Embedded interactions and selective disclosure: network effects on conversations aboard Skylab

How do absent others influence our interactions? We argue in this paper that interactions are embedded within networks formed by chains of specific relationships between known third parties. The anticipation of future interactions with external others conditions our interpretation of the current situation and affects our behavior in the interaction. We employ embedded interactions to analyze the case of conflicts between the astronauts and ground control during NASA's Skylab 4 missions. Our analysis reveals how anticipation of eventual interactions between uninvolved actors led the crew to withhold important information from ground control, information that would have been shared with ground control if the astronauts had been able to prevent its future transmission. Skylab astronauts were heavily concerned with how their actions would be framed through these chains of interactions and eventually interpreted by Congress and the general public. The astronauts' attempts to save face by controlling information about themselves at these distant sites led them to deviate from protocol and produced the conflicts for which Skylab 4 is best known.