Although politeness is an important concern in communications across cultures, a prevalent assumption in psychology is that East Asians are more inclined to be polite than members of other cultural groups due to prevalent cultural norms. Yet, evidence for this assumption is mixed. The present research examined this issue by considering the role of social hierarchy in interpersonal communications of Korean and British participants (N = 220) using an experimental task that involved writing an email to decline a request made by a junior or a senior person. The results showed that Korean participants’ emails were more polite when addressing a senior colleague compared with a junior colleague in work contexts. In contrast, recipient status did not impact British participants’ politeness. Crucially, cultural differences in politeness only emerged when participants addressed a senior colleague, but not when participants addressed a junior colleague. We discuss the implications of these findings and directions for future research.

中文翻译：

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礼貌的文化差异与地位关系的关系：比较韩国和英国的传播者

尽管礼貌是跨文化交流中的一个重要问题，但心理学上普遍认为，由于普遍的文化规范，东亚人比其他文化群体的成员更倾向于礼貌。然而，这种假设的证据参差不齐。本研究通过实验性任务来研究韩国和英国参与者（N = 220）的人际交往中社会等级制度的作用，该问题涉及编写电子邮件以拒绝初级或高级人员的请求，从而研究了此问题。结果表明，在工作环境中，与初级同事相比，韩国参与者在与高级同事讲话时的电子邮件更为礼貌。相反，接受者身份并没有影响英国参与者的礼貌。至关重要的是 礼貌的文化差异仅在参与者向高级同事讲话时出现，而在参与者向初级同事讲话时没有出现。我们讨论了这些发现的含义和未来研究的方向。