THE TELEPHONE APPREHENSION INVENTORY SYNOPSIS
The Telephone Apprehension Inventory (TAI) originally developed by Steele and Reinsch (1983, 1984) was given to three different samples of student subjects from a UK Polytechnic and an Australian IAE, and 306 adult
employees of a UK Institute of Higher Education. A final sample of UK students was used to examine the test-retest reliability of the TAI.
It was predicted that male and female subjects, and older and younger subjects would report significantly different levels of telephone apprehension. In addition, it was predicted that sex differences in telephone apprehension would be greater in younger age groups, and less marked
in older age groups. Predictions were also made about culture and sample differences. It was predicted that there would be no significant differences in levels of telephone apprehension reported by UK and Australian subjects, but that both UK and Australian subjects would report higher levels of telephone apprehension than
American subjects. Comparable student and non-student samples were predicted to have significantly different levels of telephone apprehension.
Analysis of the different subject groups showed a pattern of highly consistent results. For all of the groups
examined, internal reliability was high, with alphas of 0.95 or better. The test-retest reliability study showed a correlation of 0.90 between data collected over several weeks. Significant sex differences were found in all
three samples, with males reporting higher telephone
apprehension than females. There were no significant main effects of age in any of the three samples. In neither the UK nor the Australian Student samples were there significant age by sex interactions. However, in the UK Non-student sample there was a significant age by sex
interaction, such that sex differences were greater for older subjects. UK students reported significantly higher telephone apprehension than Australian students, and both UK and Australian students reported higher levels than comparable US students. No significant culture by age or sex interactions were found. Comparison of the UK Student and Non-student samples showed that students reported significantly greater levels of telephone apprehension. No significant interaction effects of sample with age or sex were found.
Subjects with high levels of telephone apprehension would reported making and receiving fewer calls at their
domestic telephone than subjects with low telephone apprehension. Women tended to report making more calls than men, and older respondents tended to report making more calls than younger respondents. No significant sex differences in estimates of calls received were found, and no strong, systematic patterning of calls received was found.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE TELEPHONE APPREHENSION INVENTORY
INTRODUCTION: HYPOTHESES AND RATIONALE
This chapter reports a series of studies which explored the characteristics of the Telephone Apprehension
Inventory developed by Steele and Reinsch (1983, 1984). The studies explored the nature of sex, age, culture and sample differences, and the relation of telephone
apprehension to reported telephone use.
Sex and Telephone Apprehension
The literature shows that differences in communication as a function of gender are pervasive (Aries, 1987). Gender differences in both verbal and nonverbal behaviour are well established and are of comparable, or greater,
magnitude to most other psychological gender differences (Aries, 1987; Hall, 1984). It is therefore likely that there will be significant differences between males and females in their levels of telephone apprehension.
However, no convincing prediction can be made about the direction of this difference. The existing literature suggests that plausible predictions can be made in both directions. These rationales are outlined below.
Proposition: Females experience higher levels of telephone apprehension than males.
Rationale 1: Research on gender differences in nonverbal behaviour (Hall, 1984, 1987) shows that consistent
differences between males and females exist across a wide variety of variables. In particular, females are superior on measures of various nonverbal skills. Females are more active nonverbally than males. They smile and gaze more, have more expressive faces, stand closer to others and
more, and show more involved, more expressive and more self-conscious body movements. To the extent that females are more, skilled and more active users of nonverbal
behaviours, then it is likely that their habitual
conversational patterns will be disrupted to a greater extent than less skilled and less active users when they converse via a medium, such as the telephone, which
eliminates these cues. It can therefore be predicted that females will have higher levels of telephone apprehension than males.
Rationale 2: Women are characteristically more oriented towards social-emotional participation, men towards task- instrumental activities (Aries, 1987; Baird, 1976). This differential orientation to conversation is associated with differential attention to both verbal and nonverbal cues, with socio-emotional uses demanding that more
attention is given to nonverbal cues. To the extent that the telephone eliminates nonverbal channels, women would see the telephone as less suited, and men would see it as more suited to their particular purposes. If a person is aware that the medium of communication is unsuitable for their purposes, this is likely to generate anxiety
concerning its use. It can therefore be predicted that women will be more, and men less anxious about using the telephone.
Rationale 3: Edelsky (1981) found that there were two types of conversational "floor". The first was orderly, with one-at-a-time interaction and monologues. The second involved two or more people talking at once, jointly
building an idea, with deep conversational overlaps. Men predominated in the first kind of conversational
activity, women in the second. It has been argued that the telephone is primarily suited to, and is used for the first kind of conversation, whereas face-to-face
conversation is primarily of the second kind (Morley and Stephenson, 1969, 1970). If this is the case, then women are likely to be more apprehensive about the telephone
than men, because it would appear to demand, or
facilitate, the use conversational styles and strategies which they do not habitually favour.
