Verbal Immediacy and Androgyny: An Examination of Student Perceptions of College Instructors. (the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning)

Abstract Recent research has demonstrated that instructors can be taught to use verbally immediate behaviors in the classroom. It has been speculated that verbal immediacy may be composed of a combination of assertiveness and warmth. Such a is analogous to the trait of androgyny. The current study finds a strong association between instructor verbal immediacy and instructor androgyny. It is concluded that training teachers to be verbally immediate is justified. ********** Verbal immediacy has and continues to receive a good deal of attention in instructional communication literature (Christensen & Menzel, 1998; Jensen 2000). Previous studies have linked instructor verbal immediate communication with such beneficial outcomes as student motivation (Frymier, 1994), student learning (Frymier & Shulman, 1995), decreased communication apprehension (Ellis, 1995), and willingness to talk (Menzel & Carrell, 1999). However, little is known about the related behavioral tendencies of more and less verbally immediate instructors. Previous research (Jordan, McGreal, & Wheeless, 1990) has speculated that verbal immediacy may be comprised of a of warmth and assertiveness. This is often the result of perceptions about communicative behaviors that individuals hold. Moreover, such a is closely associated with the concept of androgyny (Bem, 1974), which refers to the psychological gender make-up of large quantities of both feminine (responsive) and masculine (assertive) personality traits. The current project seeks to investigate the relationship between student perceptions of instructor verbal immediate communication and student perceptions of instructor androgyny. Bem's (1974) notion of androgyny refers to the psychological gender make-up of large quantities of both feminine and masculine personality traits. Androgyny is based on the notion that individuals can co-mingle feminine and masculine identities (Bem, 1974), by constructing cognitive schema without the masculine-feminine dichotomy (McMahan & Stacks, 1984). Bem (1984) identifies three basic assumptions of androgyny. First, androgynous individuals are more flexible in their behavioral tactics than are masculine or feminine individuals. Second, this behavioral flexibility allows androgynous individuals to function well in a host of social settings. Third, both females and males can be androgynous. Waterman and Whitbourne (1982) found that androgyny has a strong positive relationship with psychological development. The researchers found that highly androgynous people are best able to develop mentally and work through problems. Androgynous individuals appeared to be more psychologically adjusted than were individuals who behaved in exclusively or predominantly masculine or feminine ways (Jackson, 1983). In addition, androgyny has been closely linked with self-esteem (Lamke, 1982), social adjustment (Major, Carnevale, & Deaux, 1981), social support (Berthiaume, David, Saucier, & Borgeat, 1996) and leadership ability (Kolb, 1997). The trait of androgyny and the behavioral flexibility it entails produce many beneficial social and psychological outcomes for those who possess it. Presumably, this trait would be associated with perceptions of effective communication behavior. Indeed, Reiser and Troost (1986), Wheeless (1984), and Wheeless and Duran (1982) illustrated that androgynous people demonstrate higher levels of communication competence than do those who are not androgynous. Androgynous individuals have lower communication apprehension (Greenblatt, Hasenauer, & Freimuth, 1980) and less shyness (McCroskey, Simpson, & Richmond, 1982) than do non-androgynous individuals. These findings are consistent with the notion that androgynous individuals have many communicative options from which to choose. This ability to blend traditionally masculine and feminine qualities when necessary in interpersonal situations maximizes interpersonal effectiveness (Stewart, Cooper, Stewart, & Friedley, 1996, p. …