Conclusion

Abstract

Traditionally, ‘face’ is regarded as a purely Chinese concept. Face-saving behaviour, nonetheless, is a cross-cultural phenomenon. In fact, face, as an expression of norm-fulfilling appearance, should be a concept with a universal application. One of the objectives to build up the psychocultural cybernetic model here is to identify at the abstract level the psychological and cultural factors that underlie the face analysis so that the mind sets of different policy entities can be compared. While each society has its own norms and each individual in the society, according to his self-role conception, internalises to a certain extent a sub-set of the norms that apply to his role, the need to be norm-fulfilling in appearance is not society-unique.