These rationales all suggest that women experience higher levels of telephone apprehension than men.
Proposition: Males experience higher levels of telephone apprehension than females.
Rationale 1: The literature comparing the structure of telephone and face-to-face conversations predicts,
because of the role that visual behaviour is claimed to play in turn-taking, that the elimination of visual clues
in telephone conversations should lead to the disruption of these turn-taking behaviours. However, empirical
investigation (eg Beattie and Barnard, 1979) shows that this is not the case. In practice telephone conversations are as well-organised as, or better organised than, face- to-face conversations. It has been suggested (Fielding and Hartley, 1987) that this could be because
conversations and conversationalists exhibit: a: redundancy
b: substitution c: strategy shifts.
Redundancy suggests that normal conversations are
structurally highly redundant, and are therefore robust when subjected to degradation, such as that experienced during telephone conversations. Substitution suggests that the information normally carried by visual signals is transferred to other channels (eg vocal cues such as filled pauses). Strategy shifts suggest that speakers adopt different models for conducting conversations when using different media. If these switches do occur, then those conversationalists who are less skilled are likely to experience greater anxiety when shifting to relatively unfamiliar media, simply because the required adaptations will be more problematic for them. It may also cause
anxiety because the relatively unfamiliar strategy may require a greater level of competence to implement successfully. Communicating by telephone may be a more skilled activity than communicating face-to-face. It is relatively unusual, it demands that the
conversationalists follow restricted rules, and it
requires discipline and more active participation on the part of the listener as well as by the speaker. Aries
(1987) and Hall (1984, 1987) have shown that on a number of indices of conversational behaviour, women show higher levels of skill and lower levels of anxiety than men. Thus, the generally greater communication skills of women suggests that women would be able to adapt to the
requirements of telephone communication more successfully than men. To the extent that men are less competent, then they would find the modified strategies and behaviours required more demanding and less acceptable. If this were the case, then it would be predicted that men would
experience higher levels of telephone apprehension than would women.
Rationale 2: Rakow (1988) has noted the early association of the telephone with women's talk, and its importance as a means of communication for women. Pool, for instance, suggested that the telephone is essentially "a female instrument", used to alleviate the boredom and loneliness of women's lives (Pool, 1977, 1983). Popular belief about the telephone sees it as particularly suited to women's talk, and this has been reflected in both scholarly and non-scholarly writings. For instance, Boettinger states: "Few devices are so well matched to the needs and style of women." (Boettinger, 1977, pl5). Early surveys of telephone use reported that both men and women agreed that women used the telephone more frequently, and cited greater telephone apprehension as a reason for this:
"Many men said they did not like to use the phone, so they had the women call for them" (Robertson and Amstutz, 1949, p.18). In her ethnographic study, Rakow (1986)
telephone use, in terms of frequency of usage, functions, and conversational roles. She noted that male dislike of the telephone was frequently cited as a reason for this unequal distribution of telephone talk. Steele and
Reinsch (1984) found that females reported both
initiating and receiving more calls than did males. Moyal (1989), in an Australian study, reported high levels of female use of the telephone for "psychological care
within the telephone community". Noble (1987) found that women use the phone more frequently than men for
intrinsic purposes, but there were no sex differences in instrumental use of the domestic telephone.
Given that this differential pattern of telephone use is widespread, then it could be predicted that, because of greater familiarity with the telephone, women are likely to experience lower levels of telephone apprehension than men.
Proposition: Males and females do not experience different levels of telephone apprehension.
There may be no systematic sex differences in levels of telephone apprehension. As noted in Chapter Two, existing research on sex differences in CA shows no significant and consistent differences as a function of sex. For instance, Strohkirch and Parks (1986) showed that people experience most communication apprehension in public speaking contexts, and least in dyadic contexts. Situational differences were a strong main effect in their study, but there were main effects of sex, and no sex by situation interaction effects. Thus, because the telephone is a dyadic communication situation, levels of apprehension are likely to be low, and no sex differences would be predicted.
Skelton (1989), in a study of teenagers telephone use, found no sex differences in either number of calls made,
nor in the duration of calls made. Skelton notes that these results may be unique to teenagers, as at this stage the teenage girl has not assumed the role of
keeping up with a network of family and friends, and the teenage boy does not have a partner to do this for him.
Whilst all three sets of rationales outlined above are highly speculative, taken together, they suggest that men and women can be expected to experience different levels of telephone apprehension, but the direction of
difference is, a priori, unclear. The following hypothesis was therefore formulated: