LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 1

A LEXICAL STUDY OF COMMUNICATION ADJECTIVES:

THE DIMENSIONALITY OF COMMUNICATION STYLES

Paper submitted to the annual International Communication Association conference,

New York, May 26-30, 2005

ABSTRACT

One of the main problems in current interpersonal communication research is the lack of an

encompassing framework in which to capture different communication styles. Additionally,

research to date has often used inadequate measures of interpersonal communication styles.

In this research, a multi-phase lexical approach was used to uncover the main communication

styles. In the first three phases, adjectives were selected based on their ability to describe a

communication style. In the fourth and final phase, 200 respondents provided self-rating on

749 communication adjectives. The adjectives were submitted to a Principal Component

Analysis, which provided evidence of seven main communication style dimensions. This

paper describes the lexical research process and the content and interrelations of the seven

main communication style dimensions.

 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 2

INTRODUCTION

Interpersonal communication is vital to our daily well-being. Without interpersonal

communication, almost all people will tend to feel lost and lonely (Adler, Rosenfeld, &

Proctor, 2001). Surprisingly, there is a lack of adequate instruments to measure interpersonal

communication. Additionally, there is no integrated framework to capture the structure and

dimensionality of communication styles. The sourcebook on communication research

measures (Rubin, Palmgreen, & Sypher, 1994) lists two instruments that deal explicitly with

‘normal’ (e.g., not dealing with aggression or apprehension) styles of communication; the

Communicator Style Measure (CSM; Norton, 1978) and the Relational Communication Scale

(RCS; Burgoon & Hale, 1987). Since these instruments are well known, one would expect

them to contain scales that are reliable and valid. According to Nunnally (1981), a reliable

instrument is one that has a reliability >.70 for explorative research and >.80 for research in

which one tests hypotheses. Rubin, Palmgreen, and Sypher (1994) report reliabilities as low

as .37 for one of Norton’s CSM scales and .42 for one of Burgoon’s RCS scales, which is

clearly insufficient for explorative research, let alone for hypothesis testing.

Although recently, some better instruments to measure communication styles have

become available (Gudykunst et al., 1996), up until now, there has been no consensus on the

number of dimensions of communication styles and the exact content of these dimensions.

For instance, it has been suggested that communication styles may be captured by two main

dimensions (Dillard, Solomon, & Palmer, 1999; Sorenson & Savage, 1989) but no

fundamental research in communication science has been done to either confirm or falsify

this assumption. However, a similar assumption with respect to interpersonal relations has

been tested in psychology. In 1957, Leary proposed that the interpersonal relation domain can

best be represented using two dimensions, namely affiliation and control. These two
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 3

dimensions span the main axes of a circle that is known as the interpersonal circle or

circumplex (Figure 1). A lot of research has been conducted on the interpersonal circumplex

(e.g., Acton & Revelle, 2002; Gurtman, 2001; Tracey, Ryan, & Jaschik-Herman, 2001;

Wagner, Kiesler, & Schmidt, 1995), especially on the notion of circularity of measurement

instruments derived from the framework and the complementarity of behavioral responses in

interpersonal relations.

-------------------------------

Insert Figure 1 about here

-------------------------------

Although the instruments used to measure the two dimensions and its facets are more

advanced (e.g., Benjamin, 1996; Moskowitz, 1994; Wiggins, Trapnell, & Phillips, 1988) and

the two dimensional and circumplexical framework is more encompassing than the

instruments and framework in comparable interpersonal communication research, the

interpersonal relation notion in psychology is somewhat different from what communication

science scholars are looking for when studying interpersonal communication and its effects.

For instance, adjectives such as ‘neighborly’ and ‘antisocial’ load on the interpersonal

circumplex (De Raad, 1995), but can hardly be considered ‘communicative acts’. These

adjectives can be considered ‘transitive’ because they require another person (the neighbor or

the person one is being antisocial to) as an object of the interaction. Adjectives such as ‘loud’

(luidruchtig) and ‘businesslike’ can be considered communicative acts, but they are

considered non-interpersonal in the interpersonal circumplex. These adjectives can be

considered ‘intransitive’ because they do not require another person as an object of the

interaction. Adjectives such as ‘dominant’ and ‘jovial’ do load on the interpersonal

 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 4

circumplex, are transitive, and they seem to provide a meaningful description of one’s

communication style.

