A Research On Effective Cross-gender Communication Between Strangers-from The Perspective Of AUM Theory

The communication between strangers plays a significant role in our daily life, and the cross-gender communication between strangers can be observed everywhere. Since men and women come from different subcultures, differences exist in their perceptions and language using. So the communication between them is regarded as cross-cultural communication, and the cultural differences between men and women inevitably result in miscommunication. Therefore, how to communicate effectively in cross-gender communication between strangers becomes an issue for communicators. Although many researchers have studied on effective communication between strangers in recent years, few researches on effective cross-gender communication between strangers have been conducted. Gudykunst, a famous professor of American cross-cultural communication, proposes anxiety/uncertainty management (AUM) theory, and applied it in intercultural adjustment and effective communication. AUM theory which has been proved to be helpful for improving the effectiveness of communication provides a theoretical basis for the present study. Based on the theory, this thesis tries to analyze the effective cross-gender communication between strangers from a new perspective, with the aim of finding out ways to improve the effective cross-gender communication between strangers.The current study attempts to elaborate effective cross-gender communication between strangers from the following aspects: First, it aims to analyze what is the gender difference in communication. Secondly, it tries to find out the causes of cross-gender miscommunication. Thirdly, it attempts to provide some enlightenment for the improvement of effective cross-gender communication between strangers from the perspective of AUM theory. Finally, it hopes to find out ways of improving the effective cross-gender communication between strangers. In order to answer the above questions, questionnaires are adopted in the present research. According to respondents'different occupations, 126 people are chosen to participate in the investigation. Then, statistic methods are used to analyze the collected questionnaires. At last, the data of the investigation are analyzed and elaborated from the perspective of AUM theory.The results of the present study basically achieved the objectives. First, it finds out that gender difference in communication which is caused by physiological, psychological and social-cultural factors is mainly reflected in language, conversational strategies and conversational style. Secondly, by analyzing the result of the investigation, it is found out that miscommunication often exists in cross-gender communication between strangers, and the primary cause of miscommunication is cultural difference. The statistical result shows the mean of anxiety and uncertainty, as well as the confidence interval in cross-gender communication between strangers (A: 2.83, U: 2.72, confidence interval: A: 2.62-3.04, U: 2.50-2.92). This is the quantification of the anxiety/uncertainty, and provides a reference for the improvement of effective cross-gender communication between strangers. At last, based on the main axioms of AUM theory, this thesis proposes ways of improving the effective cross-gender communication between strangers from the three aspects of perceived competence--motivation, knowledge and skills.