WEBVTT - The Power of Polite 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.640 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.040 My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie duxas Julie. 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.520 You go first, let me go first. You go first. Oh, 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:23.200 you're so polite. Thank you. Uh. And which is of 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:25.959 course the topic that we are talking about today, because 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:30.200 we're talking about how opening doors, holding the elevator, all 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:34.080 those little things, those pleased and thank you, the niceties 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:38.479 that can make all the other little indignities of life 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.120 seem not so much of a big deal. The elevator. 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:44.840 I'm so glad to not use an elevator anymore every 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:47.360 day to get to the office in our new building, right, 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:49.720 I just take the stairs. It saves me that that 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.120 that feeling you get when you rush ahead onto the 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.120 elevator and then you realize there's someone else coming. But 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:58.280 if you don't look at them, then you're not obligated 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.880 to keep the door open. Yeah, there's a whole we've 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:05.680 talked about this, we actually did. Yeah, elevator elevator etiquette, 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.679 and how a lot of that, like your politeness, is 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.280 probably tied to the algorithm of that elevator because if 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:14.440 you know that that elevator is only gonna come every 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:20.120 two seconds, you're not probably gonna hold the open door 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.919 button for that person. Yeah. The algorithm for the stairs 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:24.920 is pretty simple, and that's if I slip and fall, 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:27.800 probably nobody will find me in there because no one 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.120 uses those stairs. And that's that's you know. That's the 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.880 interesting thing about politeness too, is that, um, yeah, I 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:35.480 hope that you don't have something fall by the way, 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:37.880 that would be terrible. Um. That's the interesting thing about 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.759 politeness is that it seems like at face value it's 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.039 pretty straightforward. But as we will get into there is 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.720 a kind of algorithm in place that dictates our levels 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:51.360 of politeness, and when we engage in it, Yeah, we're 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.760 constantly tuning our politeness level to meet every face, every situation. 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.920 It's ultimately, I keep thinking of this this massive spider web, 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.360 and it's holding us all in our place, our place 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:07.760 in society, our place in our interpersonal relationships, and just 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.320 and and and we depend on that wedding just to 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.640 hold it all together. It sounds kind of dastardly, the 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.560 web of polite, Yes, because there's a big spider there somewhere, 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.640 right indeed ready to gobble us up. Um. But you know, 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:21.960 one of the things that we came across in our 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.960 research is that politeness, as well intentioned as it can be, 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:30.280 can sometimes be misconstrued. And a good example of this 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:35.440 is holding doors open for men. Oh yes, yeah. And 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.600 there's a research paper entitled When Door Holding Harms Gender 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:44.000 and the Consequences of non Normative Help by Megan McCarty 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.120 and Janice Kelly. And I think that title kind of 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:50.120 says it all. Non normative help. Um. So what we're 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.920 talking about here hundred and nineties unsuspecting men and women 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:58.280 stepping through two portals into a Purdue University building. But 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.280 first they were a by a male member of the 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.519 research team as they walked toward the building. For half, 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:07.959 the research associate quote took a step in front of 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.560 the participant, opened the door and let the participant walk 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:14.800 through the front door first. Very chivalrous. Right. For the 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.640 other half, he reached for the adjacent door, so that 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.080 the two opened their doors more or less simultaneously. Would 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.359 you think that there would be weirdness from this? Yeah? 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.120 I think I would think there would be. Yeah, I mean, 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.840 initially I wouldn't have thought so, but once those people 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:33.720 got on the other side of the door, there was 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:38.080 a female research associate and she approached each subject and 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:40.600 asked him or her to complete a short survey and 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.880 on a one attend scale, they indicated UH their agreement 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:48.600 with three statements measuring self esteem, including quote I feel 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:52.320 that I'm a person of worth um at least on 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:57.080 an equal plane with others, and three measuring self efficacy, 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:59.760 including I can usually achieve what I want if I 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.200 work hard for it. And the results is that male 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:07.000 and only males, reported lower levels of self esteem and 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:10.800 self confidence if the door had been held open for them. Oh, 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:14.160 so it comes down to like the basic power to 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.960 enter a space and and your your self worth in 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.479 entering it. If someone is opening the door for you, 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:26.440 then your masculine reptilian brain can't handle it, or your 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:31.440 gender performing self can't handle it um And that's the 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:35.039 gender performing part. Is interesting because there's a guy named 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:40.520 Irving Goffman, a Canadian American sociologist, and he viewed society 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.640 through what is called symbolic interaction perspective. So this is 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.599 kind of like everyday behavior in the interactions between people 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.480 to help explain why society is the way that it is. 