From this we can infer that the interpersonal relations concept overlaps with

communication acts and styles, and is both somewhat ‘broader’ and ‘narrower’ than

communication acts and styles (Figure 2). The interpersonal circumplex shows overlap with

communication styles in the case both refer to communicative behaviors that are transitive.

However, the interpersonal circumplex is broader since it includes interpersonal behaviors

that are transitive but not communicative. On the other hand, the interpersonal circumplex is

narrower because it excludes communicative styles that are intransitive. Furthermore, it may

be true that the interpersonal circumplex is also somewhat restricted by focusing on two

dimensions only. It may be argued that these two are the main dimensions of transitive

behaviors, but some intransitive behaviors may also be said to constitute communicative

styles. For instance, emotionality is not part of the interpersonal circumplex, but emotional

(or the opposite: unemotional or businesslike) communication, can be considered an aspect of

somebody’s communication style. Additionally, conscientiousness is not part of the

interpersonal circumplex, but precise communication can be considered a communication

style. Thus, the interpersonal circumplex, although providing a starting point for discussion

on the framework for interpersonal communication styles, cannot be considered the ultimate

framework.

-------------------------------

Insert Figure 2 about here

-------------------------------
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 5

The interpersonal circumplex is closely related to two of the main dimensions derived

from lexical personality research (Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990). Although the consensus

among personality psychologists for the last 20 years was that there are five major

dimensions of personality, recent re-analysis of data from the major lexical studies has

actually revealed that there are six instead of five main personality dimensions (Ashton, Lee,

Perugini, Szarota, de Vries, Di Blas, Boies, & de Raad, 2004). These six dimensions, known

by the acronym ‘HEXACO’, are: Honesty-humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion,

Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to experience. Of these six, extraversion

and agreeableness are commonly equated with the two main interpersonal circumplex

dimensions (i.e., respectively control and affiliation). Conscientiousness seems to be least

transitive, since it is primarily associated with the orientation of a subject towards an

(abstract) object (whether time, matter, or ideas; for instance: punctual, orderly, precise,

etc…). The three other dimensions fall somewhere in between the interpersonal and

noninterpersonal dimensions. According to Saucier, Ostendorf, & Peabody (2001) and

Hofstee, de Raad, & Goldberg (1992), the interpersonal circumplex may have to be expanded

to include (the Big Five) Emotional Stability. Thus, emotionality seems to be a prime

candidate as a communication dimension, notably since emotionality will often express itself

in interpersonal communication situations. However, openness to experience and

honesty/humility may be good candidates as well; especially humility, which in terms of

content seems to be related to unassuming (low on control & high on agreeableness) in the

interpersonal circumplex. The difference between emotionality, openness, and honesty (not

so much humility) on the one hand and extraversion and agreeableness on the other, is that

the former may be less ‘transitive’ than the latter. It is impossible to be extravert and

agreeable when nobody is present, but it is not impossible to be emotional, open to

experience, and honest when alone. However, as we said before, intransitive behaviors that
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 6

take part in the presence of others can be very communicative, i.e., intransitivity alone should

not be a criterion to consider a behavior as non-communicative.

To study the dimensional nature of interpersonal communication, we have conducted

research on adjectives in the tradition of the lexical approach (see Ashton et al., 2004; De

Raad, 1995). This type of research is relatively rare in communication science (but for an

exception see Burgoon, Johnson, & Koch, 1998). In personality psychology, however, this

type of research has been used to uncover the main personality dimensions. The principle

behind lexical research in the personality psychology tradition is that everything that can be

said about personality is represented in language and thus in any representative dictionary of

a language. The same argument that has been made for personality psychology can be applied

to communication styles. In fact, Burgoon et al. (1998) have used a similar approach to study

interpersonal dominance, although instead of deductively deriving communication style

adjectives, they used an inductive approach. This paper reports a large study, which tries to

deductively arrive at the adjectives that describe communication styles. The research question

that we try to answer in this study is: “What are the main dimensions of communication

styles?” Subsequent to investigating the dimensionality of communication styles, we will

derive scales from these dimensions and investigate whether men and women use different

communication styles.

