's original mistake. Agnes’ rueful admission, "Noth-182 subi IN eTHNOMENODOLOGY fing that man makes is as good as something that nature makes” txpressed a member’ realistic social truth about claims to normal Sexuality. She, her family, and the physicians agreed that she had ‘been granted a vagina os the organ which was rightfally hers, that the had rested the anomaly as an accident of fate, and that be tcuse of #eruel trick she had boen the victim of severe penalties ff misunderstanding while she catied out the tasks of living a5 Dest she could as a misunderstood “case of the real thing” The operation furnished her and others evidences of the socially rea istic character of her claims ‘Agnes had witnessed im endless demonstrations by normals that td how normals believe that normal sexuality as a case of the real thing isan event in its own right and is assessable in its own terms, and that the accountability of normal sexuality could be nade out from the study of how normally sexed members appear to common sense, ay of professional. Those were not her belies Nor could she belive ther. Instead, for Agnes in contrast mals the commonplace recognition of normal sexuality as a “ Of the real thing” consisted of a serious, situated, and. preva ‘accomplishment that was produced in concert with others by atv ities whose prevailing and ordinary success itself subjected their product to Merleau-Ponty’s "prejage du monde.”* Her anguish fnd triumphs resided in the observabilty, which was particular to her and uncommunicable, of the steps whereby the society hides from its members its activities of organization and thus leads them to see its features at determinate and independent objects. For ‘Agnes the observably normally sexed person consisted of inexor- able, organizationally located. work that provided the way that uch object aise” (2) The selfsame person, The ways in which the work and ‘occasions of passing were obstinately unyielding to Agnes attempts This ant he oberon in the render of thi paragraph were ied by tersng the Tominatng ema by Habest Lat Pata lle ‘Broce thoy. mato gdarion eo Mute Metem-Ponty Some rf NonSos{Evantons Wl Nornester Unley Tres, 1900, PD Sa) make ts died seme sealable to my ess "rat Kee an Sion oa ee ‘tine thee iste "hbisone which wach ar stag ding fo ee ta boat noma seat fem Ue lk abt nema sexy by cual 183 1 routinize her daily atvtios suggest how deoply embedded sre appearances of normal-sexuality for members’ recognition in com- ‘manplace scenes as unavoidable, unnoticed textares of relevances. ‘Agnes’ management devices can be described as measures whereby she attempted to exercise control over the changed content and ‘the changed texture of zelevances. Dizected over thelr couse to achieving the temporal identialty of herself ax the natural, nor: smal female, her management devices consisted of the work where: by the problem of object constancy was continually under solu- Lion, Her "devices" consisted of her work of making observable for all practical purposes the valuable sexed person who remains cis {bly the sesame through all variations of actual appearances ‘Agnes frequently had to deal with this accountable constancy ssa task and in « deliberate way. Her management work consisted of actions for controlling the changing textures of relevanoes. It ‘was this texture that she and others consulted for evidences that she was the sesame person, originally, inthe fist place, and all slong that she had been and would remain, Agnes was well aware of the devices that she used to make visible the constancy of the valuable, self-same natural, normal female, But her question, “De- ies for what?" inseparably accompanied that awareness, With that question Agnes mocked scientife discussions of sex roles that portiay how members are engages in making normal semuality accountable. She found it fatering and innocent to com sider a normals atvities and hers as those of role players or role makers who know, sock to establish, and enforce compliance to Socially standardized expectancies of normal sexuality with their “functional consequences” that prior to encountering actual ocea- sons in which they apply the normal can “tak about,” given the various things he might be doing with something that's “si,” and Jn the actual occasion use them to exereise choice among displays of appropriate talk and conduct. Equally fattering were the vari. ‘ies of peychologicaly cetied normally sexed persons whose pos sibilities, according to a favored version, are fixed early in ile by the social structures of the childhood family as a. complicated program of reinforcements: or the biological normal who is after All one sex or the other by the surplus that remain in the appropr- fate column when the sighs are arhmetically evaluated; o the sociological normal for whom society is a table of organization sothat sex “postions” and “statuses” anid thele posible departures fare assigned and enforced as a condition for malntaining that table of organization and for other "good reasons.” Each famishes a commonplace method for theorizing out of recognition # demonic problematic phenomenon: the unreliced management of herelf ax the identical, selfsame, natural female, land as a case of the real and caluable person by actie, sensible, judgmentally guided wmavoidably exible displays in practicel, com- ‘mon sense situations of choice, "That this phenomenon was happening was Agnes’ enduring con- com. Her devices were continually directed to, indeed, they con- Sisted of « Machiavellion management of practical circumstances But to manage in Machiavellian fashion her scenes of activity she hnad to take their relevant features on trust and be assured that ‘normal coupanions were doing so, too. She difered from the nor. nals in whose company and with whose unacknowledged help fhe “managed” the production task of keeping this trust in good repair. Thereby we encounter her wit with, her sensitivity t, her {iscrimination in selecting, her preoccupation with and talk about, land her artfl practices in furnishing, recognizing “good reasons” tnd in using them and making them trac. To enumerate Agnes! management devices and to treat her “rationalizations” as though they were directed to the management of impressions and to let it go at that, which one does in sing Gollman’s clinical ideal, ceuphemizes the phenomenon that her case brings to attention, In the conduct of her everyday affairs she had to choose among alter- native courses of action even though the goal that she was trying to achieve was most frequently not clear to her prior to her having to take the actions whereby some goal