CMN 457: Spring 2003

Lect #12: Scheff (1968): “Negotiating Reality: Power in the Assessment of Responsibility.”

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Use of questioning (interrogration) to determine:

1) what events occurred in person's life; and 2) the extent to which he was responsible.

In settings: courts; social workers (psychotherapists); social scientists.

Contrasting two perspectives: 1) Common Sense Realist; 2) Social Constructionist.

1) Common Sense Realist Perspective: Assumes interrogation neutral: responsibility can be fixed absolutely, and independently of method.

Method: i) fixing actions and intentions; ii) comparing with pre-determined criteria - both categories independent of the social context.

2) Sociology of Knowledge Perspective: assumes that both what actions 'are' and criteria, are social constructions.

Question: 'What is happening?'

Responsibility is relative, and always involves and element of negotiation (bargaining plus navigation).

Examples: real psychotherapy interview, plea bargaining (fictitious).

Plea bargaining: tension between two-sided nature of fact of bargaining and moral expectations.

"Justice and liberty are not the subjects

of bargaining and barter."

vs.

"All law is compromise."

example: judges questioned not intended to disguise the process of 'charge reduction'!

Medicine: Balint "The doctor, his patient, and the illness" (1957) - 'offers and responses'

Patient 'offers' illnesses - negotiate until - one accepted as justified.

The fixing of responsibility is a process in which client offers definitions of the situation to which the interrogator responds.

'Apostolic' (mission) function: physician induces patients to have the kind of illness the physician thinks that the patient ought to have.

Power

Doctor/ patient: if unequal power (with doctor greater) subject likely to be susceptible to influence of interrogation (Freud: suggestions)

Visibility of the bargaining process: plea bargaining visible; psychotherapy: invisible.

Reality arrived at by negotiation

Psychiatric inteview:

34 yr old nurse (she): claims husband problem: alcohol, cooped up, no sex.

She wants help for her external situation - what do you say?

The interview sounds as if:

she keeps saying 'this is the trouble'

he keeps saying 'no, tell me what the trouble is'

finally she says 'well, I'll tell you'

therapist says' good, I'll help you'

Psychiatrist: flatness of tone; rapidity of new topics; she attributes her problems to external situation - but - he reminds her four times that she has come to a psychiatrist.

She has to 'hear' these subtle 'reminders' as 'requests' for her to analyse her own contribution to her own difficulty.

She says 'its difficult to diagnose yourself' - finally she says she 'doesn't feel adjusted'; 'its probably remorse'

Bingo!

Guilty secret: she got pregnant by another man!

Negotiated aspects of process clear: after blaming external situation admits guilty secret.

Law Interview:

Opposite premise: client not responsible.

Defense lawyer nearly questions him wrongly, i.e., leads him into an admission of guilt.

Shifts to a new tactic: 'the lecture' - makes statements about forms of defense:

self-defence; defense of habilitation; defense of homicide; defense of intoxication; defense of insanity.

a crime can only be committed by homo sapiens: capable of distinguishing right from wrong.

Client makes 'offers': maybe I was insane?

Lawyer: 'perhaps, but we need some evidence'

Client: 'I blacked out'

Lawyer: 'you don'r remember?'

Two cases comparison:

Negotatiation complete: both have made offers and offers and responses

Difference: first - client is responsible; second - client is not responsible.

Is the difference due to: 1) a difference 'in' the cases? or 2) a difference 'in' the techniques of interrogation?

Crucial dimensions of the negotiating process:

1. Consciousness of the process: both interviews contain a 'hidden agenda': i) psychotherapy patient who accept problems as their responsibility can be helped; ii) agenda which is unknown is the legal structure of defences and justifications.

Both involve the fitting of pre-defined criteria to richly specified cases.

2. Format of conversation: who is in control - lawyer or client; patient of doctor?

Lawyer: putting client in control of the defining of the situation gives the client a double advantage: i) allows him to select his best case; ii) to select his criteria.

Psychiatrist: interrogation by psychiatrist 'rejects' patient's offers; 'leads' her to a defintion of the situation in which she is at fault.

Realism?

Both Newman's (the author of An anatomy of murder) and Balint's account assume that there is an objective state of affairs.

vs.

Independently of the facts, the technique of assessment determines the outcome relative to the power and authority of the participants in the situation.

Lawyer: 'unfriendly witness' - lawyer remains in control of defining the situation - uses judge as 3rd-party power; 'friendly witness' - give control to witness.

Psychiatrist: does not use 3rd-party power, but uses a device - abrupt, direct questions - exerts control, not by power, but by manipulation.

Propositions:

Professionals can retain control of defining of situation because: of authority; skill; control of access to what the client wants.

1. Consciousness: i) greater shared awareness that it is negotiation, more client control; ii) more explicit the agenda, more client control.

2. Format: i) more power in responses than in offers; ii) more power in counter-offers by responding party than in mere acceptance or rejection of offers; iii) more power in directness.

Rosenthal:

Interviewers surveys: findings are negotiated and influenced by technique.

Errors: 'expectancy effects' when contact between exp. and subject; 'observer effects' when no contact.

Dilemmas for: lawyers, psychiatrists, and social scientists.