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:56.680 And Goffman applied something called dramaturgical analysis and already too 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.560 in order to study this kind of social interaction. Um 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:03.920 so he looked at this as really theater performance. In 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.919 his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, he 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:11.080 looked at self as an image deriving from the perceptions 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.280 and responses of others that create the face of the person, 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.839 and two as the actor, as a player in a 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:22.960 game or a set of rituals. So, for self preservation's sake, 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:28.080 the self, especially the actor representing yourself right, would be 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:32.560 interested in cooperations, signs and symbols and well understood practices 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.719 in society, like hey, you don't hope open the door 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:37.520 for me. I'm a strong man. I don't need another 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:40.480 man to do that. Right. So, in other words, for 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:44.880 most of us, we inhabit these actor selves on stage 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:48.880 responding to an audience, whoever the audience is, and we 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.880 try to guide the impression and form the identity through 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:57.920 the gaze of others, and our backstage selves are hidden away. 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:02.000 And this is where a lot of this idea of 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.000 politeness and how we perform it comes into play. I 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.920 like the use of signs, symbols and ritual in this 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.200 because it makes it sound like every interaction we have, 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:16.240 every little polite interaction is is ultimately just a ritualistic 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:22.239 activity UM dealing with an abstract self, which show which 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:27.760 kind of mean because everything has some sort of context 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:31.800 to it that we all understand the game rules to write, Like, 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.280 if you were just given this object and you had 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:36.200 never seen it before, you wouldn't know what to do 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.039 with it or how to interact with it. You would 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:42.400 need someone to tell you, like, this is uh, this 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.080 sphere and you can open up one of the compartments. 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.800 I'm holding the actual like sphere like thing um and 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:52.279 it's empty and you can put paper clips in it. 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:54.479 Otherwise you'd be if you've never seen it before, you 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:56.440 would be like, what is this alien thing? Yeah, I 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:00.520 mean every every little interaction, particularly the holding the door 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:02.960 scenario that we've been discussing here, it's it's kind of 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:05.680 its own little micro reality. It's it's own little game 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.239 with a set of rules and expectations. And no matter 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:10.400 what else is going on in the office building, or 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.480 the environment, or the country or the personal lives that 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.640 are going on, you have to enter that micro reality 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:18.240 at least for a few seconds to deal with it. 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:23.480 Full disclosure here, um, Over the past couple of years, 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:26.960 myself and a couple of the other house staff works 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:33.200 female staff workers here have been holding doors open for 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:36.239 men and then just seeing if they have a certain 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:41.280 kind of body language afterward. And just for the record, 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:44.720 the only person who has not allowed us to open 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:46.800 the door for him and not knowing what was going 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.680 on at all, with Scott Benjamin of Carson. It was 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:54.360 the nicest, most polite person in the world. He knows 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.040 the rules of the game and he's not gonna allow 0:07:56.080 --> 0:08:00.480 you to break them. Noop alright, so Goffman theory that 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:05.480 was nine early sixties that comes out. The next step 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:10.160 in this study of politeness comes from with politeness theory 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:15.360 from husband and wife researchers Steven c. Levinson and Penelope Brown. 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.160 The basic concept here is that people have a social 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:23.840 self image and they consciously projected. Okay. The self image 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.360 is called face, as in you know, to save face, 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:31.000 and it has a dual nature positive face and negative face. 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:35.319 Positive face seeks approval, while negative face wants to be 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.520 left alone, doesn't want to be imposed upon. Now what 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:40.920 face do you have? What face are you dealing with? 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.400 I mean it all, it all depends, especially when you're 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.599 dealing with a face threatening act or an f t 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:51.000 A where the face that you're you're wearing is essentially challenged. 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:53.320 And of course there are two shades of this as well. 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:56.800 Positive f t A s are a direct challenge to 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:59.000 face or self image. You can think of this in 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:04.160 terms of an insult, a socially inappropriate comment, something of 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:09.199 that nature. Meanwhile, negative FDAs are far more confrontational. Uh, 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.880 somebody has to budge, somebody has to act, and an 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.280 imposition is being made. The example that that keeps coming 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.160 to my mind on this one on the negative FDA 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:23.280 is Dr Seus's story The Zacks from It was. It's 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.320 a very short little story in the book The Sneeches. 