Incivility Can Have Costs Beyond Hurt Feelings; New York Times, 11/20/10

Alina Tugend, New York Times; Incivility Can Have Costs Beyond Hurt Feelings:

"“To fail to be civil to someone — to treat them harshly, rudely or condescendingly — is not only to be guilty of bad manners,” he wrote in a 2006 article, “The Value of Civility?” for the journal Urban Studies. “It also, and more ominously, signals a disdain or contempt for them as moral beings. Treating someone rudely, brusquely or condescendingly says loudly and clearly that you do not regard her as your equal.”

Or to use an example Professor Forni offered: when a mother corrects her son for chewing with his mouth open, and tells him people don’t like looking at half-chewed food, “she has given him a rule of table manners, but also a fundamental notion of all ethical principles — actions have consequences for others. Good manners are the training wheels of altruism.”"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/your-money/20shortcuts.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=business&src=me