Face Value: Experimental Directions in Building
Financial and Social Capital
Abstract
This paper examines directions for enhancing politeness studies by integrating relevant findings and techniques from other domains. Its major
focus is on the value of politeness in terms of actual money and social
capital, proposing two lines of research to that end: first, the effect of politeness on generosity in social dilemmas and second, the interaction between the hormones mediating other-regard and polite speech. To connect
these to studies in formal pragmatics, cognitive science, and economics, we
review politeness and cooperation from physiological and economic perspectives. We examine then the hormonal, emotional, and rational bases
for other-regarding. Last, we show how these findings and frameworks
translate into new directions for experimentation and collaboration. We
conclude with a discussion on the potential limitations and risks inherent
in the research.
1
Introduction
A common phrase surrounding discussions of politeness is paying face, but is
the metaphor of payment actually correct? In other words, what is the value of
politeness? Answering this question first requires outlining the units of currency.
Perhaps the most transparent option would be to measure politeness in terms
of monetary gain. As a brief example, consider the potential success a beggar
would have barking orders at people to give him money. As universal as money
is in modern societies however, an older form of capital also exists: social capital.
This is perhaps the original motivation behind politeness, and it figures as the
dominant framework for understanding politeness theories, e.g. Brown and
Levinson [1987] .
Seeing as it is a language universal, an intuitive route for understanding
its prevalence would be to investigate its link to other behavioral and cultural
universals. Besides language, the plasticity of human behavior is one of the
hallmarks of our species. This plasticity allows us to develop a wide range of
relationships, often for the mutual benefit of those involved. This idea of mutual
benefit forms the basis of one of the canonical relationships seen across cultures:
reciprocity.
1
Reciprocity is not only a cultural universal, its importance is instantiated in
a physical form, seen in almost every culture: money. Money allows for engaging
in a wider variety of relationships than might be present within the social group.
It does so in part by facilitating the exchange of trust between financial partners.
It also alleviates individuals from the social pressure or anxiety of calling upon
social debts. As long as individuals trust in the value of currency, there is less
need to trust in each other to repay debts. Although monetary capital in many
ways substitutes for social capital, it has not replaced it, despite the dominant
framework of seeing humans as cold-blooded utility maximizers. This focus
on Man as a rational and utility-oriented creature forms the basis for much of
modern economics. Results in behavioral studies, however, are bringing new
insights to this austere view of human nature. They posit Man not simply
as Homo economicus but also as Homo empathicus. These findings may not
surprise politeness researchers, as much of politeness shares the dual role of
self-centered relationship building and altruistic face preservation.
1.1
Face as Capital
A key component to understanding much of the work done in politeness studies 1
is the idea of face, denoting an agent’s general wants and desires for the benefits
of autonomy and affiliation. This notion can be further subdivided into negative
and positiveface, which we outline, according to Brown and Levinson [1987],
• Negative Face: the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to
non-distraction– i.e. freedom of action and freedom from imposition
• Positive Face: the positive consistent self-image or ’personality’ (crucially
including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of)
claimed by interactants
Several factors involving this conception of face will further be addressed
in the coming sections: the primacy of negative face over positive face, the
economic and biological roots of these concepts, and the parallels of face to
currency. A critical point to make here is that since enhanced face is something
commonly desired by all and that multiple interaction structures can change
the perception of an agent’s face, face can function as a form of capital. That
said, any individual with an interest in obtaining capital towards an end must
therefore think strategically towards the best way to acquire it and avoid losing
it. A dominant strategy toward that end is politeness.
.
1.2
Politeness as Strategy
Owing to the seminal work of Grice [1975], the field of pragmatics has a history
of casting implicature as a strategic endeavor done on the part of both speaker
1 This paper assumes a modicum of familiarity with the literature in politeness studies. It
does not, however, assume knowledge of game theory or neuroeconomics.
2
and hearer. Recent papers in the neo-Gricean movement have strengthened the
case for a strategic formalization of pragmatics through the use of game theory.
The idea is that speakers, whether they be in a community or in a dyad, arrive
at implicatures based on their beliefs of how others in the group may interpret
an utterance. The fact that communicative decisions thus depend not merely
on a single person but on the beliefs, preferences, and actions of the group gives
pragmatic reasoning the flavor of a game [Benz et al., 2010]. For our purposes
at the moment, a game can be thought of as a multiple-person decision problem,
where agents can have various preferences, beliefs, and actions available to them.
