Face-Saving at the Singles Dance

Abstract

This paper examines “face-work” in the context of a singles dance in order to inventory the array of techniques participants use to avert potentially damaging evaluations by others. Face-saving involves the dynamics of social rejection—a general phenomenon cutting across many aspects of social interaction. The plight of deviants who occupy stigmatized statuses, persons in tainted situations, and “normals” experiencing slights or snubs all entail coping with social rejection, though its form and intensity may vary. Consequently, similar patterns of coping may be identified, whether involving major rejection or the management of minor slights, as both the deviant and normal draw from the same cultural pool of coping mechanisms. Eleven techniques were identified, which the participants employed to manage bothstigma and rejection. Parallels between these coping mechanisms and those employed by deviants can also be made.

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