CONVERSING DYADS EXPLAIN THE UNEXPECTED - NARRATIVE AND SITUATIONAL EXPLANATIONS FOR UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES

This research examined how unexpected outcomes elicit situational and narrative causal explanations in conversing dyads. Although it is well known that unexpected outcomes elicit spontaneous explanatory activit y in individuals, the relation between unexpected outcomes and the typ e of explanations (e.g. dispositional vs. situational) and the ways in which dyads construct causal explanations remain largely unspecified. We proposed that unexpected outcomes would prompt conversing dyads to spend more time discussing situational explanations, to invoke more o riginal situational explanatory factors and to construct more narrativ e explanations. Moreover, because these explanations were wrought with in a conversational context, evidence of dyadic inter-subjectivity sho uld be found in that dyad members faced with unexpected outcomes shoul d build each other's explanations and ask each other questions of inte rpretation and verification. Having formed target-based impressions of a positively or negatively described target, previously acquainted dy ads learned of an outcome that was either expected or unexpected with respect to their impressions. Dyads discussed their impressions of the target in front of a video camera, without explicit instructions to c onstruct causal explanations. Predictions were supported, and results are discussed in terms of communication dynamics as well as the sponta neity of situational explanations for unexpected outcomes.