A further theme from Grice is that of the Cooperative Principle, the adherence to which requires effort on the part of both the speaker and hearer. This
effort is often rewarded, hence the preference for speakers and hearers to take
the risk of implicating content rather than expressing it outright. The dynamic
induced by the Cooperative Principle will be important later on, as it constitutes what economists would call a cooperative dilemma, i.e. we have a situation
that requires effort on the part of the participants, but if a substantial cost is
put into the system, then a benefit arises from the interaction. This benefit is
known as a public good. Examples of public goods include paying for public
transportation or a police force.
Just as much as cooperative behavior on the level of informativity constitutes a cooperative dilemma, so does politeness. This leads us to the claim that
face itself can be thought of as a public good, further strengthening the notion
that social capital derived from face parallels monetary capital. Mathematical
models such as Quinley and Ahern [2012] give a result that face buys us leverage
against a multitude of diverse relationship types, much in the same way that
currency gives us leverage towards interacting with multiple financial partners.
That is to say that when interactions involve a potential loss or gain of face,
speakers can engage others with whom they have no prior relationship. This allows for productive interactions between individuals with potentially conflicting
preferences.
The strategic character of politeness has made it a prime candidate for studies incorporating techniques and methodologies from economics like game theory. As such, we will detail avenues for experimental applications of game theory
later in the paper. This avenue of exploration would allow for collaboration between, inter alia, linguists, economists, sociologists, and philosophers. As a
linguistic and cultural universal, politeness also is a prime candidate for examining the roots of our preferences for certain behaviors under circumstances of
potential conflict.
This paper outlines an experimental agenda for pursuing an empirical understanding of the value of politeness towards building social and financial capital.
In the following sections, we will pursue the necessary backgrounds in biology
and economics to understand the strategic and biological drivers of motivation
for cooperative behavior. We will then move to several experimental suggestions
for integrating politeness with these backgrounds. To conclude, we will discuss
the potential ramifications of these experimental approaches and some of the
technical and ethical issues surrounding them.
3
2
Biological Background
We have mentioned game theory as a framework for positing how agents make
decisions under various assumptions of interaction structure and incentives. In
addition, we are concerned with how these incentives interact with the linguistic
norms of polite speech. This is where the view of politeness as a subset of
cooperative behavior derives its heft from an integration with games like social
dilemmas. Before we get into these formal details however, it would be useful
to understand some of the factors driving these incentives.
When an agent makes a decision, this decision must be motivated by some
kind of heuristic. One such heuristic is emotion, a system that involves hormonal triggers that, in many ways, reward agents for taking actions that could
potentially provide them with some material benefit e.g. food, safety, offspring,
information, etc.). Two such hormones are testosterone and oxytocin. As these
hormones, among other things, respectively encourage self- and other-regarding,
they provide us with a biological basis for understanding the emergence of cooperation as rational and hence the stability of politeness within language. They
also provide striking parallels to the notions of negative and positive face wants.
2.1
Testosterone: Risk, reward, and reptilian instincts
Testosterone plays a multi-varied role across the diversity of species. As a sex
hormone, it is one of the older chemicals guiding processes in both behavior
and physiology, pre-dating both the evolution of reptiles and mammals. As
such, its neurological effects have been studies across the animal kingdom, and
scientists have found that it promotes processes ranging from risk-taking and
dominance seeking to self-regarding and hierarchy. Several of these behavioral
phenomena merit discussion within the circles of communication and politeness.
These include reactions to distrust [Zak, 2008, Zak et al., 2005] or increasing
egocentric choices [Wright et al., 2012]. It should not surprise us then that a
hormone resposible for increased sensitivity to autonomy also is connected with
fight or flight behavior. Here we should observe the commonalities between
negative face and the role testosterone plays in the biological world.
Note that an increased sensitivity to autonomy often brings with it a lack
of interest in altruistic or costly cooperation. This means that animals with
elevated testosterone levels may be prone to risky fights for dominance or territory. Without the presence of other guiding influences balancing out potentially
aggressive or self-serving actions, animals do not have as many opportunities for
beneficial forms of interaction like cooperation. This is where oxytocin comes
in.
