The prediction that behavioral politeness would evoke mitigating responses and compliance by the other participants was examined in a role-playing experiment. Seventy-three male japanese students verbally interacted with a confederate opponent, who expressed her unreasonable requests politely or impolitely. Participants were pressed to respond to the request either immediately or after a 30-s delay. The effects of politeness were observed on compliance and on tactical dimensions; that is, participants more frequently complied with and gave more integrative and appeasing responses to the polite confederate than the impolite one. Time pressure was found to limit the effects of politeness only regarding the hostile appeasing dimension of response.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Baron, R. A. (1984). Reducing organizational conflict: An incompatible response approach. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69, 272-279.
2.
Baron, R. A. (1988). Attributions and organizational conflict: The mediating role of apparent sincerity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 41, 111-127.
3.
Baron, R. A. (1990). Countering the effects of destructive criticism: The relative efficacy of four interventions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 235-245.
4.
Barry, B. , & Shapiro, D. L. (1992). Influence tactics in combination: The interactive effects of soft versus hard tactics and rational exchange. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 22, 1429-1441.
5.
Bies, R. J. , & Moag, J. S. (1986). Interactional justice: Communication criteria of fairness. In R. J. Lewicki, B. H. Sheppard, & M. H. Bazerman (Eds.), Research on negotiation in organizations (Vol. 1, pp. 43-55). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
6.
Brown, P. , & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. London: Cambridge University Press.
7.
Bruch, M. A. , McCann, M., & Harvey, C. (1991). Type A behavior and processing of social conflict information. Journal of Research in Personality, 25, 434-444.
8.
Canary, D. J. , Cunningham, E. M., & Cody, M. J. (1988). Goal types, gender, and locus of control in managing interpersonal conflict. Communication Research, 15, 426-446.
9.
Chanin, M. N. , & Schneer, J. A. (1984). A study of the relationship between Jungian personality dimensions and conflict-handling behavior. Human Relations, 37, 863-879.
10.
Cowan, G. , Drinkard, J., & MacGavin, L. (1984). The effects of target, age, and gender on use of power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 1391-1398.
11.
Deutsch, M. (1975). The resolution of conflict: Constructive and destructive processes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
12.
Falbo, T. , & Peplau, L. A. (1980). Power strategies in intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 618-628.
13.
Galinat, W. H. , & Mueller, G. F. (1988). Verbal responses to different bargaining strategies: A content analysis of real-life buyer-seller interaction. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 18, 160-178.
14.
Hocker, J. L. , & Wilmot, W. W. (1991). Interpersonal conflict. Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown.
15.
Holtgraves, T. , & Yang, J.-N. (1990). Politeness as universal: Cross-cultural perceptions of request strategies and inferences based on their use. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 719-729.
16.
Howard, J. A. , Blumstein, P., & Schwartz, P. (1986). Sex, power, and influence tactics in intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 102-109.
17.
Instone, D. , Major, B., & Bunker, B. B. (1983). Gender, self confidence, and social influence strategies: An organizational simulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 322-333.
18.
Janis, I. L. (1993). Decision making under stress. In L. Goldberger & S. Breznitz (Eds.), Handbook of stress (pp. 56-74). New York: Free Press.
19.
Kipnis, D. , Schmidt, S. M., & Wilkinson, I. (1980). Intra-organizational influence tactics: Explorations in getting one's way. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65, 440-452.
20.
Leyva, F. A. , & Furth, H. G. (1986). Compromise formation in social conflicts: The influence of age, issue, and interpersonal context. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 15, 441-451.
21.
Offerman, L. R. , & Schrier, P. E. (1985). Social influence strategies: The impact of sex, role, and attitudes toward power. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 11, 286-300.
22.
Ohbuchi, K. , & Baba, R. (1988). Selection of influence strategies in interpersonal conflicts: Effects of sex, interpersonal relations, and goals. Tohoku Psychologica Folia, 47, 63-73.
23.
Ohbuchi, K. , & Takahashi, Y. (1994). Cultural styles of conflict management in Japanese and Americans: Passivity, covertness, and effectiveness of strategies. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, 1345-1366.
24.
Ohbuchi, K. , & Yamamoto, I. (1990). Power strategies of Japanese children in interpersonal conflict: Effects of age, gender, and target upon their use. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 151, 349-360.
25.
Pruitt, D. G. , & Carnevale, P. J. (1993). Negotiation in social conflictBuckingham, UKOpen University Press.
26.
Rahim, M. A. (1986). Referent role and styles of handling interpersonal conflict. Journal of Social Psychology, 126, 79-86.
27.
Rubin, J. Z. , Pruitt, D. G., & Kim, S. H. (1994). Social conflict:. Escalation, stalemate, and settlement. New York: McGraw-Hill.
28.
Rule, B. G. , Bisanz, G. L., Kohn, M. (1985). Anatomy of a persuasion schema: Targets, goals, and strategies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1127-1140.
29.
Schlenker, B. R. , & Weigold, M. F. (1989). Goals and the self-identification process: Constructing desired identities. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.), Goal concepts in personality and social psychology (pp. 243-290). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
30.
Shapiro, D. L. , & Brett, J. M. (1993). Comparing three processes under lying judgments of procedural justice: A field study of mediation and arbitration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 1167-1177.
31.
Sillars, A. L. , Coletti, S. F., Parry, D., & Rogers, M. A. (1982). Coding verbal conflict tactics: Nonverbal and perceptual correlates of the "avoidance-distributive-integrative" distinction. Human Communication Research, 9, 83-95.
32.
Solomon, S. , Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (1991). A terror management theory of social behavior. The psychological functions of self-esteem and cultural world views. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 24, pp. 93-160). New York: Academic Press.
33.
Sternberg, R. J. , & Dobson, D. M. (1987). Resolving interpersonal conflicts: An analysis of stylistic consistency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 794-812.
34.
Sternberg, R. J. , & Soriano, L. J. (1984). Styles of conflict resolution. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 115-126.
35.
Tajfel, H. (1982). Social identity and intergroup relations. New York: Cambridge University Press.
36.
Tedeschi, J. T. , Schlenker, B. R., & Bonoma, T. V. (1973). Conflict, power, and games: The experimental study of interpersonal relations. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton.
37.
Thomas, K. W. , & Kilmann, R. H. (1978). Comparison of four instruments of measuring conflict behavior. Psychological Reports, 42, 1139-1145.
38.
Thompson, L. , & Loewenstein, G. (1992). Egocentric interpretations of fairness and interpersonal conflict. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 51, 176-197.
39.
Turner, J. C. (1981). The experimental social psychology of intergroup behavior. In J. C. Turner & H. Giles (Eds.), Intergroup behavior (pp. 66-101). Oxford, UKBasil Blackwell.
40.
Tyler, T. , & Lind, E. A. (1992). A relational model of authority in groups. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 115-191). New York: Academic Press.
41.
Van der Vliert, E. , & Euwema, M. C. (1994). Agreeableness and activeness as components of conflict behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 674-687.
42.
Van der Vliert, E. , Euwema, M. C., & Huismans, S. E. (1995). Managing conflict with a subordinate or a superior: Effectiveness of conglom-erated behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 271-281.
