ABSTRACT
Norton conceptualized communicator style as “the way one verbally and paraverbally interacts to signal how literal meaning should be taken, interpreted, filtered, or understood”. Dominant reflects a tendency to take charge in social situations. Dramatic refers to communicating in a way that highlights or understates content. Contentious represents communicating in a negative combative fashion. The underlying clusters, dimensions, and predictors of the communicator style construct were investigated in a series of studies. Participants are requested to assess their own communicator style by responding to 51 items using Likert scales that range horn strongly agree to strongly disagree. Norton provided evidence of content validity by specifying the domain of the communicator-style construct. The Communicator Style Measure (CSM) has generated considerable research in the communication discipline as well as in related fields. However, there are some conceptual and methodological issues that have arisen since the introduction of the CSM.