2.2
Oxytocin Research: A window into sympathy?
Oxytocin has been labeled by some as the moral molecule for its role in promoting empathy and other-regarding. It is crucial to note that it does not exist
4
outside of the class of mammals. While its primary role is facilitating motherbrood nursing in mammals, oxytocin features in a range of other behaviors
found in mammals, often relating to situations where cooperation, affiliation,
and trust serve to benefit those engaging in various forms of altruism or coordination. One result we see is that oxytocin’s presence can be detected in
the bloodstream when we are given money, shown desired affection, or exposed
to the voice of a loved one [Zak, 2011, Seltzer et al., 2010]. While some of
these claims are potentially misleading or grandiose as to the hormone’s role in
regulating morality in mammals, understanding it may illuminate the ways in
which we manage our affiliations. Here we observe the preference for approval,
affiliation, and trust mediated by the hormone that also features in discussions
of positive face wants.
The advantage of understanding the hormonal basis of certain communicative behaviors is that it allows us to draw evidence and inferences from the
animal kingdom, a realm in which communication exists despite the full compositionality or expressiveness of human languages. As many of these behaviors are
emotionally or instinctually motivated, we can see a rationale for why they take
place. But since human languages are endowed with richly compositional and
highly conventionalized systems of language, we now turn to some of the ways
in which humans navigate the landscape of emotional conflict and connection.
2.3
Self-Regard to Other-Regard
As finding rationales for cooperation in the presence of temptation to defect has
long been a problem for both economists and biologists, it should not surprise us
that many of the systems in place within the hormonal realm promote self-regard
before other regard. This prioritization exists not only on an immediate level,
but also on an evolutionary timescale. As an example, we see that the hormone
testosterone, which promotes self-regard in one of its functions, is significantly
older than oxytocin. Further, blind altruism, even with kin selection in place,
would not be evolutionarily stable if a mutation of uncooperative types entered
a population.
Any animal with a sophisticated enough concept of empathy would coordinate its behavior with others to recognize their primary needs: autonomy
and affiliation. Further, the ability to intuit the mental states of others lies on a
foundation of other-regarding. That is, the type of strategic reasoning necessary
for performing pragmatic implicatures rests on a more crude ability of agents
to recognize the emotional state of the other. This ability is therefore prized
within humans, and much like the recent development of hormones promoting
its existence, it develops later in the lifespan of a speaker, e.g. Nippold et al.
[1982]. Within language, we can signal this ability by using forms of politeness.
5
3
More on Politeness as Strategy
Politeness phenomena can be surprisingly robust across languages, even unrelated ones. This is not to say that every language encodes the same cultural
phenomena within expressions of politeness, but the basic needs of speakers as
agents within a society differ primarily in scale and manifestation, not in type.
The standard used here is Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory, which hinges
on the quasi-universal notion of face mentioned earlier in Goffman’s work [Goffman, 1955, 1959]. As mentioned above, this can be characterized broadly as the
need for autonomy (negative face) and acceptance (positive face). In general,
positive face can be thought of as the wants of the individual, including the
desire that those wants be desirable to or approved of by others. Negative face
includes both the freedom of action and the freedom from imposition.
The problem with the basic human needs for autonomy and affiliation is that
they lead agents into potential conflict with one another. Within the animal
kingdom, these can be resolved through signaling like displays of dominance or
reciprocity. Humans however have a more sophisticated apparatus with which to
negotiate their relationships in language. This theory of politeness recognized a
fact crucially lacking from previously articulated views of language: language is
not merely informational content. As language naturally exists between speakers
and hearers, its other role is to negotiate relationships. The curious thing is that
these relationships exist outside of, and in many cases, because of linguistic
interchanges. Politeness’s role is that it helps us negotiate situations where our
needs may conflict with those of our interlocutor and the previously defined
relationship, thus forcing us to choose among a range of utterances that may be
face threatening acts (FTAs).
Direct
On Record
Do FTA
Intention
Positive Politeness
Redress
Indirect
Negative Politeness
No FTA
Figure 1: Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Strategies: As we move
upwards on the graph, the potential for a face-threatening act (FTA) increases. Note that by politeness we only mean attempts at redressing FTAs
(the nodes couched in boldface).
Preferences of one agent may conflict with those of others, encouraging them
to make requests, issue threats, or offer proposals. In cases where an utterance like a request must be made, speakers must commit a face-threatening act
(FTA). In order to mitigate the weight of a FTA, speakers may use several
strategies, as laid out in Figure 1. As an example, social distance is one variable
6
that may influence a speaker to choose one form of address over another, for fear
of offending someone whom they do not know well and causing tension. A key
point to make here is that the decision tree in Figure 1 only encompasses the
choices to be made by a speaker. Although Brown and Levinson’s theory does
mention that estimating the weight of an FTA does require taking into account
the hearer’s situation, the means by which we arrive at an outcome lacks this
formal device. To resolve this, we extend the interest in modeling pragmatic
phenomena through game theory to potential FTAs.
4
Economic and Formal Background
This section outlines some of the relevant approaches in game-theoretic and economic modeling. Although much of the work done in game-theoretic pragmatics
has analyzed the conventionalization process [Benz et al., 2010], here it is rather
the speech act that matters the most. Thus the larger picture of a speech act like
a request involves a potential cooperative dilemma, where speakers stand to lose
positive face by asking for help and hearers negative face for being interrupted
or compelled to acquiesce.
Although speakers often resort to indirect speech when faced with an FTA
like a request, sometimes the risk of misunderstanding is too high to not communicate directly. If speakers then wish to mitigate the FTA, they may use
politeness, for instance by recognizing the autonomy (e.g. the right to say No)
of the hearer. This balance of power is both asymmetric and sequential, as
the hearer is not obligated to carry out the request, and it finds its model in
the Trust Game, a situation where one agent defers to another for the chance
at a higher payoff for both. For the hearer, this higher payoff may be merely
psychological, or it may be captured in additional favors that the speaker may
perform later.
To understand the formal representation of a proper game, first note that
games can be described sequentially, as in Figure 2, or in normal form, like in
Table 1. The key difference is that sequential games are played out in a specific
order, while normal form games represent a situation where both players act
out their moves simultaneously. From a perspective in politeness studies, we
can think of an individual speech act as a sequential game, where a speaker has
a series of choices for addressing the hearer, and the hearer has a corresponding
set of choices for responses. On a larger level, a relationship can be thought of
as a normal form game, where both participants construct its dynamics independently.
Actions in a game lead to outcomes, and individuals have preferences over
those outcomes. These preferences are most often represented through utilities
that give a numerical representation of each player’s payoff should the outcome
arise. Although the standard economic models identify preferences with payoffs,
for our purposes we will distinguish the two. A player is then typically said to
be rational if he prefers higher payoffs over lower ones.
This notion of rationality forms the baseline for game-theoretic reasoning
7
and allows us to understand the basic solution concepts for such interactions. If
we work our way backwards through the trust game in Figure 2, we see that the
last player has a better payoff playing non-cooperatively, and the one before him
knows that. Thus the rational thing according to our heuristics is for Player X
to never make the first move. The modeling approach derives from the fact that
thanking someone for help is costly in terms of time and face, giving someone
help is costly in terms of time and face, and thus someone thinking of asking
for help would have little incentive to expect success after considering the needs
of their interlocutor. Were humans to truly act in this manner, it would be
a wonder that trust or communication could ever exist. The resolution of the
game toward the cooperative outcome therefore requires certain mechanisms to
keep it in place.
? models requests as trust games and shows that mechanisms like repetition,
reputation, and face derived from observation may enhance payoffs for both
players, leading them to a cooperative and mutually beneficial outcome. Such
games not only lead us into the larger notion of cooperation with game theory,
but they also provide a link to our earlier sections, as agents with higher levels
of oxytocin correlate with higher levels of generousness in trust games [Kosfeld
et al., 2005]. We see next the classical social dilemma as discussed earlier.
X
X
¬A
¬A
0,0
A
0,0
A
Y
¬G
-1,2
Y
¬G
G
-1,2
1,1
G
X
¬T
2,0
T
1,1
Figure 2: Standard Trust Game vs. Extended Trust Game: Player
X can choose to Ask (A) a favor from Player Y , who can then choose to
Grant (G) the favor. In the extended model, Player X can Thank (T) Player
Y . The numbers represent the respective payoffs, or preferences, accorded
to the players and are written as X, Y .
