Are you as polite as you think?

Relationships with people you don’t know very well often require you to add an extra layer of care to your communication when sensitive topics arise. Maybe you’re at a get-together of your partner’s friends and, despite your best efforts, you can’t find a way to tactfully say that you can’t stand the cheese spread the host has so proudly displayed. In fact, you can’t even get past the first morsel without wanting to spit it back into your napkin. You can tell from the host’s facial expression that they expect a lot from you, so you do your best to (a) compliment them while (b) not asking for more.

Unfortunately, it seems that your efforts at politeness are far from having borne fruit. The host recoils, clearly offended by your lack of enthusiasm. Is there any way you could have more successfully maneuvered through this predicament?

Saving face and the theory of politics

According to a new study by Mingyuan Chu and colleagues at the University of Aberdeen (2022), preserving another person’s “face” is at the heart of polite communication. You may have used the expression “saving face”, but more formally, “chess facing management can lead to difficulties in social interaction, misunderstandings and even conflicts. Indeed, according to the “theory of politeness”, “the face is fragile and constantly threatened during social interactions” (p. 1). What does all this mean?

The language and body language of politeness

The Aberdeen researchers note that polite communication partly requires using the right choice of words as well as reinforcing those words with body language and other gestures. The most frequently offered polite verbal statement is one that is indirect. Instead of saying “Ugh, I hated that cheese spread”, you would instead say something like “There are so many options for cheese spreads and each has its own unique qualities”. You haven’t really commented on the unique qualities of this cheese spread.

Another way to maintain your interaction partner’s face is to use what Chu et al. refer to probability statements with words such as “maybe” or a hedging term such as “uh”, “you know”, or “I mean”. These options have the advantage of allowing you to temper a critical comment because they indicate a lack of commitment to the opinion you are about to provide. On their own, however, they might need some body language to complete the operation.

Turning now to body language, the four options studied by the Aberdeen researchers include:

1. Reveal your palm maybe with a shrug
2. Tilting the head to communicate uncertainty
3. Shrug with your face raising your eyebrows and cheeks
4. Looking away perhaps while saying “you know” or “I like”.

As you visualize yourself using these nonverbal cues, you can also think about how you react when others use them with you. Would any of these help you feel less offended by someone’s critical observation of you? Chu et al. conducted a series of six experiments (all on undergraduate samples) to determine which cues (verbal and non-verbal) were most likely to be considered indirect by listeners.

Studying politeness in the lab

The research team obtained indirect messaging ratings in scenarios involving the spreading of bad news such as Person A telling Person B that they failed to form a sports team. By varying the exact indices provided, Chu et al. could determine which had the biggest impact on the odds of a message being considered indirect (vs. being considered a lie, a direct or neutral message). Throughout the experiments, the researchers controlled for the probability of the chance ratings and also asked the evaluators to provide indications of their trust in their notes. The authors registered their data and hypotheses as part of open science, ensuring that their findings could both be reproduced and transparently accessed by other members of the research community.

Summarizing all the analyses, the authors were able to come to the conclusion that politeness was greater when verbal and non-verbal cues were included in the scenarios. These included a combination of uncertainty terms (e.g. “like”), speech markers, and head tilt. Of the nonverbal cues, only head tilt indicated an indirect message. If you had to choose, then it seems that simply tilting your head to the side as you speak would be your most successful path. As the authors note, the head tilt “serves as a face-saving communication tool and signals politeness in indirect responses” (p. 18).

There’s more to the story of politeness

Not studied in the Aberdeen study, but perhaps equally important, is the way you speak as well as the words you use in the verbal communication channel in order to convey politeness. Cues include changes in pitch, volume, utterance duration, and voice quality. A rising pitch is considered coarser than a falling pitch (i.e. the higher your voice, the coarser you sound).

Essential Body Language Readings

There’s also another factor known as “maximum relevance”, where an answer that doesn’t fit the question can be considered rude no matter how you say it or how far you tilt your head. Thinking back to cheese spread, imagine if your answer to the question “How do you like cheese spread?” was “I like this tablecloth.”

In summary, beyond what you say and how you say it, you may find it pleasing to know that a simple nod of your head can be enough to nurture those whose lives you would like to preserve. face.