Consequential Unscripted Interactions: A Conceptual and Empirical Description

Abstract

A consequential unscripted interaction (CUI) is a conversation that a person understands to be important but does not know how to do. CUIs might be widespread within a population, but are perhaps more likely to be individual or localized within a discrete group (e.g., young women or rural boys). This paper introduces this idea, distinguishes CUIs from “difficult conversations,” and then proceeds to report data that describe CUIs and people’s experience of them. Two samples were collected, one of undergraduates (N = 257) and another from Amazon’s mTurk system (N = 230). Some differences between the samples (probably due to different life stages) were observed, but most of the topics, consequences, and personal experiences were similar. The paper reports the topics, settings, participants, subjective perceptions, and emotional reactions to CUIs. The goal of this project is eventually to develop interventions for specific CUIs, but this paper is theoretical and generally descriptive.

Keywords:

• Consequential Unscripted Interactions
• Difficult Conversations
• Emotions
• Goals
• Interpersonal Communication