Intercultural Encounters

Two types of inquiry were used to explore the norms governing the management of compliments in Japan and the United States. The first, a semistructured interview, revealed great differences in the frequency of complimenting behavior and in the hierarchy of attributes praised. Incidents from these interviews were used to construct a Complimentary Mode Questionnaire that was then administered to larger samples of Japanese and Americans. The resulting data indicated there were highly significant differences in the reported praising behavior of members of the two cultures. These differences appeared with regard to the status of communicative partners and with regard to the attributes admired. No sex differences were found. When the Japanese were expected to prefer more indirect forms of praise they also showed greater preference for many direct forms; when Americans were expected to prefer more direct forms of praise, they showed surprising preference for indirect forms. The relations of these patterns to other cultural variables and their implications for interaction between the two cultures are suggested.