Communication Differences: Koreans and American Cultures

Method

Participants

Participants were 263 junior or senior undergraduate students (those who reported their gender were 87 men and 168 women) enrolled in classes in a New York City University (n =117) and in a South Korean University (n = 146). The age of the respondents ranged from 18to 44 years (M = 22.25, SD = 3.51). Seventy-seven percent of participants reported their social class. From those who reported their class, 4% were lower class, 10% were working class, 51% were middle class and 11% were upper class.

Procedures

Instructors gave students self-report questionnaire instruments to fill out in their spare time on a volunteer basis. After students returned the questionnaire, instructors input and analyzed the data. In this study the independent variable was country and the dependent variables were direct, indirect, communication apprehension, nonverbal immediacy and verbal aggression. Because direct and indirect communication was measured using dichotomous variables, a logistic regression analysis was warranted. The other dependent variables were tested together using a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) design.

Instrumentation 

This study employed the question "If you have contact with people from foreign countries, is it direct? Yes ____ No ____ Indirect? _____ Yes ____ No ____" to see whether they communicate either directly, indirectly or both. Communication apprehension was operationalized using Neuliep and McCroskey's Intercultural Communication Apprehension Scale (ICAS). Nonverbal immediacy was measured using Richmond, McCroskey, and Johnson's Nonverbal Immediacy Scale (NIS). Finally, verbal aggressiveness was measured using the aggressively-worded VAS items, consisting of the positively worded 10-item Likert-type questions from Infante and Wigley's Verbal Aggressiveness Scale (VAS) as suggested by Levine, Beatty, Limon, Hamilton, Buck, and Chory-Assad. The ICAS, NIS, and VAS items consisted of Likert-type questions.Participants were asked to self report their use of communication using response options ranging from 1 (almost never true) to 5 (almost always true).