4.1
Cooperation and Coordination
As illustrated in the well-documented Prisoner’s Dilemma [Nowak, 2006], the
choice between myopic defection and long-term optimal cooperation requires
several mechanisms to incentivize cooperation. Under conditions of repetition,
the ability of agents to monitor reputation and select partners with which to play
the game can push cooperation through. With a selection mechanism, repetition
and reputation give rise to reciprocity, and the problem of cooperation becomes
one of coordination, e.g. a Stag Hunt [Skyrms, 2003]. On what behavior are
8
agents now coordinating? In this case, it is the mutual maintenance of face.
Coordination is sub-optimal without communication, so one solution to this
problem is to use Lewisean-style signaling games. e.g. Franke [2009], Lewis
[1969], where agents arrive at conventional associations between meaning and
form. Signaling games address how conventions can arise but they rely on payoff
structures where agents have aligned preferences. This is why they address the
incorrect facet of language for our purposes. Thus, something more is needed to
address politeness beyond conventions because the payoffs for politeness reside
more in social rewards than in information alone.
C
D
C
3;3
5;0
D
0;5
1;1
S
R
S
4;4
2;0
R
0;2
1;1
Table 1: Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) vs. Stag Hunt (SH): Two players,
Row and Column, have a symmetric choice between actions. The utility of
the Row Player is listed first in each entry. (Left) Players choose between
Defect (D) vs. Cooperate (C). (Right) A PD repeated can evolve into an
SH, a coordination problem of pursuing a Stag(S) or a Rabbit(R).
4.2
Embededness in Social Structures
Discourse is not the only strategic consideration for agents. Several aspects of
network embedding affect strategic action in speakers. First, we can think of
discourse encoding two types of dynamics: knowledge transfer and relationship
negotiation. A rational agent makes strategic decisions based on a utility derived
from the information- and relation-centric payoffs involved in the link. While we
can think of information as a simple quantity or as a signal, the canonical relationship types seen in anthropology (dominance, reciprocity, and communality)
can be encoded as normal form games. The prevailing idea is that behavior in
one relationship is not appropriate in another [Pinker et al., 2008].
Remarkably, we already have game-theoretic models of each canonical relationship type. Public goods games like the previously discussed Prisoner’s
Dilemma provide models for reciprocity, where the incentive to contribute to
the system for long-term success is at odds with the incentive to defect. Coordination games like the above Stag Hunt or Battle of the Sexes depict a communality relationship, where optimal performance requires choosing the same activity.
Last, dominance relations are exemplified in the Hawks and Doves game. These
games now give us a heuristic for the players to follow. Relationships of reciprocal transactions will follow norms of cooperation so long as there is a mechanism
to enforce it. Dominance relationships reward one partner choosing his action
(Hawk or Dove in our case here) before the other. This means clear signs of
submission or dominance will keep the system in equilibrium. Communality
9
favors both partners agreeing on coordination, no matter what the choice of
action in the larger space is. The agents would have to weigh the value of the
relationship with the value of communicating on some at-issue topic. This could
lead to the familiar need for strategizing over various utterances when the needs
of the agents come into conflict.
H
D
H
0;0
2;7
D
7;2
1;1
S
O
S
2;1
0;0
O
0;0
1;2
Table 2: Hawks and Doves (HaD) vs. Battle of the Sexes (BoS):
Players have a choice between playing hawk (H) and Dove (D). The payoffs
derive from profitably exploiting the other player while understanding a
major conflict arises when both attempt to do so. (Right) Players have a
choice between Sports (S) and Opera (O). Coordinating on the same activity
is rewarded, but there is a conflict over what each player prefers.
5
Experimental Direction
We have reviewed some of the principles and results from work into otherregarding. In this section, we proceed into an experimental agenda for measuring
the effects of politeness on relationships, measured against internal and external
motivators of action.
5.1
Paying Face and Reaping the Rewards
When considering non-verbal communication and its link to cooperation, we
should attempt to separate how it interacts with cooperation the levels of information exchange and relationship negotiation. One way to do this is to examine
non-verbal communication’s role in situations not involving any direct signaling.
