A Qualitative And Quantitative Study Of Cultural Individualism-Collectivism And Sino-American's Communication Styles

With the development of the society and advancement of civilization, the limitation of communication is being broken. Culture and communication are interplaying so closely that the expansion of worldwide communication networks is heightening our awareness of the need for understanding other cultures and their people. A lot of theorists have been working on the comparison of communication between China and the United States, two typical collectivistic and individualistic cultures, which are a good presentation of intercultural communication. In this present study, based on the previous studies, this thesis focuses on a quantitative research with some qualitative contribution.Individualism-collectivism is the most utilized value dimension for intercultural research which influences on the social communication style. In addition to that, individual characteristics mediate the influence of individualism-collectivism on individuals' communication: personalities, values, and self construals. Self and other-oriented communications are a function of individualism-collectivism. The first concern of this thesis is to identify what value tendencies at cultural level and individual level are shown in the respective process of Sino-American's communication. The second is concerned with the differences of communication styles between China and the United States. The third is regard to the correlation between cultural individualism-collectivism and individual factors on Sino-American's interaction and communication styles. Data were collected from Chinese and American university students with an attitude survey and communication style questionnaire. After the analysis, the study came up with the following major findings:1. Individualism-collectivism is one of major value tendencies at cultural level to explain the diversities in communication behavior of different cultural contexts. The United States tends to have individualistic norms/rules; China tends to have collectivistic norms/rules. In addition to cultural norms/rules, individualism-collectivism also influences the ways individuals are socialized in their culture. Individuals in a culture generally are socialized in ways consistent with the cultural-level tendencies, but some individuals in every culture learn different tendencies.2. In the present study, through four components yielded by factor analysis, we found that in the first component, Americans show higher concern with the precedence of the emphasis...