Re: Psychology of Rejection
In response to my earlier post, the wonderful Juliet (silverskytears) sent me two scholarly articles on the subject of how readers respond to negative communication. As is to be expected, the research raises a host of issues I never even considered before!
For those interested I have included some quotes (cites!) from:
Locker, Kitty O. "Factors in Reader Responses to Negative Letters: Experimental Evidence for Changing What We Teach." Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 1999; 13; 5-48.
First, Ms. Locker lists what she calls the "traditional textbook advice about writing negative messages" (5):
1. Use a buffer (a neutral or positive sentence enabling the writer to delay
the negative information).
2. Explain why you are refusing.
3. Place the reason before, not after, the refusal.
4. Phrase the refusal itself as positively as possible.
5. Offer an alternative or a compromise, if one is available.
6. End on a positive, forward-looking note. (Locker, “Rhetoric,” 1)
These six principles align fairly closely with what I would have guess and with what my friend Robby was complaining about in the conversation that sparked my first entry. At first glance this advice seems to make intuitive sense, but as Locker points out on page 7, there are so many types and contexts for negative messages that one needs to be more specific:
The negative messages that have figured in scholarly discussions are far more diverse than textbooks imply. Some negative messages are really persuasive messages: The writer asks readers to stop doing something (e.g., to stop using the photocopier to make personal copies) or to do something they will not want to do. Here, effectiveness may mean changing behavior. Some negative messages can be recast as positive messages. For example, the cost of a product or service is going up, but by acting quickly, readers can buy or renew at the old price. Or, perhaps the higher cost pays for benefits that the readers want. Some negative messages deliver unrelieved negative information, for example, announcements of being passed over for promotions, price increases, credit rejections, rejections of admission to graduate school. In some of these messages, the writer wants readers to continue the business relationship (e.g., to continue working hard after being passed over for a promotion, to shop by paying cash after being denied credit). In such cases, effectiveness means continuing desirable behavior. In other messages, such as rejections of admission to graduate school, the negative seems to preclude any future relationship. In these messages, effectiveness might mean simply accepting the decision with a minimum of negative feelings toward the sender. Finally, in some circumstances, maintaining goodwill might be irrelevant. As Kathy Casto points out, a judge fining a company for environmental pollution has no motivation to soften the negative. In this and similar situations, the primary audience to whom the message is addressed may be less important than secondary audiences such as the public and other companies deciding whether to comply with environmental laws, and watchdog audiences such as journalists,legislators, and higher courts (V. Brown).
The take home message here is that the reader's reaction often depends as much on the relationship between author and reader and the content therein as on the form of the message. But it gets even more complicated when one looks outside of the United States. On page 10 she discusses some of the interesting cultural dimensions of the question:
Although these authors do not specify that their objections to buffers apply only to correspondence within the United States, we know that very different attitudes exist in other cultures. In Iran and China, prefacing the refusal with a buffer would be necessary but not sufficient; a polite person would not even use the word no (Javedi; Pye). Twenty years ago, Japanese also avoided the word no (Uda). In 1995, however, Shoji Azuma found that native Japanese business managers buffered their rejections but did say no when they had to. However, even in Western countries, what constitutes a direct or indirect approach is in the eye of the beholder. James Calvert Scott and Diana Green claim that British companies “convey the bad news directly and explicitly” (19). Yet, they report that all of the negative letters they “collected from the trend-setting 100 largest British industrial companies” begin with a reference to the letter to which the writers are responding. Because, as Scott and Green point out, all British business correspondence starts with a reference to previous correspondence, the British recipient does not know whether acceptance or rejection follows. Thus, the standard opener buffers British negative messages. By contrast, the same words would signal a rejection to savvy US readers aware that letters announcing good news normally put it in the first paragraph.
In the end, having exposed the wide-range of factors that influence reaction to rejection, Ms. Locker mainly seems to say that we need more research on the subject so that we can better tailor our messages to the audience and context.
Juliet also sent me a 2006 article titled "Letters of Rejection: The Unwelcome News" by a pair of Spanish researchers at the University of Valencia. I have not had time to read the whole article, but it seems to be an example of just the sort of more focused research that Ms. Locker calls for at the end of her 1999 article.