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.199 And you have a north going Zack and a south 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.520 going Zack and they neeed together, and I believe the 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.880 desert of packs, and neither one is gonna budge, like 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:36.360 the one is saying you have to get out of 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:38.240 my way because I'm going north and that's the way 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.640 I roll. And then the south going Zack says, no, 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:42.360 I'm I'm going south and you're in my way, and 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:43.600 you've got to get out of the way, because that's 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:47.960 how I roll. And they neither one budges, and civilization 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:50.760 builds up around them and roads are built over them 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.920 in the highway and packs. But but yeah, so that's 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:57.760 that's not engaging in the act of cooperation, right, And 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.720 that's ultimately what it what what is happening in in 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:03.880 in a negative f t A is somebody has to budge. 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:05.880 And I was thinking about the term f t A 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.680 this this facial threatening act that sounds so dramatic, But 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:10.959 have you ever been in a situation where you've been 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.480 with another person or a group of people and everything 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:18.559 is pretty light and then one person's face falls and 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.160 has and drops out of that sort of cooperative thing. 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.120 And it's really a very unsettling thing to see that 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.960 because it's so clear that that person is upset or 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.880 feels threatened or is threatening another person. Yeah, Like the 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.280 classic example would be you accidentally make some sort of 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.960 faux paw you make, you make an off color joke, 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:42.320 and unknowingly it affects somebody on a personal level. Yeah, 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:46.760 So politeness theory essentially is driving home the idea that 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:52.280 politeness serves to both reflect and regulate our social distance. Now, 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:58.079 politeness theory identifies for politeness strategies that a speaker uses, 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.520 and the first is what is called a bald On strategy, 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:03.600 and it's a direct approach that you would use with 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.400 someone that you know really well, so like a family 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.800 member or a loved one. So for example, you're at 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.800 home visiting your parents, you might say, I want pizza 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:16.360 for dinner. Right, very direct the second strategy because by 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.120 the way, you don't have to worry about their faces 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:23.560 falling so much, right they from the child on the pizza, 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:27.280 sure is right? Right um, But again you don't have 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.840 to worry worry about the ft A factor too much. 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:34.800 The second strategy, the positive politeness strategy, shows you recognize 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.839 that your audience or the person you're talking to, has 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.000 a desire to be respected. It also confirms that the 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:46.000 relationship is friendly and expresses group reciprocity. So perhaps the 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.280 request would be something like, is it okay we have 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.160 pizza for dinner tonight? You know, it's just a little 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:56.800 bit softer of a lab there the negative politeness strategy. 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:02.040 The third strategy also recognizes audiences faces, but it also 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:06.320 recognizes that you are in some way imposing upon them. Okay, 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.880 So again we're seeing degrees of relationships removed here. So 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.480 maybe this is someone I wouldn't normally have dinner with, 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:16.320 and I don't know what the preferences are, so you 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.680 could say something like, um, you know, I don't wanna 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.760 impose upon you or anything, but I was thinking that 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.920 pizza would be great. Okay. So semantically you're throwing in 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:30.439 some more stuff there to create that distance. And then 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:34.839 the final strategy is called the off record indirect strategy, 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.800 and this super I love this because it takes a 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.800 lot of the pressure off of you. Um, because you're 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:45.720 really trying to avoid this direct, face threatening act of 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:49.560 asking for pizza or whatever it is. Right, Um, So 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:54.160 what you do is you say something along the lines of, um, hey, 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:58.080 it's it's it's national pizzaday. I heard that restaurants are 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.360 giving ten percent of their profits to you and a stuff, 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.360 And you're trying to make that person anticipate what you're 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.400 saying and make the decision for you. Yeah, almost make 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.840 them decide to do the thing you want them to do. 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:13.280 Almost Jedi mind trick them, right, Yeah, Yeah, all all 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.320 in an attempt to avoid the dreaded f t A 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.960 right and in an attempt to secure cooperation. Now, I 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:24.040 made the analogy of a web earlier, about everyone being 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.560 suspended in this web, and I keep coming back to 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:30.040 that in part because distance is such a key aspect 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:31.960 of all of this. And when I talk about distance, 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:36.760 I'm talking about not only spatial distance as as definitely 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:39.960 space plays into any polite interaction how far am I 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:46.559 away from that individual, but also psychological distance, semantic distance UM, 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.600 temporal distance. Uh. It was we'll get into especially when 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:51.599 you think of in terms of sending a letter or 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:53.800 an email to somebody, when is it going to be received? 