It's easy to design research topics for other people

[pcjunkie]

"do you think people really mean it when they say "I regret to inform you blah blah", or they have some sort of strange pleasure from that?" -A friend's status message
In the brief conversation that message sparked, I came up with what I think is an interesting psychology question: Is it better to be blunt in rejections or to try to couch rejection

Comments

[thenanda]

Here is what matters to me: If not for compassion, politeness should be used as a personal safeguard should you have occasion to interact with this person in the future. Or as an old lady in rural Mississippi once said: "Be nice to to people because you never know who will be wiping your ass when you're 90."

I think your research question misses this point entirely.

[silverskytears]

Politeness is not usually looked at in the field of psychology, it's more of a communication issue. I think the cite that would give some more background on such language and how different types of politeness are used is Politeness Theory (book) by Brown and Levinson (I think?). There has been some cross-over research on gender and politeness that I've seen before so I'm sure there's something out there that answers your question :)

[pcjunkie]

I'll see if I can check it out!

Also, is the abbreviated noun form "cite" commonly used for citation? I confess ignorance of academic lingo.

[silverskytears]

Hehe yes, it's what we do to shorten our generally verbose tendencies when possible :) Also we do it to look cool. Since I'm at work now and have access to a pretty sweet search system, let me do a quick search for ya on rejection and politeness and see what turns up!