Face Negotiation Theory - Theoretical Propositions

Theoretical Propositions

The heart of Face Negotiation Theories are Dr. Ting-Toomey’s 24 propositions. They are based on the seven assumptions and five taxonomies that have been proven in numerous cases and studies. They describe facework on three levels of communication: cultural, individual, and situational.

Cultural-level propositions

• Individualistic cultures predominantly express self-face maintenance interests than collectivistic culture members do.
• Collectivistic cultures are more concerned with other-face maintenance than members of individualistic cultures.
• Members of collectivist cultures are more concerned with mutual-face maintenance than individualistic cultures.
• Members of individualistic cultures predominantly use direct and dominating facework strategies in conflict
• Collectivistic cultures tend to use avoidance strategies more than individualistic cultures do.
• Members of collectivistic cultures use more integrative facework strategies than individualistic culture members do.
• Individualistic cultures prefer dominating/competing conflict styles more than collectivistic cultures do.
• Individualistic cultures use more emotionally expressive conflict styles than collectivistic cultures do.
• Individualistic cultures use more aggressive conflict styles than members of collectivistic cultures.
• Collectivistic cultures use more avoidance techniques than members of individualistic cultures.
• Collectivistic cultures use more obliging conflict styles than members of individualistic cultures.
• Collectivistic cultures utilize compromising styles of conflict more than members of individualistic cultures.

Individual-level propositions

• Independent self is positively associated with self-face concern.
• Interdependent self is positively associated with other-/mutual-face concern.
• Self-face maintenance is associated with dominating/competing conflict style.
• Other-face maintenance is associated with avoiding/obliging conflict style.
• Other-face maintenance is associated with compromising/integrating conflict style.
• Independent self–construal is associated with dominating/competing conflict style.
• Interdependent self-construal is associated with obliging/avoiding.
• Interdependent self-construal is associated with compromising/integrating.
• Bi-construal is associated with compromising/integrating.
• Ambivalent is associated with neglect/third-party.

Situational-level propositions

• Individualist or independent-self personalities tend to express a greater degree of self-face maintenance concerns and less other-face maintenance concern in dealing with both ingroup and outgroup conflicts situations.
• Collectivist or interdependent-self personalities express a greater degree of other-face concerns with ingroup members and a greater degree of self-face maintenance concerns with outgroup members in intergroup conflict situations.