Communication Differences: Koreans and American Cultures

Part of the reason Koreans engage in high context communication is reflected in their deeply rooted Confucian values and ideology which includes allowing all participants in communication to save face if possible. For example, Ting-Toomey, Gao, et al. found that South Koreans report a higher degree of focus on others' face than U.S Americans; whereas U.S. Americans had a higher degree of self-face than South Koreans. In high context cultures substituting direct communication with indirect communication is considered to be an important way to help others save face. If a stand is not taken, then people do not have to stick out, which is a form of face threat in Confucian Korean cultures.

Given that communicating explicitly is shunned in Korea, a dread of communicating generally is likely to be higher among Koreans whose Confucian values underlie their communication. In fact, both Aune, Hunter, et al., and Yook and Ahn found that South Korean students reported significantly higher communication apprehension than US American students. In addition, Hong found that Korean students in intercultural conflict situations were considerably more communicatively apprehensive than U.S. American students. On the other hand, conflicting results exist. In particular, Klopf and Cambra found that Americans had a higher incidence of apprehension than Koreans. However, this study was carried out in 1979, which is close to thirty years ago.