An example of this can be seen within behavioral economics.
One result [Fallani et al., 2010] is that the EEG patterns of defectors in
a Prisoner’s Dilemma differ from those of cooperators before they make decisions. This process is not merely internal however, as those faced with a social
dilemma can often reliably signal their intent to cooperate [Brosig, 2002]. Further, those who have been defected on recall the faces of the defectors more
readily [Blakemore et al., 2004]. The idea is that humans may have visceral
reactions whether they are violating norms of any kind or feeling violated. This
ranges from dishonest or predatory behavior to deceptive or belittling speech.
10
Experiment 1: Politeness and Trust Games
Preliminary: Set up anonymous trust games between individuals. This involves one agent (X) who has the option to Trust (T ) the other agent or not
(¬T ). The second agent Y has the option then to Cooperate (C)or not (¬C).
This can be thought of a being offered $2 to invest in a partner who has the
choice between splitting the money or taking it home and forcing the first person to pay $1 into the system. If the initial offer is refused, both participants
go home with nothing.
X
¬T
T
0,0
Y
¬C
C
-1,2
1,1
Figure 3: Base Diagram of Experiment 1
Task A (Scripted Communication): Set up an experiment where individuals have a choice among possible requests and politeness forms toward each
other as a way of pre-play communication.
Task B (Open Communication): Set up an experiment where individuals
have a can engage in pre-play communication freely. Possible restrictions might
include a time or word limit.
Task C (Repeated Play): Repeat the controlled, scripted, and open forms
with two variations and where the participants will not know at what time the
game will end. This is to avoid the scenario where both participants know
that whoever has the last turn has no incentive to cooperate, thus setting up a
potential chain of zero action.
• Participants alternate roles as the investor and trustee. This should allow
for the observation of individual differences.
• Participants remain in the role in which they began.
Predictions: Individuals with more polite language will encourage cooperation
more readily than others. The concern for positive face may motivate individuals to cooperate even without repetition. Anonymizing the results may curb
this effect. Overly polite individuals will not achieve significantly more than
modestly polite individuals. Given the chance to form alliances in open communication, repeated interactions should foster language of positive politeness.
Individuals with a perception of unfair treatment (where the partner does not
cooperate) may elect to ”punish” the other player both verbally and strategically. [Bicchieri, 2002] Punishment for lack of trustworthiness should occur
proportionally more often than displays of gratitude.
11
Discussion: Other experimental parameters include testing over cultural paramaters like the standard of positive vs. negative politeness formulae, testing
within a language and across languages, and testing individuals with a prior
relationship or in the same room. Even in a one-shot scenario, it may still be
useful to allow participants to send a message to the other player. This would
allow for complaints and/ or gratitude.
5.2
Hormones and Politeness
While experiments have been conducted to measure the hormonal changes in
economic situations, these can be extended to linguistic interchanges. For example, we speak of paying face when discussing politeness, and the economic
models presented earlier have treated politeness in this same vein as a reciprocal
exchange. But is this metaphor truly correct? Do we react to politeness in the
same way that we do to an embrace from a friend or a gift of money? The only
way to gauge this is through experimentation. Such experiments might seek to
test some of the following issues and their attendant sub-questions:
• What hormonal changes does (im)polite speech trigger?
– Are these levels dependent on familiarity?
– Do speakers react to shows of positive and negative politeness with
the same hormonal responses? is this culturally dependent?
– For example, do oxytocin levels rise when a speaker gives a compliment?
Experiment 2: (Im)Politeness and Hormonal Levels
Preliminary: The goal of this experiment would be to have speakers engage in
speech acts like requests for help with carrying a heavy object. This would be
done to remove monetary concerns from the balance and instead replace them
with face payment. Subjects would have to consent to have hormonal levels
measured via blood, urine, or other means. Some of these tasks might also be
best carried out by a confederate, with whom the experimenters can collaborate
prior to the experiment.
Task A: As an example, a speaker carrying a heavy object asks for help using a
range of utterances. Some may recognize positive or negative face. Some may be
orders or indirect requests. The speaker may in turn thank or compliment the
helper. The experimenters should then gauge the subsequent levels of hormonal
activity within each participant.
