Participant perspectives on mitigated interactions: The impact of imposition and uncertainty

• Participant perspectives are highly valued and useful.
• At times mitigation can be excessive and an obstacle within communication.
• Speakers and listeners express different emotion word responses and perspectives.
• Participant involvement in role play interactions approximates involvement in naturally occurring interactions.

The present study, regarding the influence of imposition and uncertainty on mitigation, explored speakers’ and listeners’ perspectives on mitigation in interaction. Participants assessed the video playbacks of their own role play interactions, relating to four contexts. The four contexts, which combined imposition and certitude to manipulate mitigation, provoked interactions about: a missing car (severe imposition/uncertain), a stolen car (severe imposition/certain), a missing glass pitcher (mild imposition/uncertain), and a broken glass pitcher (mild imposition/certain). Following creation of 56 dyadic role plays, participant perspective data was collected using playback comments. The comments about the interactions, categorized initially through a grounded approach to qualitative analysis, expressed emotion words, discourse purposes, and discourse evaluations. Some of the notable findings were that too much mitigation may be detrimental and that speakers and listeners differ in the emotion words used to characterize their interactions and also their tendency to address discourse purposes or evaluations. Recommendations for future mitigation research included using both role play and naturally occurring interactions, an increased consideration of emotion in mitigation research, and further examination of the role of speaker and listener in mitigated interactions.