Turning the tide in request negotiations: the role of accounts and reasonableness

Despite being a fundamentally prosocial species, humans sometimes resist helping others. Using conversation analysis supplemented by structured coding, this study examines how people navigate this social problem in everyday negotiations over requests. We focus on how interactions shift from heading toward rejection to moving toward compliance, a process we refer to as reaching a “turning point.” When requesters pursue compliance, they may do so by applying pressure or by engaging the requestee’s account for resistance. We show that addressing resistance accounts enables the removal of barriers to compliance, thereby facilitating turning points. By contrast, reliance on pressure inhibits turning points, and, when it does produce them, typically does so only after protracted and disaffiliative exchanges. Overall, the study advances a sociological understanding of everyday negotiation, highlighting how reason giving structures the trajectory of resistance, pursuit, compliance, and relational cohesion in fraught interactions.