Memory for the dimensions of requests

Abstract

Speech act theory suggests that the form of requests conveys pragmatically important information about the social status of speaker and addressee. It was hypothesized that requests that violate conversational conventions governing the use of polite and direct requests by high- and low-status speakers would be accurately remembered. Multidimensional scaling was used to scale different forms of requests on two dimensions: politeness and directness. In a study of verbatim memory for requests, subjects accurately recalled polite requests by high-status speakers but not polite requests by low-status speakers. In contrast, subjects recalled impolite requests by low-status speakers while forgetting or distorting impolite requests by high-status speakers. These results confirm the prediction that requests which violate conversational conventions are more memorable than requests that conform to the rules.