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:59.240 When in time are you addressing someone? So. Politeness theory 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:04.760 suggests that three aspects of interpersonal situations are universally related 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:08.000 to politeness. Number one the relative power of the address 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.800 see over the speaker. Number two the degree of imposition 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.360 of the to be performed act, and number three the 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.040 social distance between the speaker and the address see as such, 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.560 According to the theory, speakers use more polite language when 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:25.880 addressing individuals with a higher higher status UM than individuals 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.560 with equal or lower status uh. They use more polite 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:32.360 language when asking for a bigger favor versus a smaller one, 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:35.360 and when addressing strangers versus familiar people, none of that 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:39.520 should come as a surprise. Right. You're you're you're dealing 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:42.840 with a police officer that just pulled you over. You're gonna, generally, 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.440 you're gonna roll out all the polite, polite niceties, right, 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.640 far more than you would um with just you know, 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.880 a teller at a local store. Right. So. A two 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.280 thousand ten paper from a Tel Aviv University Department of 0:14:55.280 --> 0:15:00.680 psychology investigated how politeness affects and is affected by the 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:05.760 level of constroal temporal distance, of constroal distance, temporal distance, 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.360 and spatial distance, and they predicted that greater politeness would 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:13.560 be associated with higher levels of greater temporal and spatial distance. 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:18.200 So in in examining this, they conducted no fewer than 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:21.440 eight separate studies, and most of these were written evaluations, 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:27.880 test quizzes. Uh. Pretty un um exciting stuff. But uh, 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:29.880 but at the end of it, they had some some 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:32.960 pretty key findings that shed some light on just how 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.720 politeness works within a cultural construct. Uh. They said people 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.320 were more polite when they addressed a person they construed 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.720 in terms of abstract goals and dispositions rather than concrete 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.120 means and situations. So this would be an example. This 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.040 would be, um, uh, you know, a general meeting with 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:53.320 the boss, as opposed to a we've got to hit 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:55.840 this deadline? Where are you standing on this project meeting 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:59.520 with the boss? Okay. They were more polite when they 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:01.880 expect did the target to receive the message in the 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:07.480 relatively distant future, when they referred to relatively distant future actions, 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:11.600 and when they addressed individuals in relatively distant locations. And 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.040 they found that a request to generate polite statements prompted 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:19.040 participants to use abstract verbs. So the example here would 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.400 be can you help me with some lecture materials is 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.360 coded as more abstract than can you show me some 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:30.280 lecture materials? Okay, so show is more of a demand. Yeah, 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:32.080 it's you know, the difference between hey can you help 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.360 me with this? And hey, can you do half of 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.040 this for me? You know, right? Um. They found that 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:41.560 the polite utterances were judged as pertaining to the relatively 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:44.720 distant future and were judged as directed to addresses and 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:49.320 relatively remote locations, which, um, which is internet. You know, 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:51.360 we can all think of examples where we've may have 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:53.600 addressed someone and said, hey, if you have time to 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:55.920 get to this, and no rush on this, but if 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:59.000 you have a minute, can You may be unloaded dishwasher, 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:02.600 and you're all heady, sort of pushing that event, that 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:06.200 unloading of the dishwasher into a more distant future. You're 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:09.760 you're establishing more temporal distance between you and the person 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.919 you're addressing, even if the dishwasher really needs to be 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:17.160 unloaded in the immediate future. Yeah, and you are employing 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:21.919 that negative politeness strategy to right the opposing part. The 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:26.000 Tel Aviv study um also said that when instructed to 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.080 use polite language and addressing another person, participants preferred a 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.800 relatively large spatial distance from that person. So they're they're 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.720 actually preferred to stand a little a little farther away 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:39.280 from the individual, or perhaps uh, you know, be isolated 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.639 from them across a larger desk. So, but politeness and 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.800 distance seem to go hand in hand. It's uh, it's 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:47.760 almost the equivalent I keep thinking of. You know, we 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.359 can't help it make Caveman analogies with any of these 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:55.520 sort of basic underpinnings of human behavior studies. But I 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.120 think of like of of somebody encountering like an enraged 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:00.119 ape and you don't want to make eye contact with them. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.200 You don't want to establish that closeness with them because 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.360 there's danger, so you would do more to distance yourself 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.400 from the danger and employ more politeness. And that's where 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:10.440 the f t A comes from. Right, That's where the 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:14.480 drama of that comes from. So that's on the request 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.879 side of things, right, that kind of shows how tentative 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:21.119 or sometimes how we kind of loathe to even ask 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.200 for help, right, how we do it. So if you 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.520 are on the flip side and someone's asked you something, um, 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:32.720 how effective are sweet little nothings like thank you? Right? Um? 