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How late-adolescent friends share stories about relationships: The importance of mitigating the seriousness of romantic problemsUniversity of West Georgia, Nkorobov{at}westga.edu
University of California - Santa Cruz This narrative study explored how late adolescents (N = 64 dyads) jointly told stories about romantic relationships during casual conversations with same-sex friends. Stories about romantic problems were four times more prevalent than stories about romantic nonproblems, and relationship instability was the most frequent type of romantic problem. Furthermore, discussions of romantic problems (versus nonproblems) were particularly likely to be softened or mitigated by projecting a detached, relaxed, or unknowing stance. Case studies of such conversational mitigation vividly illustrate how these primarily White, heterosexual, late adolescents conavigated the vagaries of developing serious and intimate bonds without appearing too invested or troubled by their romantic problems. The findings have implications for understanding the co-construction of social and personal identities.
Key Words: discourse identity late adolescence mitigation narratives problems romantic relationships stories
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Vol. 24, No. 6,
971-992 (2007) |
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