METHOD

The research was conducted in four phases. In the first three phases a selection was

made of the adjectives that represented communication styles. In the fourth phase, 200

respondents provided self-ratings on the final list of 749 adjectives. The phases and the

methods we employed are described below.

 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 7

Phase 1

In phase 1 we collected all relevant adjectives from the Dutch ‘Van Dale’ dictionary,

which is the most extensive and complete dictionary of the Netherlands. The following

criteria were used to select adjectives from the dictionary: 1) at least one of the meanings of

the adjectives, or none in the case of monosemes, did not contain a label referring to either

time, slang, or technical jargon, except for technical words referring to communication or

psychology; 2) selected adjectives have a frequency of two or higher in the previous five

years of five main national newspapers. The number of adjectives that fulfilled, which criteria

was 7765. Additionally, we included a list of 1203 Dutch personality adjectives of Brokken

(1978). A great number of words from this list showed overlap with the list from the Dutch

dictionary; of the 1203 adjectives only 153 were added to the Van Dale list of 7765

adjectives. Thus the final list at the end of phase 1 contained 7918 adjectives.

Phase 2

In phase 2, 7918 adjectives were rated twice, with an interval of 2 weeks, by three

raters based on the following criteria:

An adjective received a ‘1’ if:

- it referred to ‘the way someone communicates’ or somebody’s communication

style,

- it referred to non-verbal, para-verbal, or verbal aspects of a communication act,

- it referred to a situation in which someone communicates with someone else

(either face-to-face, through a letter or mail, through telephone, or through another

medium).

An adjective received a ‘0’ if:

- it did not refer to interpersonal interaction (e.g., ferrous),

 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 8

- it only referred to (acts or transactions involving) physical goods or materials

(e.g., arrowy),

- it only referred to someone’s non-interpersonal personality (e.g., masochistic),

- it referred to interpersonal interaction, but did not refer to the communicative

aspects of the interaction (e.g., inseparable),

- the adjective was only evaluative and non-descriptive of communication (e.g.,

good)

- it was unknown, highly unusual, or the meaning of the word was ambiguous (e.g.,

infemal)

Since the three raters rated the adjectives twice, the range of scores was from 0 to 6.

Adjectives receiving a score of ‘3’ or higher (1931 adjectives) passed on to the next round.

Adjectives receiving a score of ‘0’ did not go on to the next phase. Adjectives that received a

score of 1 or 2 were submitted to an additional selection using the same three raters.

Adjectives were scored on a five-point scale, ranging from ‘5’ (adjective provides a clear

image of the way somebody communicates) to ‘1’ (adjective does not or provides an unclear

image of the way somebody communicates). Adjectives with a mean score ≥ 3 or which

received from one of the three raters a score of ‘5’ were added to the next round. In total 283

adjectives were added to the next round, making for a total of 2214 adjectives for the third

phase.

Phase 3

In phase 3, the list of 2214 adjectives was submitted to a group of 40 students, of

which 20 students were in their final years of communication science and 20 were in their

final years of Dutch language studies. The respondents were asked to rate the adjectives on a

five-point (disagree – agree) scale using the following sentence: “Does this adjective summon

a clear image of somebody’s communication style?” The average correlation between the 40
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 9

raters was .31 and the inter-rater reliability was .82. Adjectives with a score ≥ 3.5 were

deemed to be sufficiently communicative. In this way 749 adjectives were selected to pass on

to phase 4.

Phase 4

Phase 4 constituted the final study. Through e-mail 700 people from a pool of

respondents of the University of Amsterdam were asked to participate in the research. In

return, a financial compensation was provided. Of the 700 people who received the e-mail,

200 (28.6%) participated. The sample consisted of 65 men and 135 women, with age ranging

between 18 and 56 years. Respondents provided self-ratings using the following sentence:

“During a conversation, I tend to communicate ….”, in which the dots had to be replaced

with each of the 749 adjectives. Answers were provided on a five-point (disagree – agree)

scale.

RESULTS

The data was ipsatized before being subjected to a principal component analysis.

