UC Santa Cruz

Agency, communion, and gender were compared as predictors of communication style in the conversations of 76 unacquainted pairs of male-female college students. Each dyad was given a popular issue to discuss for 5 min. Agency and communion were measured using Spence and Helmreich's (Masculinity and Femininity: Their Psychological Dimensions, Correlates, and Antecedents, Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1978) Personal Attributes Questionnaire. Self-perceived agency was significantly associated with verbal assertiveness: High-agency persons used fewer indirect statements and fewer passive self-references than low-agency persons. Nonsignificant trends indicated that self-perceived communication tended to be associated with interpersonal involvement: High-communion persons used fewer impersonal references and were liked more than low-communion persons. © 1987 Plenum Publishing Corporation.