What aliens can tell us about politeness

What causes people to be polite in communication? An experiment at COBE Lab by Tobias Gretenkort and Kristian Tylén sought to answer this question by having participants communicate with fictive aliens under different circumstances to see when they would adopt the aliens’ norms of politeness and when they would not.

The world over, people sometimes adhere to norms of etiquette or good manners when communicating in text or in person. In the research literature, there are two major schools of thought as to why this is the case.

One theory holds that people are polite to cohere to social expectations. They’re polite to fit in.

Another theory holds that politeness is an individual strategic behaviour. People are polite when it pays off.

Both theories could well be true, describing two different reasons that people are sometimes polite in communication.

If social expectations and strategic self-interest are two competing factors that cause people to be polite, it should be possible to make people more or less polite by manipulating their social surroundings and whether being polite pays off or not. To test this, Tobias and Kristian set up an experiment at COBE Lab where participants had to communicate with fictive aliens under different circumstances to see when they would adopt the aliens’ norms of politeness.

The Experiment

72 people participated. Using a chat interface on a computer, they were asked to request objects from an alien intelligence in an alien language invented by the researchers for the occasion. To help them communicate, participants had a glossary of translations from English to Alien and from Alien to English.

All participants were set up in pairs and competing against two additional fictive aliens, named Ali and Ula, who were trying to get the same objects.

Since Ali and Ula were aliens fluent in Alien, they sometimes used words not listed in the participants’ glossary. Two of the extra words they used expressed politeness (“te” and “na”), while two others expressed impoliteness (“bu” and “so”). Tobias and Kristian predicted that participants would be able to pick up on the polite words and adopt them themselves, depending on their context.

Note: Example trial in the chat room environment. a) displays the interface as used in the experiment. b) is a translation provided for ease of reading, as English was not used at any point during the experiment.

Participants were either teamed up with their fellow human participant or competing against them. The researchers predicted that when competing against their fellow human, participants would feel a stronger need to signal their allegiance to the aliens’ social norms by using their polite words.

Furthermore, the polite words either paid off for participants by making the aliens more likely to hand over requested objects, or they had no effect. The researchers predicted that participants would be more likely to continually use the polite words when doing so paid off.

By having people communicate with aliens in an alien language, Tobias and Kristian could be sure that participants were not just using polite words out of habit. English-speakers may use words like “please” or “thank you” without thinking about it, but using made-up polite words like “te” and “na” indicates that they have deliberately chosen to do so.

Findings

Participants were indeed more likely to adopt the polite words and continue using them when competing against their fellow human and when using the polite words paid off. Moreover, this was not just a case of participants doing whatever they could think of to “win the game” and get the requested objects: When asked about it afterwards, participants reported having figured out that “te” and “na” were polite words like “please” and “thank you” in English, deciding to use them for that reason.

In other words, Tobias and Kristian found evidence suggesting that at least two of the reasons why people are polite in communication is because of social expectations and strategic self-interest.

So that’s what aliens can tell us about politeness: If you want people to be polite, make them want to fit in and make sure it pays off!

Tobias and Kristian’s study was supported with seed funding from The Interacting Minds Centre and was published in Journal of Pragmatics in 2021 under the title “The Dynamics of Politeness: An Experimental Account.”