Standardization vs. Rapport: Respondent laughter and Interviewer Reaction during Telephone Surveys
By D. Lavin, D. Maynard. American Sociological Review, 2001
107 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Laughter emerges naturally in interaction. In the context of the telephone survey interview, however, laughter threatens standardization. Consequently, some survey research centers prohibit interviewers from laughing during the administration of surveys. The data for this study are recorded telephone interviews from one such survey research center. How interviewers handle the “laughter invitations” of respondents is analyzed. Because these interviewers are not taught what to do when laughter occurs, they rely on their tacit knowledge, either accepting the invitation, declining it, or engaging in “pseudo-laughter”: Interviewers most often decline or use a pseudo-laughing response. Laughter patterns in a survey research center that does not prohibit interviewer laughter are examined for comparison, and generally much more reciprocation and laughter are observed. Respondent laughter exhibits a central tension in the telephone survey interview: How can interviewers maintain both standardization and an appropriately affiliative social relationship with respondents? The differential management of this tension is explored in terms of survey methodology, the sociology of (social) scientific knowledge, and the organization of talk in institutional settings.
Subfields: Language and Linguistics, Literature and Literary Theory, Social Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/88d8475f41d65ad3754ffdcb3b58fd7313135411
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Citations in the corpus
- Interviewing Reluctant Respondents: Strikes, Henchmen, and Gaelic Games (2010, background): “Lavin and Maynard (2001) argue that the concept of rapport is difficult to measure and as such propose a normative interpretation based on the attitudes and behaviors displayed in the interview itself.”