The Communication Styles Inventory (CSI)

Because of the practical relevance of communication styles in all kinds of settings where
personal and non-personal information, knowledge, ideas, opinions, and feelings are transferred,
accurate measurement of the primary communication styles may be considered crucial. Teachers
and students, physicians and patients, leaders and subordinates, consultants and clients,
politicians and the public, sales agents and consumers, and - in and out of court - judges,
lawyers, accusers, and defendants all have communication styles that influence their interactions.
Although there has long been a fascination with how people communicate, (e.g., Burgoon &
Hale, 1987; Gudykunst et al., 1996; Norton, 1983; Rubin, Rubin, Graham, Perse, & Seibold,
2009), some scholars have lamented the lack of an integrative framework to capture somebody’s
communication style (Daly & Bippus, 1998; Beatty, 1998; McCroskey, Daly, Martin, & Beatty,
1998). In this study, we introduce the Communication Styles Inventory (CSI), which has its roots
in a lexical study on communication styles (De Vries, Bakker-Pieper, Alting Siberg, Van
Gameren, Vlug, 2009) and in deception and impression management research (Burgoon, Buller,
Floyd, & Grandpre, 1996; Goffman, 1959). We present evidence for the CSI's convergence with
behavioral communication styles as well as its divergence from nonbehavioral communication
style conceptualizations. Furthermore, we explore the relation between the CSI scales and the
major personality dimensions to see if trait and communication style models may be combined.
We use De Vries et al. (2009)'s definition of a communication style as "the characteristic
way a person sends verbal, paraverbal, and nonverbal signals in social interactions denoting (a)
who he or she is or wants to (appear to), (b) how he or she tends to relate to people with whom
he or she interacts, and (c) in what way his or her messages should usually be interpreted" as a
foundation for the CSI (De Vries et al., 2009, p. 179). This definition includes the (a) identity
and (b) interactional aspects of communicative behaviors, in addition to Norton's (1983, pp. 19,
58) definition, which defines a communication style as "the way one verbally, nonverbally, and
paraverbally interacts to signal how literal meaning should be taken, interpreted, filtered, or
understood." Someone who demonstrates conversational dominance, for example, may not only
transmit that the message should be taken seriously (i.e., (c)), but also status information (i.e.,
(a)) and how the conversational partner should react (i.e., subservient - (b)). Intrapersonal
cognitions or feelings about communication, such as ideas about one's own or other people's
communication styles or mindsets, which may be precursors to - or results of - the
communicative behaviors exhibited, are specifically excluded from the definition. For example,
in doctor-patient communication (Buller & Buller, 1987), leader communication (Johnson &
Bechler, 1998), partner communication (Noller & White, 1990), parent-child communication
(Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, 1990), and sales communication (Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, 1990), several
communication style instruments are available to measure contextual communication styles
(Notarantonio & Cohen, 1990). There are also a variety of general communication tools,
including Norton's Communicator Style Measure (CSM; Norton, 1978, 1983), Burgoon and
Hale's (1987) Relational Communication Style (RCS), and Gudykunst et al (1996).
Communication Style Scale (CSS). Nonetheless, some communication scholars have expressed
dissatisfaction with the field's lack of integration (Daly & Bippus, 1998; Beatty, 1998;
McCroskey, Daly, Martin, & Beatty, 1998), citing the lack of an underlying model to specify the
quantity and content of communication styles. Furthermore, Gudykunst et al (1996) CSS, the
most widely used and comprehensive general communication styles instrument, has been
criticized because it includes scales like Inferring Meaning, Use of Feelings, and Positive
Perceptions of Silence, which refer to (intrapersonal) cognitions and feelings about
communication rather than 'the characteristic way somebody sends signals' (De Vries et al.,
2009), and thus may fall outside the scope of communicative behavior. De Vries et al. (2009)
used adjectives and verbs that defined "the way people communicate" to perform a lexical study.
The primary assumption of a lexical study is that anything that can be said about "the way people
communicate" must be encoded in language and documented in a dictionary. De Vries et al.
(2009) used a comprehensive collection of 744 adjectives and 837 verbs to provide preliminary
evidence for seven communication style variables. Expressiveness, Preciseness, Niceness,
Supportiveness, Threateningness, Emotionality, and Reflectiveness were the names given to
these lexical communication qualities. Extroverted and eloquent versus withdrawing into one's
shell and being mute are examples of high loading adjectives and verbs on these dimensions
(Expressiveness), professional, expert, and precise versus waffle (Preciseness), nice and soft-
hearted versus putting someone in the wrong and harping on something (Niceness), to comfort
and put someone in the limelight versus sarcastic and cynical (Supportiveness), to abuse, bark at,
threaten, and bark (Threateningness), piqued, stressed, sad, and bad-tempered (Emotionality),
and to dissect oneself, to (Reflectiveness). Although seven independent principal components
were retrieved after ipsatization, some of the (nonipsatized) marker scales of the lexical
communication dimensions, such as Niceness and Threateningness (r=-.50) and Emotionality
and Threateningness (r=.56), revealed absolute relations of.50 and stronger, making it more
difficult to construct a factor-pure communication styles instrument. One of the assumptions in
the lexical study of De Vries et al. (2009) was that the three non-behavioral CSS scales noted
above, Inferring Meaning, Use of Feelings, and Positive Perceptions of Silence, would have the
weakest link with the lexical marker scales. This assumption was confirmed. While five of the
CSS scales, Openness, Preciseness, Dramatic Communication, Interpersonal Sensitivity, and
Indirect Communication, had a communality of > .20 with the lexical marker scales, Inferring
Meaning, Use of Feelings, and Positive Perceptions of Silence had communalities of ≤ .20 with
the lexical marker scales. Consequently, Inferring Meaning, Use of Feelings, and Positive
Perceptions of Silence do not appear to align well with the communication style perspective
proposed by De Vries et al. (2009).
 Attachment Style Scale
The Adult Attachment Scale of Collins and colleagues (AAS – Collins & Read, 1990;
Collins, 1996) has been used to evaluate the style of adult attachment in Brazilian samples.
However, validation studies of the scale were not found in Brazil. On the other hand, several
investigations (Ferreira, 2013; Teixeira, 2015) have been using a translation done by Bussab and
Otta (2005) of the Revised Adult Attachment Scale (RAAS; Collins, 1996). Its adaptation to
Portuguese was presented by Santos (2006) in a congress. Until now, such version does not rely
on studies on the evidence of the measure’s validity. The AAS was originally derived from three
studies (N=406; 118; 142) then recast in a fourth study (RAAS) in 1996, with items referring to
"close" rather than "romantic" relationships. Other types of connections, such as friendships,
could be addressed in this way, in addition to sexual relationships. As a result, the adult
attachment working model as a social perspective is reinforced (Collins, 1996).
The RAAS has 18 self-evaluated items in 5-Likert scale (1=“not at all characteristic of
me”; 5=“very characteristic of me”) (Collins & Read, 1990). The items are divided into three
categories, each with six items: anxiety (= 0.72) assesses relationship anxiety, such as the fear of
being abandoned or unloved; dependence (= 0.75) assesses the degree to which the person trusts
others and their availability; and closeness (= 0.69) assesses the discomfort with closeness and
intimacy. There are mild connections between dependency and closeness (r = 0.38), weak
correlations between anxiety and dependence (r = -0.24), and none between anxiety and
closeness (r=-0.08) among these variables (Collins & Read, 1990).