The Power of Politeness

Being courteous can be challenging in these times of online snark, but it is guaranteed to make you happier.

Excerpt: " A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness,” wroteRobert Heinlein in his 1982 futuristic novel, Friday. “A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.” What, 40 years ago, were the science-fiction adventures of a technologically enhanced “artificial person” turned out also to be prophecy when we consider today’s digital networks of anonymous humans and bots, conversations between people and humanlike artificial intelligence, and a cratering of courtesy. This loss of gentle manners at almost every level is attributable, at least in part, to our adoption of these technologies.

Virtually everyone agrees that people are becoming ruder, especially online. But do you see this tendency in yourself as well? Even if you’re not a sociopathic troll who feeds on incivility and conflict, you might all the same have noticed that you’re less polite than you once were, and that online environments have contributed to this. You may have observed the passing of such small niceties as addressing others by name in your messages and signing off with your own name. Quite possibly, you find yourself adopting a harsher, more sarcastic tone on social media than you ever would in real life. And why bother saying “please” and “thank you” when communicating with what is, or might be, an AI bot?

This coarsening, even toward nonhuman entities, is not harmless. Indeed, it is probably hurting your well-being. When you become less polite, the alteration in your conduct can make you less happy, more depressed, and angrier about life. You may not be able to fix the broader trends in society, but you can—and should—fix this in yourself.

Politeness can be defined in four ways. The first two are: etiquette, which governs basic manners and speech, and conduct, which involves actions such as holding open a door for someone to pass. The other two are a pair: positive politeness, which refers to doing courteous things for others, and negative politeness, which involves refraining from discourtesy. Social scientists define these forms of politeness not just as a set of behaviors but as part of personality.

Specifically, one of the Big Five Personality Traits—agreeableness—is made up of compassion and politeness. One well-regarded study from the 1990s estimated that the heritability of agreeableness is about 41 percent genetic, allowing us to infer that you inherit some politeness from your parents partly through your genes, but more through how you were brought up.

This also implies that you can become more polite with good influences and by cultivating positive habits."