The article implied to me you'd see the effect between people already well-acquinted, so long as a power gap exists. I do agree the "self-conscious" explanatio

The article implied to me you'd see the effect between people already well-acquinted, so long as a power gap exists. I do agree the "self-conscious" explanation seemed like an interpretation without evidence, and struck me as incomplete. I'd guess it has more to do with intentional signalling, and that it's often conscious, even if that consiousness is not of "I"-frequency per se. That is, when writing or speaking as a supplicant, you're aware of using language that sounds "respectful" or "polite," and "I"-frequency is a feature of such language which we internalize. Which is to say that we often write in this style because we intellectually know it's appropriate, even when we are not affectively feeling any emotion like self-consciousness or nervousness.