Argumentative and Aggressive Communication by Rancer Andrew S. Avtgis Theodore A. & Theodore A. Avtgis

Author:Rancer, Andrew S.,Avtgis, Theodore A. & Theodore A. Avtgis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781452279077
Publisher: Sage Publications Inc.
Published: 2006-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

West Meets West

Researchers studying differences in argumentative and verbally aggressive communication between cultures often utilize Hall’s (1976) high- and low-context cultural distinction as the basis for making comparisons. Hall suggests that people from high-context cultures (e.g., Japan) rely on contextual cues for giving meaning to messages. People from low-context cultures (e.g., the United States) look directly to the message content to derive meaning. Most studies have used this conceptualization even when comparing other low-context cultures to American culture.

Avtgis and Rancer (2002) investigated differences in argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness across three low-context cultures: the United States, New Zealand, and Australia. The participants were 184 American, 243 New Zealand, and 280 Australian college students. Given that all three cultures speak English as their native language and are considered Western cultures, there was little concern for conceptual (i.e., how we define argumentative and aggressive communication) and operational (i.e., how we measure argumentative and aggressive communication) inconsistency across cultures. To test for differences in these traits, all respondents first completed the Argumentativeness and Verbal Aggressiveness scales. Because Australians have been evaluated as more outgoing or have a self-concept that is independent of their culture (see Callan & Gallois, 1983; Kippax & Brigden, 1977; Markus & Kitayama, 1991), Australians were hypothesized to be higher in both argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness than either Americans or New Zealanders.

The results supported that speculation. Australians reported higher levels of trait argumentativeness and trait verbal aggressiveness than both the United States and New Zealand samples. One of the more interesting findings was that the U.S. sample reported significantly lower trait argumentativeness and trait verbal aggressiveness than the Australians and New Zealanders. This result was surprising because it was assumed that New Zealanders, being a derivative of the collectivist Maori society and agricultural in nature, would be lower in both argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness than the U.S. participants. However, the findings suggested otherwise. Perhaps there was an underestimation of the influence of Maori society on New Zealanders’ levels of argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness. That is, there may have been a naive assumption that all low-context cultures are individualistic in nature and that all high-context cultures are collectivist in nature. The findings of this study suggest that researchers should not assume that because a culture is considered low context, it is necessarily high in individualism. Indeed, these findings suggest that there is a combination of context (i.e., low) and culture (collectivistic vs. individualistic) that is influencing the results. America and Australia, while individualistic in nature, could be less individualistic cultures whereas New Zealand might be considered a lower-collectivist culture.

In another study involving two low-context cultures, Rahoi, Svenkerud, and Love (1994) compared Norwegians and Americans for differences in trait argumentativeness. The Argumentativeness Scale was translated into Norwegian and validated before administering it to the participants. Norwegians were found to be higher than Americans in their tendency to approach arguments, but lower in their tendencies to avoid arguments. Thus, Norwegians’ general trait to be argumentative was found to be significantly higher than that of the U.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.