Based on the scree plot, a 6- or 7-factor solution seemed preferable for the data. Based on the

content, a 7-factor solution, explaining 25,2% of the variance, was chosen. In Figure 2, a tree

diagram of the relation between the factors from the first to seventh factor solution is

provided. The final 7-factor solution appears to contain variants of the HEXACO scales

(Ashton & Lee, 2004) plus Incivility. For now we will use the better-known names of the

HEXACO scales to denote the communication styles, although they could also be described

with the acronym ‘PERFECT’ for Precise (Conscientiousness), Eloquent (eXtraversion),

Rude (Incivility), Friendly (Agreeableness), Emotional (Emotionality), Complex (Openness

to experience), and True (Honesty-Humility). Extraversion is the most consistent factor in all
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 10

of the factor solutions, already appearing as the main factor in the single factor solution,

although the factor is mainly defined by its negative, i.e., introversion, consisting of

adjectives such as shy, bashful, and closed, but also contains adjectives referring to an

extravert communication style, such as catchy, articulate, and talkative (see Appendix). In the

2-factor solution, a combination of agreeableness and incivility appears as a factor. In the 4-

factor solution these two split into separate factors. Although agreeableness contributes to

openness in the 5-factor solution and emotionality in the 6-factor solution, the core meaning

of agreeableness – the 3d factor in the 7-factor solution – remains the same in the 7-factor

solution, consisting of adjectives such as friendly, nice, and tolerant, and (negatively loading)

vehement, offensive, and reproachful. Incivility also remains virtually unchanged, with as its

main loading adjectives rude, mean, and unsociable, although in the 7-factor solution it splits

into an incivility and honesty factor.

In the 3-factor solution conscientiousness appears. Conscientiousness remains

unchanged up until the 7-factor solution and is defined by adjectives such as well-studied,

disciplined, and precise on the one hand and messy (-), chaotic (-), and incoherent (-) on the

other. In the 5-factor solution openness to experience appears as a new factor, although

receiving some contribution from agreeableness. It should be noted that openness (to

experience) has a somewhat negative connotation; apart from adjectives such as poetic,

philosophical, and analytical, it is also defined by adjectives that disturb proper

communication, such as complicated, abnormal, and secretive. Emotionality appears only in

the 5-factor solution after receiving some variance from Agreeableness. In the 7-factor

solution it contributes to the honesty factor. Emotionality is defined by adjectives such as

affected, emotional, and moody versus calm (-), stonesober (-), and cool (-). In the 7-factor

solution, honesty appears as a separate factor, receiving contribution from both incivility and
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 11

emotionality. The main defining adjectives of honesty are honest and sincere versus smooth

(-), cunning (-), and slick (-).

Beyond the first seven factors lie mainly smaller factors. The 8-factor solution

contains a ‘moodiness’ factor, which receives contributions from both agreeableness and

emotionality. It is defined by adjectives such as ill-tempered, pissed off, and whiny. As a

ninth factor, a separate ‘humorous’ factor emerges. Finally, in the 10-factor solution, a

‘calmness’ factor emerges.

-------------------------------

Insert Figure 3 about here

-------------------------------

Using the 30 highest loading items of each of the seven factors, we constructed

adjective scales from the non-ipsatized (raw) item scores. In Table 1, the reliabilities and

intercorrelations of the scales formed from the factors are shown. As can be seen, all of the

scales have reliabilities exceeding .80; the first four factors (extraversion, conscientiousness,

agreeableness, and incivility) even have reliabilities exceeding .90. Except for three

correlations, those between agreeableness, incivility and honesty, none of the correlations

exceed .30. Incivility correlates -.63 with honesty and .52 with agreeableness. Agreeableness

correlates .52 with incivility. The means of incivility and honesty are respectively somewhat

lower (2.09) and higher (3.74) than the other means, reflecting social desirable answering

tendencies. Additionally, the standard deviations of these two adjective scales are somewhat

narrower than the others (except emotionality), reflecting the restriction of range associated

with these answering tendencies.