Task B: Have the participants at a computer. Measure hormonal levels before
and after requests. As in A above, politeness strategies should use the full range
of options.
Predictions: Recognition of positive face should elicit elevated levels of oxytocin, but only within trusted dyads. Refusal to thank a participant or issuing
a command should raise testosterone levels, perhaps in conjunction with stress
12
hormones. Based on differing levels of baseline testosterone and oxytocin, there
should be a marked difference in hormonal activity and strategic actions as employed by men and women. The prediction would be that women would be more
responsive to positive face payment and men more responsive to negative face
threat.
Discussion: Do hearers respond cross-culturally in the same way? One consideration might be that in language communities with higher usage of positive
politeness, we might see differing sensitivities to the hormone oxytocin. As
mentioned in the previous paragraph, gender differences should arise, but what
may be more revealing is how speakers behave in languages where a marked
system of informal and formal modes of address is present. The prediction
here might be that men in these languages respond negatively to negative face
threats more readily than women. Another concern might be the inaccuracy, error, and other complications introduced by the measurement of hormonal levels.
One workaround might be in technologies like Positron Emission Tomography
(PET), which provide a much less invasive way of measuring brain activity [Sanfey, 2007] and have been shown capable of measuring activity in the amygdala
related to the hormone dopamine, a known correlate of reward in decision making. A further question is how adaptable the technology is for measuring levels
of these other hormones like testosterone and oxytocin.
Experiment 3: Hormones Drive Strategic Speech
The first requirement for understanding hormones as a driver of cooperative
speech is to control for variance. This can be done in two ways: measure
standing hormonal levels across individuals or artificially modulate hormonal
levels within individuals. While the first method can be done transparently,
as discussed in the previous subsection, it introduces complications that may
distract from the aim of the study. Performing the second method would require
an oxytocin spray, documented in studies like Woolley et al. [2010]. What this
allows is an investigation of causality in the other direction, namely how do
hormonal levels affect strategic use of speech acts?
Preliminary: Measure circulating oxytocin levels across a group of individuals.
Expose one group of subjects to an oxytocin spray before they engage in a
cooperative or coordinative task.
Task A: Set up an experiment where individuals have a choice among possible
requests and politeness forms toward each other in a coordination or cooperation
task. One variation might be to do this online via a chat system.
Task B: Set up an experiment where individuals have a coordination or cooperation task and record the verbal strategies used to enact success. Afterwards
annotators can judge more precisely the strategies invoked.
Task C: This part varies in respect to who is being measured. Whereas the first
tasks might measure speakers and the strategies they employ, the goal here is to
only control for the levels of oxytocin of one partner, then to test to what degree
they are cooperative with their interlocutor after being sprayed. A component
of this might be to have a confederate with pre-planned strategies asking for
13
help in a cooperative dilemma.
Predictions: Individuals with higher oxytocin levels will use more polite forms.
Individuals with higher oxytocin levels will also accept less polite language. Individuals with more testosterone will reject overly direct or rude language. This
comports with findings from studies like Woolley et al. [2010] and others mentioned in Sanfey [2007] have shown that subjects exposed to the spray exhibited
higher levels of adherence to cooperative behavior in trust games.
Discussion: This line of inquiry may be the most palatable for some, in that
blood or urine collection is not necessarily required. It may also be subject
to caution, as some individuals may object to having their decision heuristics
tampered with. Luckily, oxytocin administered nasally does not stay in the
bloodstream for prolonged periods.
6
Conclusion
These are but a few of the potential experiments that could be done within a
neuropragmatic study. While they could potentially establish a better understanding of the links between cognition, language, and physiology, this is not
their greatest utility. Rather, the results of such experiments, coupled with new
technologies have the potential to create understanding among both scientific
communities and the larger public.
This paper has attempted to lay out some of the foundations for new directions in understanding politeness from a strategic perspective while also suggesting a line of experimental goals relevant to integrating politeness theory,
advances in neuroscience, techniques from economics, and methodologies from
cognitive science. From understanding processes within the nervous system to
the basics of integrating approaches from multiple disciplines.
