Evaluation of Accounts: A Meta-Analysis

When something goes wrong in a relationship, a promise becomes violated, a social norm not followed, some type of tear occurs in the social fabric. The construction of social relationships involves the acceptance and the adherence to sets of rules (whether implicitly or explicitly stated) that govern relations and interaction. Goffman (1959) and Schlenker (1980) point out that there exists a need to reestablish face when some events take place. Cupach and Metts (1990) point out that, “as an embarrassing incident becomes increasingly offensive to others, the embarrassed actor is obligated to redress the face of others in order to mitigate the negative attributions” (p. 341). When a violation of social or relational expectations occurs, the violator may offer some type of response or account for that violation. The account serves the purpose of recognizing that the behavior falls outside acceptable limits and provides a characterization of that behavior with an effort to repair that relationship.