 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 12

-------------------------------

Insert Table 1 about here

-------------------------------

To inspect possible differences between male and female communication styles, we

conducted a t-test on each of the seven adjectives scales (see Table 1). Except for the

adjectives scales incivility, honesty, and openness to experience, no differences between male

and female communication styles emerged. Generally, women exhibited a communication

style that was less rude (lower on incivility) than men (mw = 1.99, sdw = .34 versus mm =

2.29, sdm = .51;t = 4.91, p < .01), more true (higher on honesty-humility) than men (mw =

3.85, sdw = .33 versus mm = 3.51, sdm = .39; t = -6.56, p < .01), and less complex (lower on

openness to experience) than men (mw = 2.90, sdw = .44 versus mm = 3.08, sdm = .46; t =

2.78, p = .01).

CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION

This research employed a lexical approach to deductively arrive at a framework of

communication styles. The study shows that communication styles are captured by seven

main style dimensions that resemble the HEXACO constructs (Lee & Ashton, 2004) in

personality psychology plus an additional dimension Incivility. In this study, the main

dimensions obtained the following labels: extraversion (or: eloquence), conscientiousness (or:

precision), agreeableness (or: friendliness), incivility (or: rudeness), honesty (or:

truthfulness), openness to experience (or: complexity), and emotionality. Scales derived from

these constructs are shown to have high to very high reliabilities, with all reliabilities

exceeding .80.
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 13

The intercorrelations between the adjective scales are lower than .30, with the

exception of three scales that highly intercorrelate, i.e., agreeableness, incivility, and honesty.

The relation between agreeableness and honesty has been observed in personality research as

well. According to Ashton and Lee (2001), agreeableness and honesty, along with

emotionality, can be interpreted as traits that involve prosocial versus antisocial tendencies.

Lee, Ashton, and de Vries (2004) observe that content associated with altruistic (prosocial

versus antisocial) tendencies may migrate between agreeableness, honesty-humility, and

emotionality. This is clearly the case in this research as well. In the five-factor solution, there

was no emotionality factor present, which only showed up in the six-factor solution as a

derivative from the general agreeableness factor. Emotionality, in its turn, shed some of its

content to honesty-humility in the seven-factor solution. In this seven-factor solution,

honesty-humility obtained additional content from the incivility factor. Thus, although the

factors extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience were relatively stable

between the five- and seven-factor solution, content of the four factors agreeableness,

incivility, honesty, and emotionality that have to do with the communication of altruism show

substantial migratory tendencies.

The resemblance between the six of the seven communication style factors and the

HEXACO personality factors is striking and confirm the link between personality and

interpersonal communication styles that has been suggested by other scholars (Leung &

Bond, 2001; McCroskey, Heisel, & Richmond, 2001). However, there are some differences

between personality and communication styles as well. The most notable differences occur in

the factors conscientiousness (precision) and openness to experience (complexity). As noted

in the introduction, the personality factor conscientiousness can be regarded as the least

transitive of the personality factors, since it describes the handling of (abstract) objects such

as time, matter, and ideas. Openness to experience involves the handling of ideas or
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 14

experiences. According to Ashton & Lee (2001), conscientiousness and openness to

experience, together with extraversion can be interpreted as traits that involve the active

engagement of tasks (conscientiousness), ideas (openness to experience), or social situations

(extraversion). It is not surprising that extraversion emerges as a primary factor in the factor

solutions and shows clear one-to-one mapping on the personality trait extraversion. However,

both conscientiousness and openness to experience do not primarily belong to the social

domain, and thus it is surprising that they emerge as communication style dimensions. The

conundrum can be resolved by regarding both conscientiousness and openness to experience

as involving the handling of ideas. In this sense, they are less transitive than the other five

factors in the seven-factor solution, but still describe a communication style. A conscientious

or precise communication style is one that involves the structure of one’s communication,

while openness to experience or a complex communication style involves the content of

one’s communication, such as poems, philosophy, or scientific analysis. Note that some

content-related adjectives, such as academic, theoretic, and scientific, that load highly on

conscientiousness, show substantial cross-loadings on openness to experience.

This research has also investigated whether there are differences between men and

women in communication styles. The outcomes show no differences between men and

women in extraversion/eloquence, conscientiousness/precision, agreeableness/friendliness,

and emotionality. Although the stereotype of women involves the communication of emotion

and emotionality while communication (Popp et al., 2003), this research does not confirm

differences between men and women with regard to emotional communication. This study

supports findings of Street (2002) and Aruguete & Roberts (2000) in the absence of

differences between men and women with respect to emotional communication. However,

the research does find significant differences between men and women with respect to

incivility/rudeness, honesty, and openness to experience/complexity. Whether these

 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 15

differences hold up in other studies is an empirical question that needs to be addressed in

future research.

