“I’ll change if it’s not too hard”: Ranking of imposition matters for the perception of criticism

Criticism belongs to everyday communication and is used in different settings and among people with different types of social relationships. The present study experimentally investigated the perception of criticism in French, and examined the role of social distance, power, and of ranking of imposition using a Discourse Evaluation Test in the form of a judgment task. Participants rated short discourse stimuli on Likert scales assessing perceived politeness, perceived offense and disposition to change the behavior criticized. In Experiment 1, we investigated how participants judged bare direct criticisms versus direct criticisms with a marker of positive politeness. In Experiment 2, we compared judgments of bare direct criticisms and indirect criticisms. We also evaluated the impact of the interindividual variables of age, empathy and gender. Results from both experiments confirmed that ranking of imposition was a crucial factor for the perception of criticism. They also indicated that the gender of participants impacted their perception of criticism, as did their level of empathy. Taken together, our findings shed new light on the factors shaping the perception of criticism, in particular on the role of ranking of imposition, thus contributing to broaden our perspective on this crucial speech act.