Face Concerns Scale

Abstract

Face concerns pertain to worries about the preservation of one’s image. The Face Concerns Scale measures self, other, and mutual-face concerns. The scale identified three types of face concerns: self, other, and mutual-face concerns. To develop the scale, an open-ended questionnaire was used to evaluate how individuals negotiate face during conflicts. Research has demonstrated that preference for face concern differs across national cultures, with individuals from nations traditionally labeled as individualistic enacting more self-face concern behaviors and collectivists enacting more other-face concern behaviors. The measure is primarily used among an undergraduate student sample, but it has also been used among employees in different types of organizations to gauge relationships between face concerns and cultural variables, conflict styles, and facework behaviors in different contexts. Furthermore, differences between the four national cultures were observed on face concerns: Germans were higher on self- and mutual-face than US Americans, while Chinese used more self-face than Japanese.