I'm sorry about your face: A study of face, politeness, and investment in the context of apology

The focus of this study is to investigate how, after a relationship offense, the offender's investment in the relationship with the offended person influences the offender's concern for self- and other- positive and negative face when apologizing to the offended person. The study hypothesized that the closeness of the relationship between the offender and the offended has a positive association with other-positive, other-negative, and self-positive face concerns but a negative association with self-negative face concern. The study also hypothesized that relationship closeness has a positive association with apology politeness. Lastly, the study posed research questions about the correlation between apology politeness and face. Results supported the main effects of relationship closeness on other-positive and self-positive face concerns. A non-significant association was found between relational investment and self-negative face. The other-negative face scale was removed from analysis. Significant associations were found between politeness and relational investment. Lastly, politeness and self-positive and other-positive face are positively correlated. Implications of the findings, limitations of the study, and future directions for research are discussed.