Argumentative and Aggressive Communication

Theory, Research, and Application

Andrew Rancer, Theodore A. Avtgis

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781452279077
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Argumentative and Aggressive Communication: Theory, Research, and Application is the first text to describe the development, history, research, and application efforts on the communication traits of argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness. Authors Andrew S. Rancer and Theodore A. Avtgis include a collection of nine widely used reliable and valid instruments which the reader, the researcher, and the practitioner can use for diagnostic and research purposes.

PART I

The Structure and Origin of Argumentative and Aggressive Communication

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1

What Are Argumentative and Aggressive Communication?

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To say that conflict exists everywhere would be to state the obvious. Conflict occurs between all people and in all contexts. If you were to review your interactions with people you encounter from day to day, you can probably recall numerous instances in which your communication with them was marked by disagreement. That is, you and others seem to see the world in very different ways, and the positions you hold on various issues seemed to be divergent.

For example, you may recall conversations you had with friends, such as, “What is the best comedy program on television?” “Which major in college creates the greatest chance for getting a job after graduation?” “Who makes the best pizza in the city?” “Which brand of jeans is the most attractive?” or “Which current musical performer or group is the best?” One of your authors can recall arguments he had with friends many years ago about who were the better musical groups: the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, the Temptations or the Four Tops. The excitement felt when arguments were presented on a variety of such subjects, and the feelings of satisfaction experienced when he was able to win them over to his side are still palpable decades later. Although the issues, topics, and characters have changed, these types of arguments and the positive feelings about arguing continue today.

You may even consider arguing with friends and colleagues fun or a type of recreational activity that is a satisfying alternative to watching television or listening to the radio (Rancer, Baukus, & Infante, 1985; Rancer, Kosberg, & Baukus, 1992). In this context, arguing with someone is seen as stimulating, exciting, and exhilarating, and the outcomes produced by a good argument are deemed constructive and beneficial. These feelings of excitement, interest, and enjoyment may have led you to believe that arguing is a constructive activity and an effective and satisfying way to communicate with people.

As you review your interactions with parents, relational partners, supervisors, spouses, colleagues, children, and even strangers, another, less favorable view of arguing may also emerge. You can no doubt recall instances in which an argument was anything but fun and constructive. That is, the argument you were in might have led to feelings of anger, hurt, embarrassment, or humiliation and may have even led to damaging or the termination of the interpersonal relationship. Perhaps you can recall an example of an argument that became so destructive that it quickly turned to name calling and may have culminated with the individuals engaged in some form of physical aggression (e.g., shoving, pushing, hitting) or other forms of violence. Although hopefully less common, these situations may have led you to believe that arguing is something to be avoided at all costs, even if it means having to suppress your true feelings and yield to another person’s wishes. As such, you may have come to believe that arguing is a very destructive form of communication.

Examples of destructive communication behavior during conflict are often highlighted by stories in magazines, in newspapers, on radio, and on television. Political messages often contain these destructive forms of communication. For example, columnist George Will, writing about incivility, reported that during a congressional dispute, one member of Congress who was told to “shut up” retorted by calling his colleague a “wimp” and a “fruitcake” (Will, 2003). In the 1992 presidential campaign, President George H.W. Bush verbally attacked the competence of candidates Bill Clinton and Al Gore by stating, “My dog Millie knows more about foreign policy than these two Bozos” (Keen, 1996). Morning drive radio is peppered with attacks on people’s character, competence, and physical appearance. Nationally syndicated radio programs such as The Howard Stern Show contain numerous instances of this type of communication. The use of profanity in communication is more ubiquitous than ever. Profanity is pervasive in movies and cable television programs and was becoming more commonplace even on broadcast television programs before the recent crackdown by the Federal Communications Commission (Peterson, 2000).

