It’s not to do with rudeness, but with tradition: we take it for granted that people will cooperate with each other; recordings of more than a thousand casual conversations from around the world reveal that people hardly ever say “thank you” when others help them out.
The everyday social exchanges, which played out in eight different languages on five separate continents, highlight a global reluctance to acknowledge trivial favours, such as passing the salt. Overall, people expressed their thanks only once in every 20 occasions.
While the English language emerged as an outlier in the study, with thank yous being used more than in any other language, the phrase or similar ones were still only witnessed in 14.5% of the conversations recorded.
Rather than reflecting manners, the findings say more about linguistic traditions, the researchers said. Across cultures, close-knit groups of people take it for granted that people will cooperate with each other, to the point that saying thanks is no longer needed.
“In informal everyday interaction across the world, the general norm is to respond to another’s cooperative behaviour without explicitly saying thank you, but by simply continuing with one’s activities,” the scientists say.
The researchers studied 1,057 conversations recorded by fixed cameras and microphones in people’s homes or in places where the communities gathered. All the exchanges were casual and between people who knew each other well, such as friends and family. In more formal settings, such as buying food at the shops, the scientists believe expressions of thanks are likely to be far more commonplace.
The scientists cast a wide net to capture any phrase that indicated thanks when someone did what was asked of them. In English, that meant terms like “sweet” and “good job” as well as “thank you”. In Murrinh-Patha, it included phrases such as “Yukuy murruwurInyima”, which translates as “That’s right, you’re beautiful”.
While cooperation was the norm, expressing thanks was not. Thank yous appeared most in English (14.5%) and Italian (13.5%), but far less in Polish (2%) and Siwu (0.8%). The speakers of Cha’palaa have no word for “thank you”. It is not unusual for languages to lack the phrase, the scientists said.
“This doesn’t mean that people are universally rude, nor that speakers of English are less rude than speakers of other languages,” said Nick Enfield, a lead researcher on the study. “We should not combine the feeling of gratitude with the act of expressing it.”
What the study leaves open is why people say thank you on the rare occasions they do. One idea the researchers propose is that saying thanks is reserved for when requests go beyond the call of duty.
“In everyday interaction, cooperation is the rule: social life is much better because it’s in our nature to ask for help and pay back in kind, rather than just in words,” said Enfield. “There is literally an unspoken agreement that people will cooperate.”
Adapted from The Guardian 23th May 2018
1) People rarely say thank you when...
they do not want to be rude.
they help others.
they get small help.
they know they are being recorded.
2) People say thank you more often...
in informal situations.
when they know the person they are talking to.
when purchasing items in a store.
if they meet their locals.
3) Cooperation was the norm...
due to expressing thanks was not.
despite people do not say thanks.
because expressing thanks was not.
whereas expressing thanks was not.
4) We would have a better social life....
unless we were kind to people.
if we were kind to people.
whether we were kind to people.
if we had been kind to people.
KEY
1. c) they get small help.
2. c) when purchasing items in a store.
3. d) whereas expressing thanks was not.
4. b) if we were kind to people.
