Date of Graduation

2001

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MA

Committee Chair

James C. McCroskey

Abstract

Using an African-American sample, this study replicates the work of Toale and McCroskey (in press) on predictor variables associated with interethnic communication apprehension. Participants responded to Canary and Stafford’s (1992) relational maintenance strategies typology, Personal Report of Interethnic Communication Apprehension (PRECA), Person Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) and Neuliep and McCroskey’s (1997b) General Ethnocentrism scale. The results indicated that interethnic communication apprehension was not correlated with relational maintenance strategies used in interethnic relationships. Although trait communication apprehension and ethnocentrism were both predictive of IECA, ethnocentrism was more predictive, accounting for most of the variance in IECA scores. This study gives support to the Toale and McCroskey (in press) findings that the more ethnocentric a person is, the more likely they are to be apprehensive when communicating with someone of a different ethnicity.

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