There are several other paths for future research. In the first place, studies should

investigate the relation between the personality constructs, such as measured by the

HEXACO-PI (Lee & Ashton, 2004) and the communication dimensions. Secondly, it is

worth testing the relationships between other communication style constructs, such as the one

proposed by Gudykunst et al. (1996) and the communication style dimensions presented here.

Gudykunst et al. (1996) distinguish between 8 communication styles, inferring meaning, use

of indirect communication, interpersonal sensitivity, dramatic communication, using feelings

to guide behaviors, openness and initiation of contact, preciseness of communication, and

positive perception of silence. Some of these show clear conceptual similarities with the

dimensions found in this study. Thus one would expect preciseness to correlate with

conscientiousness/precision and both dramatic communication and openness and initiation of

contact to correlate with extraversion/eloquence. However, the relationships of the seven

dimensions with some of the other constructs of Gudykunst et al. (1996) are not as clear-cut

and remain to be investigated.

A third issue is whether adjectives are the right word class to measure communication

styles. Maybe verbs constitute a better word class to investigate communication, since verbs

involve specific acts instead of broader styles (De Raad, 1992; 1999). Thus, if one would like

to measure narrow-band communication fragments, verbs may offer a better description.

However, for broader patterns of communication depicting the way someone communicates

with someone else, adjectives seem to be the right class of words. A fourth issue is whether

the communication style dimensions hold up in different languages. Personality research

shows that the main dimensions of personality are clearly replicable in lexical studies in
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 16

different countries and languages (Ashton et al., 2004). Based on these results, I expect the

same communication style dimensions to appear in different countries and languages as well.
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 17

REFERENCES

Acton, G. S., & Revelle, W. (2002). Interpersonal personality measures show circumplex

structure based on new psychometric criteria. Journal of Personality Assessment,

79(3), 446-471.

Adler, R. B., Rosenfeld, L. B., & Proctor II, R. F. (2001). Interplay: The process of

interpersonal communication (8 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Aruguete, M. S., & Roberts, C. A. (2000). Gender, affiliation, and control in physician-

patient encounters. Sex Roles, 42(1-2), 107-118.

Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2001). A theoretical basis for the major dimensions of personality.

European Journal of Personality, 15(5), 327-353.

Ashton, M. C., Lee, K., Perugini, M., Szarota, P., de Vries, R. E., Di Blas, L., et al. (2004). A

six-factor structure of personality-descriptive adjectives: Solutions from psycholexical

studies in seven languages. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86(2), 356-

366.

Benjamin, L. S. (1996). A clinician-friendly version of the Interpersonal Circumplex:

Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB). Journal of Personality Assessment,

66(2), 248-266.

Brokken, F. B. (1978). The language of personality. University of Groningen, The

Netherlands: Unpublished doctoral dissertation.

Burgoon, J. K., & Hale, J. L. (1987). Validation and measurement of the fundamental themes

of relational communication. Communication Monographs, 54(1), 19-41.

Burgoon, J. K., Johnson, M. L., & Koch, P. T. (1998). The nature and measurement of

interpersonal dominance. Communication Monographs, 65(4), 308-335.

 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 18

De Raad, B. (1992). The replicability of the Big Five personality dimensions in three word-

classes of the Dutch language. European Journal of Personality, 6(1), 15-29.

De Raad, B. (1995). The psycholexical approach to the structure of interpersonal traits.

European Journal of Personality, 9(2), 89-102.

De Raad, B. (1999). Interpersonal lexicon: Structural evidence from two independently

constructed verb-based taxonomies. European Journal of Psychological Assessment,

15(3), 181-195.

Dillard, J. P., Solomon, D. H., & Palmer, M. T. (1999). Structuring the concept of relational

communication. Communication Monographs, 66(1), 49-65.

