Divergent Understandings and Double Contingency

The minimal sharing just mentioned is all that is required for social relationships. Some time ago, Wallace (1970:32–34) argued on the basis of a gedanken experiment that group members need not share even one cognitive map. He argued that useful and productive relationships can be and are carried out on the basis of what he called "equivalence structure." As noted earlier, Wallace views predictability rather than sharing as the basis for social life, with the needed predictability arising from "equivalent mutual expectations . . . [that] may be termed an implicit contract [emphasis in original], in the general sense of the word contract" (ibid., 35).

Although Wallace does not say so specifically, it would appear that any actor's behavior can be affected by what fellow participants in an interaction do and that their behavior, in turn, is affected by what the first actor does in response to their act (ibid., 27–29). This is similar to Talcott Parsons's (1964:36–43) "double contingency" (see also chap. 7, above), which involves the mutual adjustment of actors to one another's behavior. That is, in any interaction, what the second actor does is contingent on what the first actor did and the first's response to the second's response takes account of what the latter response was.

There can be little doubt that double contingency is a fundamental element in social life. Through smoothing the course of particular interactions, it contributes to the continuation of relationships. The process is one characterized

by continual self-correction, with each participant reassessing his own and his companions' statuses according to clues received in interaction.

The primary task of double contingency, as far as interaction beginning and continuing is concerned, is to achieve agreement on mutual status assignment. People may not begin an interaction with shared understandings about their own and their partner's category memberships, but they will respond to each other's cues until they do or they will cease trying to interact. Even if they share—or come to share—identifying understandings about their own and the other's category and its salience relative to other categories, they must also come to agree on the expectations the other will manifest in response to what the first does. They will respond to each other's cues and reach agreement, or the interaction will stop when it is hardly begun.