Are Americans insincere? Interactional style and politeness in everyday America

Abstract

This exploratory study looks into the stereotype that Americans are insincere or superficial when engaging in social interaction. There appears to be something peculiar about the style of interaction in the United States that causes an unfavorable impression among some foreigners. After a brief discussion of this cross-cultural perspective, this study considers the folk perceptions of American informants to investigate how they perceive their own style of politeness in the context of a service encounter. One important conclusion is that routine attempts to be polite simultaneously entail both sincerity and insincerity, and there are two distinct perspectives that help explain how common acts of courtesy can be interpreted differently. The first perspective is the more traditional view of sincerity, where an individual judges speakers to be sincere when it appears that they are expressing their true beliefs or feelings. The second view is oriented more toward interactional aspects of communication, where an interlocutor evaluates a speaker as sincere if s/he appears to be concerned with issues related to rapport, such as making the listener feel comfortable and the interaction run smoothly.