We examined how witnessing fat talk on Facebook influenced the body satisfaction and psychological well-being of Korean and U.S. young women. Korean (n = 137) and U.S. (n = 159) women completed an online questionnaire after viewing a randomly assigned mock-up Facebook page where body size of the profile owner and the messages from her peers were manipulated. Findings showed that (a) Koreans witnessing an underweight peer's fat talk reported lower body satisfaction than did those witnessing an overweight peer's fat talk, but the peer's body size did not affect the U.S. women, and (b) Koreans witnessing messages discouraging weight loss reported greater psychological well-being than did those witnessing messages promoting weight loss, whereas peers' comments did not influence the U.S. women.

Two studies investigated whether apologies or thanks are preferred in asking favors in the United States and Korea, and how this relates to perceptions of reduction in positive and negative face threats. In the first study (n = 224), participants composed an e-mail message where a favor was asked. In the second (n = 807), participants completed questionnaires including a prototypical e-mail for the situation described in Study 1, as well as measures of negative and positive face threats. Findings showed that (a) Koreans more frequently included apologies in favor-asking messages, while Americans more frequently included thanks; and (b) Americans considered repeated thanks to reduce the threat to hearers' negative and positive face, but Koreans considered repeated apologies to reduce the threat to speakers' positive face.

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Three studies investigated whether apologies and thanks are used differently when asking favors in the United States and Japan and examined whether their use makes a favor asking message less face-threatening. In Study 1, participants (N = 152) composed an email message for a favor asking situation. Next, participants in Study 2 (N = 634) and Study 3 (N = 417) completed one of four versions of a questionnaire regarding a prototype of an email message. Results showed that (a) more Japanese included apologies in their messages while more Americans used thanks and (b) Japanese considered apologies to reduce some face threats while Americans did not consider thanks to reduce face threats. Implications and future research directions are discussed.