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:37.360 Adam Grant and Francesca Gino ran four experiments looking at 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.280 how the thank you sentiment played out with helpers and 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:42.840 the research, by the way, It is published in the 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:47.639 June issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.800 In the first study, they had sixty nine participants who 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:56.520 were asked to provide feedback to a fictitious student named Eric. Now, 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.479 the participants didn't know this was a fictitious student. They 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.000 just got some feedback or they just got an email 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:05.720 from him and so he asked for a little bit 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:08.960 of feedback on his cover letter for a job opplcation. Now, 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.520 after sending their feedback through by email, that got a 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:17.640 reply from Eric asking for more help with another cover letter. 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:21.560 Half of them received this follow up with a thank 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:25.520 you incorporated into it, and half of them received a 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:28.680 follow up from Eric that was neutral with no thank 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:34.000 you in it. So the results were that helped Eric 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:38.760 in comparison to sixty six when those people received a 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:43.240 thank you, so already you can see that thirty two 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.720 to sixty six that that was. That's a pretty big 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.199 impetus for trying to help someone again if you receive 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.879 that little small token of gratitude. And this has a 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:56.080 kind of pay it forward aspect to it, because the 0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:02.000 next day, the same participants received an other um request, 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:06.479 this time from a fictitious person named Stephen, who asked 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:09.680 if they could help them, And the percentage who offered 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:14.000 to help Stephen was twenty five when they had received 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:18.600 no gratitude from Eric, but this shot up to when 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:22.040 they had been thanked by Eric. So the politeness of 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:26.040 Eric's billed over into their willingness to help Stephen exactly. Yeah, 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:28.080 so it affected that in as that sort of pay 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:30.560 it forward aspect to it. Now. The third and fourth 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:34.080 studies yielded similar results, but they used face to face 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.879 scenarios and all had the same idea that the simple 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:41.280 act of gratitude was helping to ratchet up the feelings 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:46.840 of self worth in the respondents. In the participants, So 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.480 it's not just a you know, nicety of saying hey, 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:53.880 thank you so much. It's actually kind of feeding into 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.480 the ego a bit. Yeah, it's interesting to how then 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.560 each interaction is kind of helping to maintain the social 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:05.120 order of the politeness h algorithm. Yeah, because it's basically saying, 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.199 I'm imposing upon you my apologies. Can you help me? 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.000 Because we live in this cooperative society and that's how 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:13.600 we've survived as a species. How about it? And the 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:15.560 other person says, sure, here you go on. The other person, 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:17.719 thank you for doing that. I know you didn't need to. 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:21.880 All right, we're gonna take a quick break and when 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:24.400 we come back, we're going to discuss what's the most 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:26.960 polite country in the world, what's the least polite country 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:37.720 in the world, and can you be too polite? All right, 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:41.480 we're back. What is the most polite country in the world. Now, 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:44.880 I'm sure everyone has their own sort of individual take 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:48.320 on this based on their own individual interactions with other 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:53.560 cultures in other countries. But generally speaking, when people talk 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:59.040 about polite cultures and phenomenal politeness, they talk about Japanese politeness. 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:02.840 They are famous for it, yes, and and indeed, when 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:06.879 we say phenomenal it is studied as a phenomenon um 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:12.760 by researchers UH. Linguistic politeness in Japanese culture UH has 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:17.960 especially been an item of study by Stanford's uh Yoshiko Matsumoto, 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:22.040 Professor of Japanese Language and Linguistics. In her work in 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.680 the late eighties and early nineties, Matsumoto argued that the 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:30.080 themes of Anglo Saxon individualism in politeness theory doesn't even 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:33.399 really work with Japanese culture. That the end that the 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:37.000 very concept of face, particularly that of negative face, is 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:41.359 is ultimately just kind of alien to the Japanese. She said, 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:44.520 quote what is of paramount concern to a Japanese is 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:47.639 not his or her own territory, but the position in 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:51.000 relation to others in the group and his her acceptance 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:54.440 of others. Loss of face is associated with the perception 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:58.119 of others that one has not comprehended and acknowledged the 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:02.960 structure and hierarchy of the group. Mm hmm. So an 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:05.920 example of this that we see in in just the 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:11.200 linguistics of the whole scenario. In English, when we meet somebody, 0:23:11.280 --> 0:23:13.680 what do we say, nice to meet you, Nice to 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:17.280 meet you, which, of course, is such such an empty statement. 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:21.639 It's nice, like nice? What is even like it's a 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:25.320 pleasure to meet you? Is it a pleasure like chocolate 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:29.200 is a pleasure? Yeah, yeah, it's it's such an empty statement. 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:31.119 But you're you have to say it. You have to 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:33.800 say something or some version of it, because it's just 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:35.639 start part of the contract, part of the back and 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:38.600 forth is the rules of the game. Okay. Uh. But 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:41.640 it's certainly a phrase with a lot of distance in it, right, 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:46.000 it's just merely nice to meet you, to make your acquaintance. Uh, 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:50.280