Evaluations of Chinese compliment responses: Accounting for individual differences in attributed pragmatic reasons

Recent studies on Chinese compliment responses (CRs) have shown that the preferred response has evolved from rejection to deflection/evasion and acceptance. When interpreting these findings, previous studies often rely on predefined cultural, regional, and sociological factors, running the risk of overlooking the inherent variabilities between different individuals in the same group. To better account for people's varying perceptions of compliment responses, this paper reports on an online survey experiment that tested Chinese college English majors' evaluations of three CR strategies in three compliment response scenarios. The results showed that acceptance strategies were rated as more appropriate, less conceited, and left a better impression than deflection and rejection strategies. More importantly, compared to sociological factors such as age and gender, respondents' evaluations of compliment responses are better explained by their varying attributions of pragmatic reasons, such as being modest and seeking agreement with others. This study contributes to the growing research landscape on the variability in (im)politeness perceptions by demonstrating the utility of examining respondents' individual differences in specific communicative contexts. The findings of this study have implications in addressing (im)politeness researchers' need to balance between making generalizable conclusions and accounting for the inherent heterogeneity among individuals in predefined groups. • Chinese young adults favor accepting compliments over other responses. • Response evaluations vary by compliment topics. • Recognizing respondents' pragmatic motivation improves participants' attitudes. • Evaluation studies should account for differences at the individual level.