The Influence of Social Status on Communication Predispositions

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of social status of the communicator on communication predispositions of people with different cultural orientations. Based upon independent and interdependent self-construals as individual-level cultural dimensions, people’s degrees of two distinct communication orientations (communication apprehension as an avoidance orientation and argumentativeness as an approach orientation) were assessed in a dyad with different status of communicators (professor as high status and classmate as low status). Participants were a total of 702 undergraduates studying in Japan, Hawaii, and the mainland U.S. After reading two hypothetical conversational situations with different status communicators (professor and classmate), participants were asked to rate items measuring two communication constructs (communication apprehension and argumentativeness). The data indicated that individuals showed greater level of argumentativeness in the conversation with a low status communicator (classmate or roommate) than in the conversation with a high status communicator (professor). On the other hand, individuals showed greater level of communication apprehension in the conversation with high status communicator (professor) than in the conversation with low status communicator (classmate or roommate). We also found that, among people of high interdependence, the level of CA was greater in the conversation with the high status communicator than in the conversation with the low status communicator. On the other hand, among people of high interdependence, the level of argumentativeness did not differ in the conversation with the high status communicator as compared with the conversation with the low status communicator.