might in the end have been realized, Nor had she had eny assurances of what the consequences (of the choice might be prior to or apart from her having to deal with them, Nor were there clea rules that she could consult to ‘decide the wisdoun of the choice before the choice had to be exer- ‘sed. For Agnes, stable routines of everyday life were “disen- tsageable”atainments assured by unremitting, momentary, situated Courses of improvisation, ‘Throughout these was the inhabiting presence of talk, 30 that however the action turned out, poorly for well, she would have boen required to “explain” herself, to have famished "good reasons” for having acted as sho did. ‘That persons “rationalize” their own and each others past ac- tions, present situations, and future prospects is well known, IF 1 were speaking only ofthat, this report wonld consist of ene more authoritative version of what everyone knows, Instead, Ihave used the case to indicate why it i that persons would requie this of each other, and to find anew as a sociological phenomenon how "being able to give good reasons” is not only dependent upon but contsibutes to the maintenance of stable routines of everyday Iie as they are produced from “within” the situations as situations features, Agnes’ cae instructs us on how iatimately tied are "valve stability,” “object constancy,” “impression management,” “com- iitments to compliance with legitimate expectancies” “rational zation,” to member's unavoidable work of coming to terms with practical circumstances. It is with respect to that phenomenon that in examining Agnes’ passing T have heen concerned with the {question of how, over the temporal course oftheir actual engage ‘ments, and “knowing” the socoty only from within, members pro- dace stable, accountable practical activites, i, socal structures of everyday activites.six “Good” organizational reasons for “had” clinic records” The problem Several years we examined seletion activities of the Out- patient Pychiatie Cline at the UCLA. Medical Center, asking 3) whet criteria were applicants selected for treatment?” Kramers rmethod for analyzing movements of hospital populations was tied to conceive the question in terms ofthe progressive attrition fof an intial demand cohort as it proceeded through the successive ‘Steps of intake, psychiatric evaluation, and treatment® Clini ree tds were our sourees of information. The most important of these were intake application forms and case folder contents. To. sop- plement this information we designed a "Clinic Career Form” Which we inserted into case folders in order to obtain a continuing Fecord of transactions between patients und clinic personnel from the time of the patients initial appearance until he terminated con- + clara with Egon te, The Lanley Porter Nesom mM Kramer, H. Goldstein, R. H. Ianel, and Nl A. Johnson, “Application of 12 Tile Metisnlogy ty the Steady of Mena Hosp! Fopusons Poche Resch Reports, Jane, 1 pp 4076 Teepe Sven vet ti say et. Chaptr On, pp 18-24 eparts xh apes ofthis ear v7 tact with the clinic, Clinic folders contain records that are gen erated by the activities of eine personnel, and so almost al folder Contents, as sources of data for our stay, were the results of sell reporting procedures. ‘In promised eppliabilty and results, the cohort method was clear-cut and rich. There were no questions of access tothe Ss. Hence, when we propared the grant application we thought that closely supervised personnel could get the information from clinic folders that we needed, A pilot atempt to learn what information ‘we could and could not get caused us to upgrade needed training land sill to the level of graduate assistants in sociology. We per: inited coders to use inferences and encouraged diligent searching Even so there were few items in our schedule for which we ob- ‘ined answers, Some kinds of information that we had hoped to get from cline Hs, that we got, with what estimated credibility {Sllustated in Table 1. For example, patients sex was obtained in practically all eases, patient's age in OL per cent of cass; marital Eatus and local residence in about 75 per cent; race, occupation, religion, and education in about a third of the cases; and occupa. tional history, ethnie background, annual income, household living arrangements, and place of birth in less than a third. OF 47 items that dealt with the history of contacts between applicants and clinic personnel we had retums on 18 items for 90 per cent of our ‘cases; for 20 other items we got information from between 30 per ‘ent to none of the cass ‘When, after the frst yea’ experience, we reviewed our troubles in collecting information from the Bles, we came to think tat these troubles were the result of our secking information that we or anyone else, whether they were insiders or outsiders to the dln, ‘could probably not have, beeause any self-reporting system had to be reconciled with the routine ways in which the clini operated. ‘We came to tie the unavailable information to the theme of “good” ‘organizational reasons for “bad” records. It is this theme to which ‘our remarks are addresed “Nermel, naturel troubles" ‘The troubles that an investigator can encounter in using clinic records can be roughly divided into two types, We may call theccuawan ne eset a —— ae re eee mecca ee CS oe Comair meron nme ae Sie Sg ne va" . ome Sip te aie ett a owe maine cance,Gane cer Hl eee eral methodological troubles, andthe send “normal rural ees” We sal ake very Bl remsks about the Bs ‘ope the buen of our itr with the second Merl methodological troxbles Tash the tope of mot pubs sch dncnsons abut the use of lie records for reser pur fovss Interest in these rubles i eed by the task of oferng Be“fverugstor praca advice en how to make ask purse ot tl say's ea Instead of “alk pore” we sould ay conse of Sle tat might with the lveagaorssuferance, be permite {Shouts ble percentage of he srry and tered Ms that ae ‘eve im the les and pt ino Such dacusions attempt to arith the investigator with ues to observe In banging he Slotet f ease folders tothe sat of watt answers 0 Bi ‘festons Whet is general inveed ere the rephaing of ‘Tisafoldr contents sas to produce something ie sn ata coment tat hopfully posses the dee properties of cm flecnos hy cei ond the ke. The Wnsfonmed content the record less mre sadly than the oil fo vas Tin ssl eesti ana on he sumption of cox, ha there extn defensible comeyondence between the transfomes wer account and the way the information was meant in its original form? Any investigitor who has attempted a study with the use of

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