Communication Styles

Table 8.1 in Chapter 8 of the Sue and Sue text presents various communication style differences across American Indians, Asian Americans, Hispanics, Whites, and African Americans. Such a listing is often hazardous to present since it can reinforce stereotypes, rather than serve as a starting point for discovering how individuals might vary among themselves.

Study the table carefully and then reflect on your own experiences with members of each of the groups listed. You may not have much experience with certain groups and that may be instructive to you about which groups you need to have more contact with over time.

As you think about members of the groups with whom you have had contact, consider the following questions within your post:

• Do the characteristics listed hold true for all the people you have thought about?
• Do some of these people not fit the characteristics?
• If so, what factors do you think contribute to them being different from what the table lists?
• How might you balance the central tendency of the group discussed, with the simultaneous inherent variability of those same groups?
• How might you determine whether a particular individual has a more variable or central tendency?