A study investigated the extent to which the gender and social status of the complimenter as well as the gender of the receiver account for the choice of strategy Americans and Thais use to respond to compliments. Subjects were 40 American university students in the United States and 40 Thai students in Thailand. In a discourse-completion test, each subject responded orally to 16 compliment situations; each was then interviewed. Results suggest that there are both similarities and differences in both groups. Analysis revealed 13 compliment response types, placed on a continuum between acceptance (agreement) and rejection (disagreement and avoidance of self-praise). Acceptance occurred most frequently in both groups, with the Americans using it more often. Americans were also more likely to give long responses by combining different strategies or repeating a strategy; Thais tended to be brief. Both groups appeared affected by the complimenter's social status; more compliments were accepted from a high-status complimenter, more were rejected from an equal-status complimenter. This pattern was more pronounced among Thais. The study also revealed difficulty in assigning all responses to rigid categories because a number of them could perform multiple functions. It is proposed that there is a continuum of compliment responses in which responses have different degrees of agreement and self-praise avoidance. Contains 24 references. (MSE)