Interpersonal Communication- A Mindful Approach to Relationships, 2020a

Starting in the mid-1980s, Dominic Infante and Charles Wigley defined as “the
tendency to attack the self-concept of individuals instead of, or in addition to, their positions on topics
of communication.” 80 Notice that this definition specifically is focused on the attacking of someone’s
self-concept or an individual’s attitudes, opinions, and cognitions about one’s competence, character,
strengths, and weaknesses. For example, if someone perceives themself as a good worker, then a verbally
aggressive attack would demean that person’s quality of work or their ability to do future quality work.
In a study conducted by Terry Kinney, 81 he found that self-concept attacks happen on three basic fronts:
group membership (e.g., “Your whole division is a bunch of idiots!”), personal failings (e.g., “No wonder
you keep getting passed up for a promotion!”), and relational failings (e.g., “No wonder your spouse left
you!”).
Now that we’ve discussed what verbal aggression is, we should delineate verbal aggression from
another closely related term, argumentativeness. According to Dominic Infante and Andrew Rancer,
is a communication trait that “predisposes the individual in communication
situations to advocate positions on controversial issues, and to attacking verbally the positions which
other people take on these issues.” 82 You’ll notice that argumentativeness occurs when an individual
attacks another’s positions on various issues; whereas, verbal aggression occurs when an individual attacks
someone’s self-concept instead of attack another’s positions. Argumentativeness is seen as a constructive
communication trait, while verbal aggression is a destructive communication trait.
Individuals who are highly verbally aggressive are not liked by those around them. 83 Researchers have
seen this pattern of results across different relationship types. Highly verbally aggressive individuals tend
to justify their verbal aggression in interpersonal relationships regardless of the relational stage (new vs.
long-term relationship). 84 In an interesting study conducted by Beth Semic and Daniel Canary, the two
set out to watch interpersonal interactions and the types of arguments formed during those interactions
based on individuals’ verbal aggressiveness and argumentativeness. 85 The researchers had friendshipdyads
come into the lab and were asked to talk about two different topics. The researchers found that
highly argumentative individuals did not differ in the number of arguments they made when compared to
their low argumentative counterparts. However, highly verbally aggressive individuals provided far fewer
arguments when compared to their less verbally aggressive counterparts. Although this study did not find
that highly argumentative people provided more (or better) arguments, highly verbally aggressive people
provided fewer actual arguments when they disagreed with another person. Overall, verbal aggression
and argumentativeness have been shown to impact several different interpersonal relationships, so we will
periodically revisit these concepts throughout the book.
In the mid to late 1970s, Sandra Bem began examining psychological gender orientation. 86 In her theorizing
of psychological gender, Bem measured two constructs, masculinity and femininity, using a scale she
created called the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI–http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/bsri.html). Her measure
was designed to evaluate an individual’s femininity or masculinity. Bem defined masculinity as individuals
exhibiting perceptions and traits typically associated with males, and femininity as individuals exhibiting
perceptions and traits usually associated with females. Individuals who adhered to both their biological
sex and their corresponding psychological gender (masculine males, feminine females) were considered
sex-typed. Individuals who differed between their biological sex and their corresponding psychological
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