Indirectness in Verbal Communication: Cultural and Individual Differences

The Edward Hall’s concept of low and high context cultures is based on the differences in indirectness of interpersonal communication. Thomas Holtgraves (1997) elaborated the concept and introduced two forms of conversational indirectness: production (phrasing remarks directly or indirectly) and comprehension (looking for indirect meanings in the remarks of others). His Conversational Indirectness Scale proved to be reliable and accurate. CIS was used in the present studies. Three separate studies were conducted to compare the level of production and comprehension in Poland and Ireland (N = 161), Poland and Thailand (N = 196), Poland, Germany and Spain (N = 371). The results show that indirectness is higher in Thailand and Germany than in Poland, and there are no significant differences between Poland, Ireland and Spain. The study 4 (N = 107), conducted in Poland, was aimed at answering the question whether individual differences in perspective taking and communality predict indirectness. There is positive relation between perspective taking and comprehension, but communality does not allow to predict indirectness. The results of four studies are discussed in the context of the function of conversational indirectness.