Politeness and the communication of uncertainty when breaking bad news

Uncertain language can be used to express genuine uncertainty but can also
be used to manage face (e.g., by softening bad news). These conflicting
motivations can create ambiguity in health communication. In this preregistered
two-part experiment, participants assumed the position of a health
specialist and wrote a letter communicating either a certain or an uncertain
medical diagnosis. This was addressed to either a patient (high face threat) or
the patient’s family doctor (low face threat). Letters written under high face
threat contained more words and more dispreferred markers (e.g., sorry,
unfortunately) than those written under low face threat. The number of
explicit hedges (e.g., possibly, maybe) did not differ as a function of face
threat. Time taken to write the letters was elevated only in the condition
where face threat was high and the diagnosis was uncertain, suggesting that
the joint pressures of communicating uncertain information in a tactful way
increased the task demands. Our data demonstrate that participants spontaneously
produced dispreferred markers (but not explicit hedges) to manage
face and that face management is more taxing under uncertainty. Ratings
from a second set of participants indicate that face management strategies
did not affect the perceived meaning or manner of the message. For open
materials, data, and code, see https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/ZU2AN.