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The price of being polite: politeness, social status, and their joint impacts on community Q&A efficiency

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  • Yi Wang

    (Rochester Institute of Technology)

Abstract

Sociolinguistics and computational linguistics literature have revealed negative correlations between social status and politeness in interpersonal conversations. In this article, we took a step further to uncover how social status and politeness interact with each other to jointly impact the efficiency of the Q&A process in online social Q&A communities. Using the data collected from two communities of Stack Exchange, we demonstrated that both social status and politeness had significant impacts to determine the efficiency of receiving acceptable answers. Moreover, while low-status users benefited from wording their questions more politely, high-status users were slightly “punished” for being too polite, particular in professional Q&A communities. However, social status and politeness were not significantly relevant to whether a question could be eventually answered. In general, the social Q&A process provides the conditions necessary for the manifestation of “offline” social norms. That is: individuals are still being rewarded for behaving correctly according to their social roles, no matter explicitly or implicitly. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this study.

Suggested Citation

  • Yi Wang, 2021. "The price of being polite: politeness, social status, and their joint impacts on community Q&A efficiency," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 101-122, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jcsosc:v:4:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s42001-020-00068-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s42001-020-00068-7
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Yan Chen & F. Maxwell Harper & Joseph Konstan & Sherry Xin Li, 2010. "Social Comparisons and Contributions to Online Communities: A Field Experiment on MovieLens," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1358-1398, September.
    2. Michihiro Kandori, 1992. "Social Norms and Community Enforcement," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(1), pages 63-80.
    3. Corinne Bendersky & Nicholas A. Hays, 2012. "Status Conflict in Groups," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 323-340, April.
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    1. Zhang, Yu & Yuan, Yafen & Su, Jiafu & Xiao, Yan, 2021. "The effect of employees' politeness strategy and customer membership on customers' perception of co-recovery and online post-recovery satisfaction," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    2. Lingfeng Dong & Ting Ji & Jie Zhang, 2022. "Effects of Conversation Politeness on Hiring Decision in Online Labor Markets: An Inverted U-Shaped Relationship Exploration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-11, November.
    3. Dong, Lingfeng & Wu, Zhenwei & Ji, Ting & Tu, Yu, 2024. "Informing or persuading? Unveiling the complex dynamics of live chat in online labor markets," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

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