MITIGATION OF INTERPERSONAL CONFLICTS - POLITENESS AND TIME PRESSURE

The prediction that behavioral politeness would evoke mitigating respo nses and compliance by the other participants was examined in a role-p laying experiment. Seventy-three mala Japanese students verbally inter acted with a confederate opponent, who expressed her unreasonable requ ests politely or impolitely. Participants were pressed to respond to t he request either impolitely or after a 30-s delay. The effects of pol iteness were observed on compliance and on tactical dimensions; that i s, participants more frequently complied with and gave more integrativ e and appeasing responses to the polite confederate than the impolite one. Time pressure was found to limit the effects of politeness only r egarding the hostile-appeasing dimension of response.