Operationalizing Dyadic Calibration - DSS IVb

This preprint provides the qualitative operationalisation and diagnostic coding architecture corresponding to the quantitative framework developed in DSS-IVa. The paper demonstrates how dyadic calibration, miscalibration, salience, recognition, and attributional framing may be rendered observable through language, narrative structure, written material, and naturalistic interaction. It preserves the same dyad-internal reference frames and non-normative system ontology used throughout the series. Four principal coding dimensions are specified: narrative calibration, attributional framing, salience markers, and recognition markers. These dimensions support derived qualitative indices of local narrative miscalibration, dyadic narrative dispersion, and salience-weighted narrative strain. Calibration is defined as relational coherence between partners’ structural representations rather than emotional agreement, satisfaction, equality, or shared moral judgment. Constraint-based and intent-based explanations are coded as different explanatory modes without treating either account as proof of motive, blame, or individual pathology. The paper establishes construct equivalence between quantitative and qualitative instantiations while emphasising that convergence and divergence across modalities are both analytically informative. Qualitative signals may reveal emerging representational instability before it appears in numerical allocation measures, while quantitative dispersion may reveal cumulative patterns that remain weakly articulated in discourse. The framework is descriptive and diagnostic in an analytic sense only. It is not a clinical coding system, treatment instrument, relationship-quality measure, or method for allocating responsibility.