Gudykunst, W. B., Matsumoto, Y., Ting Toomey, S., & Nishida, T. (1996). The influence of

cultural individualism-collectivism, self construals, and individual values on

communication styles across cultures. Human Communication Research, 22(4), 510-

543.

Gurtman, M. B. (2001). Interpersonal complementarity: Integrating interpersonal

measurement with interpersonal models. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48(1),

97-110.

Hofstee, W. K., de Raad, B., & Goldberg, L. R. (1992). Integration of the Big Five and

circumplex approaches to trait structure. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 63, 146-163.

Leary, T. (1957). Interpersonal diagnosis of personality; a functional theory and

methodology for personality evaluation. Oxford, England: Ronald Press.

Lee, K., & Ashton, M. C. (2004). Psychometric properties of the HEXACO personality

inventory. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39(2), 329-358.

Lee, K., Ashton, M. C., & de Vries, R. E. (2004). Six factors in the Croatian

lexicon.Unpublished manuscript.
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 19

Leung, S. K., & Bond, M. H. (2001). Interpersonal communication and personality: Self and

other perspectives. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 4(1), 69-86.

McCroskey, J. C., Heisel, A. D., & Richmond, V. P. (2001). Eysenck’s BIG THREE and

communication traits: Three correlational studies. Communication Monographs,

68(4), 360-366.

Moskowitz, D. S. (1994). Cross-situational generality and the interpersonal circumplex.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(5), 921-933.

Norton, R. W. (1978). Foundation of a communicator style construct. Human Communication

Research, 4(2), 99-112.

Popp, D., Donovan, R. A., Crawford, M., Marsh, K. L., & Peele, M. (2003). Gender, race,

and speech style stereotypes. Sex Roles, 48(7-8), 317-325.

Rubin, R. B., Palmgreen, P., Sypher, H. E., Beatty, M. J., DeWine, S., Downs, C. W., et al.

(Eds.). (1994). Communication research measures: A sourcebook. New York, NY,

US: Guilford Press.

Saucier, G., Ostendorf, F., & Peabody, D. (2001). The non-evaluative circumplex of

personality adjectives. Journal of Personality, 69(4), 537-582.

Sorenson, R. L., & Savage, G. T. (1989). Signaling participation through relational

communication: A test of the Leader Interpersonal Influence Model. Group and

Organization Studies, Vol 14(3), 325-354.

Street, R. L. (2002). Gender differences in health care provider-patient communication: Are

they due to style, stereotypes, or accommodation? Patient Education and Counseling,

48(3), 201-206.

Tracey, T. J., Ryan, J. M., & Jaschik Herman, B. (2001). Complementarity of interpersonal

circumplex traits. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(7), 786-797.

 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 20

Trapnell, P. D., & Wiggins, J. S. (1990). Extension of the Interpersonal Adjective Scales to

include the Big Five dimensions of personality. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 59(4), 781-790.

Wagner, C. C., Kiesler, D. J., & Schmidt, J. A. (1995). Assessing the interpersonal

transaction cycle: Convergence of action and reaction interpersonal circumplex

measures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 938-949.

 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 21

TABLE 1

Descriptive statistics, correlations and reliabilities (on diagonal) of the scales derived from

the 7 factors (N=200; 135 women & 65 men)

1. eXtravert (Eloquent) 0.94

2. Conscientious (Precise) 0.18 0.92
3. Agreeable (Friendly) -0.16 0.03 0.90
4. Incivility (Rude) -0.03 -0.17 -0.52 0.92
5. Honesty (True) -0.04 0.04 0.52 -0.63 0.88
6. Openness (Complex) -0.06 0.05 -0.29 0.18 -0.24 0.88
7. Emotionality (Emotional) -0.07 -0.26 -0.15 0.21 -0.09 0.12 0.81
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Overall mean 3.54 3.33 3.51 2.09 3.74 2.96 2.61
Overall st.dev. 0.56 0.47 0.44 0.43 0.38 0.45 0.33
Male mean 3.55 3.35 3.45 2.29 3.51 3.08 2.59
Male stdev. 0.49 0.53 0.43 0.51 0.39 0.46 0.43
Female mean 3.54 3.32 3.54 1.99 3.85 2.90 2.62
Female stdev. 0.60 0.43 0.44 0.34 0.33 0.44 0.28
t-value 0.16 0.33 -1.40 4.91 -6.56 2.78 -0.53
p-value 0.87 0.74 0.16 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.60
Note: Correlations >|.18| are significant at p<.01
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 22

