The article is pretty much spot on - to the average American we must come off very reticent.. I'd say one problem with our consensus culture is that since Swedes aren't expected to say much, it can be hard to tell if a Swede's silence means they're in a bad mood or if it's simply because there's nothing new to talk about. This gets worse (or better!) the further up north and off the coast you are, since people there tend to mince even fewer words. We even have a sort of "inward yes" in the north whose meaning is something like "yes", "I understand" or "I hear what you're saying but I don't want to interrupt you but I also know you don't like being the only one to talk" (approximate example ). Amusingly, most Finns I've talked to view Swedes as downright open and continental compared to the average Finn.