Etiquette is the code, or protocol, by which we signal and interpret politeness. It makes use of verbal, physical, gestural and even more primitive modes of interaction. The set of expectations and interpretations that give contextual elements their social and cultural face threat values and behaviors their redressive values is an etiquette. We suspect that each culture has its own, unique etiquette, though similar cultures will have similar etiquettes. In fact, etiquette is one of the most readily observable, overt signals of a culture.
Published in Chapter:
Politeness and Etiquette Modeling: Beyond Perception to Behavior
Christopher A. Miller (Smart Information Flow Technologies, USA), Tammy Ott (Smart Information Flow Technologies, USA), Peggy Wu (Smart Information Flow Technologies, USA), and Vanessa Vakili (Smart Information Flow Technologies, USA)
Copyright: © 2011
|Pages: 25
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-883-8.ch017
Abstract
If culture is expressed in the patterns of behavior, values and expectations of a group, then a central element in the practical modeling and understanding of culture is the expression of politeness and its roles in governing and influencing behavior. The authors have been developing computational models of “politeness” and its role in power and familiarity relationships, urgency, indebtedness, etc. Such a model, insofar as it extends to human-machine interactions, will enable better and more effective decision aids. This model, based on a universal theory of human politeness, links aspects of social context (power and familiarity relationships, imposition, character), which have culture-specific values, to produce expectations about the use of polite, redressive behaviors (also culturally defined). The authors have linked this “politeness perception” model to a coarse model of decision making and behavior in order to predict influences of politeness on behavior and attitudes. This chapter describes the algorithm along with results from multiple validation experiments: two addressing the model’s ability to predict perceived politeness and two predicting the impact of perceived politeness on compliance behaviors in response to directives. The authors conclude that their model tracks well with subjective perceptions of American cultural politeness and that its predictions broadly anticipate and explain situations in which perceived politeness in a directive yields improved affect, trust, perceived competence, subjective workload, and compliance, though somewhat decreased reaction time. The model proves better at accounting for the effects of social distance than for power differences.