Abstract
The interactions that typically precede and follow explicit secrets display a structural organization of sequentially ordered items that form the vehicle for micropolitical processes of reality construction, selectivity and coalition making. Our data showed a preference for secret receivers to accept the frame, construction, political formulation, bonding, and coalitions of explicit secrets. The teller can define information as exclusive, select the secret recipient, specify the exclusivity rules, and infuse the information with political vectors. After the secret is told the power shifts to the receiver who can then sanction the teller for divulging a confidence, and/or choose to break the explicit and implicit rules and alliance of the preference system that organizes secret telling.
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Rodriguez, N., Ryave, A.L. The structural organization and micropolitics of everyday secret telling interactions. Qual Sociol 15, 297–318 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00990330
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00990330