Anyways, I hope that was enlightening! Cheers.
For those interested I have included some quotes (cites!) from:
Locker, Kitty O. "Factors in Reader Responses to Negative Letters: Experimental Evidence for Changing What We Teach." Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 1999; 13; 5-48.
First, Ms. Locker lists what she calls the "traditional textbook advice about writing negative messages" (5):
1. Use a buffer (a neutral or positive sentence enabling the writer to delay
the negative information).
2. Explain why you are refusing.
3. Place the reason before, not after, the refusal.
4. Phrase the refusal itself as positively as possible.
5. Offer an alternative or a compromise, if one is available.
6. End on a positive, forward-looking note. (Locker, “Rhetoric,” 1)
These six principles align fairly closely with what I would have guess and with what my friend Robby was complaining about in the conversation that sparked my first entry. At first glance this advice seems to make intuitive sense, but as Locker points out on page 7, there are so many types and contexts for negative messages that one needs to be more specific:
The negative messages that have figured in scholarly discussions are far more diverse than textbooks imply. Some negative messages are really persuasive messages: The writer asks readers to stop doing something (e.g., to stop using the photocopier to make personal copies) or to do something they will not want to do. Here, effectiveness may mean changing behavior. Some negative messages can be recast as positive messages. For example, the cost of a product or service is going up, but by acting quickly, readers can buy or renew at the old price. Or, perhaps the higher cost pays for benefits that the readers want. Some negative messages deliver unrelieved negative information, for example, announcements of being passed over for promotions, price increases, credit rejections, rejections of admission to graduate school. In some of these messages, the writer wants readers to continue the business relationship (e.g., to continue working hard after being passed over for a promotion, to shop by paying cash after being denied credit). In such cases, effectiveness means continuing desirable behavior. In other messages, such as rejections of admission to graduate school, the negative seems to preclude any future relationship. In these messages, effectiveness might mean simply accepting the decision with a minimum of negative feelings toward the sender. Finally, in some circumstances, maintaining goodwill might be irrelevant. As Kathy Casto points out, a judge fining a company for environmental pollution has no motivation to soften the negative. In this and similar situations, the primary audience to whom the message is addressed may be less important than secondary audiences such as the public and other companies deciding whether to comply with environmental laws, and watchdog audiences such as journalists,legislators, and higher courts (V. Brown).
The take home message here is that the reader's reaction often depends as much on the relationship between author and reader and the content therein as on the form of the message. But it gets even more complicated when one looks outside of the United States. On page 10 she discusses some of the interesting cultural dimensions of the question:
Although these authors do not specify that their objections to buffers apply only to correspondence within the United States, we know that very different attitudes exist in other cultures. In Iran and China, prefacing the refusal with a buffer would be necessary but not sufficient; a polite person would not even use the word no (Javedi; Pye). Twenty years ago, Japanese also avoided the word no (Uda). In 1995, however, Shoji Azuma found that native Japanese business managers buffered their rejections but did say no when they had to. However, even in Western countries, what constitutes a direct or indirect approach is in the eye of the beholder. James Calvert Scott and Diana Green claim that British companies “convey the bad news directly and explicitly” (19). Yet, they report that all of the negative letters they “collected from the trend-setting 100 largest British industrial companies” begin with a reference to the letter to which the writers are responding. Because, as Scott and Green point out, all British business correspondence starts with a reference to previous correspondence, the British recipient does not know whether acceptance or rejection follows. Thus, the standard opener buffers British negative messages. By contrast, the same words would signal a rejection to savvy US readers aware that letters announcing good news normally put it in the first paragraph.
In the end, having exposed the wide-range of factors that influence reaction to rejection, Ms. Locker mainly seems to say that we need more research on the subject so that we can better tailor our messages to the audience and context.
Juliet also sent me a 2006 article titled "Letters of Rejection: The Unwelcome News" by a pair of Spanish researchers at the University of Valencia. I have not had time to read the whole article, but it seems to be an example of just the sort of more focused research that Ms. Locker calls for at the end of her 1999 article.
Anyways, I hope that was enlightening! Cheers.