Assertiveness and culture: differences between Italians and foreigners living in Italy
Martina Ceccarini, Paolo Andreani
Assertiveness is a highly competent and skilful dimension which could be influenced by specific factors such as sex, empathy, age, religion, socio-economic status, education and ethnicity. These individual characteristics could demonstrate the highly complex, situational specific nature of assertiveness and its social impact. The aim of this research is to investigate assertive behaviour comparing a sample of Italians and a sample of foreigners residing in Italy. The study, using the Gambrill and Richey Assertion Inventory (1975), examines assertiveness in 108 Italian citizens and 108 foreigners residing in Italy, recruited randomly from the city of Milan (Italy) and matched for age, gender, religion and level of schooling. Results show that for the global index, Cronbach's Alpha obtained a score of 0.77 for Distress experienced and a score of 0.76 for Probability of response. From the statistical analysis carried out with one-way ANOVA, it can be observed that there are significant differences in 6 out of 8 scales of the inventory. Overall, this research has shown that Italians appear to be more assertive than foreigners living in Italy, highlighting that the concept of assertiveness is related to level of social adaptation and cultural background.
Keywords
Assertiveness, Behaviour, Cultural differences, Social relations, Assertion Inventory.
