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Interpersonal communication and personality: Self and other perspectives
Author(s) -
Leung ShuiKwan,
Bond Michael Harris
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
asian journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.5
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-839X
pISSN - 1367-2223
DOI - 10.1111/1467-839x.00076
Subject(s) - psychology , personality , social psychology , interpersonal communication , extraversion and introversion , feeling , style (visual arts) , perspective (graphical) , big five personality traits , history , archaeology , artificial intelligence , computer science
This study was designed to examine the links between the personality of group members and their styles of communication in task groups meeting over a three‐month period. Comprehensive measures of personality and of communication styles were taken from the perspectives both of the actor (the self) at the beginning of the group’s life and his or her fellow group members (the others) at the end of the group’s life. Even after extensive group interaction, these two sets of ratings converged only when observable characteristics were being measured (e.g., extraversion in personality or precision in communication). Self‐rated personality across eight dimensions predicted two of the three self‐rated dimensions of communication style (Verbal Engagement and Attentiveness to the Other) at only moderate levels; the actor’s personality rated on the same eight dimensions by others predicted the actor’s communication style as rated by these same others on all three dimensions (Verbal Engagement, Attentiveness to the Other, and Feelings versus Silence), and at much stronger levels than did self‐ratings of personality. Both personality and communication styles as rated by others were able to predict the key social outcomes of the actor’s likability and task contribution, whereas self‐ratings were not. Ratings derived from the self and those derived from others about the self thus appear to develop from different sources of information and relate to different outcomes. The links between personality and communication style are largely confined to the perspective (self versus other) from which they were measured.