Abstract

This study examined the moderating effects of age and gender on the relationship between values and communication styles of Korean adults. Five hundred adult men and women across the country responded the questionnaires regarding cultural universal values (openness to change, self-enhancement, conservatism, and self-transcendence), cultural-specific values (collectivism, conformity to norms, emotional self-control, family recognition through achievement, and humility), high-context communication style, and low-context communication style. The results of this study are as follows. First, as a result of exploring the factors influencing the communication style, self-enhancement, emotional self-control, and self-transcendence significantly predicted the high-context communication style. Whereas openness to change, self-enhancement, conformity to norms, emotional self-control, and gender significantly predicted the low-context communication style. Second, age moderated the relationship between self-enhancement and high-context communication style. The high-context communication style significantly increased when the level of self-enhancement was high and the age was younger. Third, age and gender moderated the relationship between conformity to norms and high-context communication style. In the case of males with high conformity to norms and younger age, the high-context communication style significantly increased. Fourth, gender moderated the relationship between collectivism and low-context communication. As collectivism increased, men tended to increase low-context communication styles, while women tended to decrease it. Fifth, gender moderated the relationship between humility and low-context communication. In the case of women with high humility, their low-context communication style was significantly lowered. The implications and limitations of the results of this study were discussed.