Styles of language use: Individual and cultural variability in conversational indirectness.

People differ in terms of whether they express their meanings directly or indirectly and whether they look for indirect meanings in remarks of others. Although many researchers have noted these differences, empirical research on this topic has been rare. This article reports the development and validation of a measure that assesses the production of indirectness (the extent to which a person phrases his or her remarks directly or indirectly) and the comprehension of indirectness (the extent to which a person looks for indirect meanings in the remarks of others). The author then used this measure to investigate intercultural communication (Koreans were more likely to speak indirectly and to look for indirect meanings than were Americans) and individual differences in conversation processing (people who scored high on the measure were more likely to comprehend certain indirect meanings and to be quicker at doing so than were those who scored low).