FIGURE 1

The Interpersonal Circumplex

Assured-
Dominant
Arrogant- Gregarious-
Calculating Extraverted

Cold- Warm-
Hearted Agreeable

Aloof- Unassuming-
Introverted Ingenuous
Unassured-
Submissive
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 23

FIGURE 2

Overlap and non-overlap of the domains of the Interpersonal Circumplex and the

communication styles

Non-communicative Communicative Communicative

transitive adjectives transitive adjectives intransitive adjectives

E.g.: E.g.: E.g.:

Neighborly, Dominant, Businesslike,
Antisocial Jovial Loud

Interpersonal Communication
Circumplex styles
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 24

FIGURE 3

A tree diagram of the first 7 factor solutions of the communication adjectives

1.00 .90 .99 .99 .99 1.00

-X -X -X -X -X -X -X eXtraversion

.84 .99 .98 1.00

A/-I A/-I 1.00 C C C C Conscientiousness
.54 -.40
.81
.94 .97
C A A I .98 A Agreeableness
.82 .84
-.58
.99
I I A I Incivility
-.50 -.48
.32
-.33
-O E H Honesty
.99
.95
-O -O Openness
.94

E Emotionality
 LEXICAL COMMUNICATION DIMENSIONS 25

APPENDIX

The 30 highest loading defining adjectives of the first 7 principal factors

Factor Adjectives
1. eXtraversion shy, bashful, closed, ponderous, reserved, boring, silent, catchy,
(Eloquent) introvert, articulate, having the gift of the gab, restrained, awkward,
extravert, unsure, talkative, high-spirited, energetic, smooth, inhibited,
eloquent, ill at ease, chatty, listless, passive, exuberant, speechless,
expressive, timid, contagious
2. Conscientiousness well-studied, messy, long-threaded, disciplined, chaotic, precise,
(Precise) charming, crystal-clear, professional, lucid, incoherent, perceptive,
well-considered, thoughtless, mature, expert, consistent, substantive,
accurate, meticulous, confused, well thought-out, heated, clumsy,
functional, academic, lax, theoretic, scientific, nonchalant
3. Agreeableness piqued, vehement, friendly, nice, reproachful, offensive, contrary,
(Friendly) rock-hard, short-tempered, pissed off, worked up, peeved, amusing,
heated, touchy, stubborn, hot-headed, accommodating, venomous,
obstinate, hard, suave, tactical, social, peremptory, patient, insincere,
vicious, recalcitrant, tolerant
4. Incivility rude, mean, unsociable, subtle, impolite, loutish, bad-tempered,
(Rude) reassuring, vulgar, indecent, bad-mannered, coarse, aggressive,
callous, sadistic, pitiful, loving, denigratory, concerned, sneaky,
conciliatory, obliging, rascally, uncivilized, daft, cheering, insulting,
compassionate, complimentary, unfriendly
5. Honesty smooth, cunning, sincere, sly, honest, empathetic, boastful, arrogant,
(True) cold-blooded, sly, hard as nails, amicable, conceited, bluffing,
interested, sympathetic, heartfelt, intuitive, grandiloquent, attentive,
self-congratulatory, personal, incessant, fake, involved, sensitive,
supercilious, instinctive, moved, clearly
6. Openness to poetic, philosophical, poetic, busy, mysterious, strange, analytic,
experience clear, complicated, abnormal, secretive, intellectual, contemplating,
(Complex) rebellious, predictable, complex, diplomatic, short-sighted, ironic,
thorough, optimistic, idealistic, woolly, positive, profound, self-willed,
cynical, simple, provocative, in-depth
7. Emotionality affected, emotional, pedantic, calm, moody, upset, dejected,
(Emotional) sentimental, oversensitive, stonesober, overanxious, hypersensitive,
narrow-minded, cool, quick-witted, teasing, good-humoured,
resentful, sensitive, short-tempered, cross, frustrated, passionless,
humoristic, unmoved, hysteric, stern, critical, attentive, cocky