All of these areas intersect within politeness studies precisely for the reason
that politeness is both highly strategic and yet emotionally charged. One wrong
word or gesture can end friendships or terminate employment. It is therefore
encouraging to know that we have a range of techniques and tools to explore
human interaction in a safer environment. This study cannot be an end in itself
however. Nonetheless, it is an essential first step in the same way that politeness
opens the door to something much more important: getting to know each other
a little better than before.
References
Anton Benz, Christian Ebert, Gerhard Jger, and Robert van Rooij. Language,
games, and evolution: An introduction. In Anton Benz, Christian Ebert, Gerhard Jäger, and Robert van Rooij, editors, Language, Games, and Evolution,
pages 1–13. Springer-Verlag, 2010.
Cristina Bicchieri. Covenants without swords group identity, norms, and communication in social dilemmas. Rationality and Society, 14(2):192–228, 2002.
14
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Joel Winston, and Uta Frith. Social cognitive neuroscience: where are we heading? Trends in cognitive sciences, 8(5):216–222,
2004.
Jeannette Brosig. Identifying cooperative behavior: some experimental results
in a prisoners dilemma game. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization,
47(3):275–290, 2002.
P. Brown and S.C. Levinson. Politeness: Some universals in language usage,
volume 4. Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Fabrizio De Vico Fallani, Vincenzo Nicosia, Roberta Sinatra, Laura Astolfi, Febo
Cincotti, Donatella Mattia, Christopher Wilke, Alex Doud, Vito Latora, Bin
He, et al. Defecting or not defecting: how to read human behavior during
cooperative games by eeg measurements. PloS one, 5(12):e14187, 2010.
Michael Franke. Signal to act: Game theory in pragmatics. PhD thesis, 2009.
Erving Goffman. On face-work: an analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. Psychiatry: Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes, 1955.
Erving Goffman. The presentation of self in everyday life. 1959.
Herbert Paul Grice. Logic and conversation. In Speech Acts, pages 41–58. Edited
by P. Cole/J. Morgan, New York: Academic Press, 1975.
M. Kosfeld, M. Heinrichs, P.J. Zak, U. Fischbacher, and E. Fehr. Oxytocin
increases trust in humans. Nature, 435(7042):673–676, 2005.
David Lewis. Convention. A philosophical study. Havard University Press, 1969.
Marilyn A Nippold, Laurence B Leonard, and Arthur Anastopoulos. Development in the use and understanding of polite forms in children. Journal of
Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 25(2):193, 1982.
Martin A Nowak. Five rules for the evolution of cooperation. science, 314(5805):
1560–1563, 2006.
Steven Pinker, Martin A Nowak, and James J Lee. The logic of indirect speech.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(3):833–838, 2008.
Jason Quinley and Christopher Ahern. Questions of trust. ESSLLI 2012 Student
Session, page 132, 2012.
Jason Quinley and Roland Mühlenbernd. Conquest, contact, and convention:
simulating the norman invasion’s impact on linguistic usage. In Proceedings
of BRIMS 2012, pages 113–118, 2012.
Alan G Sanfey. Social decision-making: insights from game theory and neuroscience. Science, 318(5850):598–602, 2007.
15
Leslie J Seltzer, Toni E Ziegler, and Seth D Pollak. Social vocalizations can
release oxytocin in humans. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological
Sciences, 277(1694):2661–2666, 2010.
Brian Skyrms. The stag hunt and the evolution of social structure. Cambridge
University Press, 2003.
A.W. Woolley, C.F. Chabris, A. Pentland, N. Hashmi, and T.W. Malone. Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups.
science, 330(6004):686–688, 2010.
Nicholas D Wright, Bahador Bahrami, Emily Johnson, Gina Di Malta, Geraint
Rees, Christopher D Frith, and Raymond J Dolan. Testosterone disrupts
human collaboration by increasing egocentric choices. Proceedings of the Royal
Society B: Biological Sciences, 279(1736):2275–2280, 2012.
Paul J Zak. The neurobiology of trust. Scientific American, 298(6):88–95, 2008.
Paul J Zak. The physiology of moral sentiments. Journal of Economic Behavior
& Organization, 77(1):53–65, 2011.
Paul J Zak, Karla Borja, William T Matzner, and Robert Kurzban. The neuroeconomics of distrust: sex differences in behavior and physiology. American
Economic Review, pages 360–363, 2005.
16