Constructive communication has taken a marked downturn, even in contexts in which officials and rules are supposed to prevail. According to reports in the media, if you watch children play organized sports you are likely to observe parents shouting at coaches, referees, and other players. Headlines such as “Father accused of biting son’s coach” (2001) and “Hockey death no surprise to sports observers” (Bayles, 2000) have emerged in the past several years. This latter article describes the tragic outcome of a conflict between two parents attending their children’s hockey scrimmage at an ice rink in Reading, Massachusetts, in July 2000. After exchanging hostile words over a physical altercation between their children, one of the parents became enraged and physically attacked the other and “beat him into a coma, witnesses said” (Bayles, p. 3A). The man who was attacked later died from those injuries.

Even the workplace is not immune from these forms of aggressive behavior. A new phenomenon is emerging and is being compared with road rage, the type of aggression experienced when driving: “a significant portion of the U.S. work force is suffering everything from uncomfortable and distracting incivilities to stress-induced attacks on trash cans, keyboards and even co-workers, all expressions of what one survey called ‘desk rage’” (Girion, 2000, p. W1). The frequency of gossip, hostile e-mail messages, snide comments, and even physical aggression between managers and subordinates and between workplace colleagues has reportedly increased in recent years.

You may have even experienced some conflict today. Consider the following examples: As you got ready to prepare to go to class this morning, both you and your roommate may have wanted to use the bathroom at the same time. With only one bathroom in the apartment, this was impossible and an argument erupted about who should use it first. In a fit of frustration, your roommate says that it was probably a mistake for the two of you to live together and accuses you of being spoiled.

Later in the day, you call your mother and ask if you can borrow some money to repair your car. During the conversation, you and your mom get into it when she states that you lack control and spend your money recklessly. In your communication research class, the instructor hands back the results of the exam you took the other day. You receive a grade of C- and feel that you were graded unfairly. You follow the professor back to her office and argue that several of the questions were ambiguous and irrelevant to the chapters covered on the test. The professor decides not to yield to your challenge, and your grade of C- stands.

Later on, you open your cell phone bill and find roaming charges for calls that you understood to be unrestricted and part of the plan you signed up for. You call customer service and argue about exactly what is and what is not covered on your “unlimited” plan.

Looking forward to some evening relaxation, you and your significant other discuss where you will go out to eat for dinner. You want Chinese food; your partner wants Italian. An argument erupts when your partner calls you selfish and stubborn because you do not see the merits of Italian over Chinese food. These scenarios represent a few of the situations in which conflict may have emerged in your daily life. Of course, these are but a few of the many forms of conflict communication, but the latter examples typify verbal aggressiveness.

The Genesis of the Theory of Argumentative and Aggressive Communication

In 1978, one of the authors was a doctoral student in communication studies at Kent State University. He and his professor, Dominic Infante, were interested in developing a measure of interpersonal communication competence and were discussing what constitutes a competent interpersonal communicator. After a rather exhaustive review of literature, they identified a number of factors research had indicated might be associated with interpersonal communication competence. Among those factors identified were openness and self-disclosure, listening, feedback, supportive communication, empathy, trust, and perspective-taking ability. The list, however, seemed to contain only those factors that might come into play during interpersonal communication in which agreement and interpersonal bonding was the goal. In examining this list of interpersonal communication competence behaviors, they noted the absence of behaviors that deal with communication during interpersonal conflict, communication behaviors that are considered argumentative and aggressive in nature.

Much interpersonal communication takes place when individuals disagree with each other about important relationship issues or when individuals espouse significantly different positions on issues they feel are important to the relationship. After all, almost everyone has held a position contrary to their partner on an important (and sometimes unimportant) relationship issue. As a former intercollegiate debater and debate coach, as well as a student and scholar trained in argumentation, Infante suggested that it might be profitable to explore the influence of personality when people hold different positions on controversial issues. He observed that people seem to differ in their desire and motivation to engage in argumentative behavior. Some people may be seen as incessant arguers, who enjoy engaging in an argument with others no matter who they are arguing with or what the topic of the argument is. Some of these highly argumentative types even talk back to their radio when they disagree with what is being said on one of the many national and local talk radio programs.

It is also apparent that many other individuals rarely voice their position at all on controversial issues. Such people appear to avoid arguing with others, even when they are passionate about an issue and despite the fact that it would be in their best interests to do so. For still others, the tendency to argue seems to be influenced by factors in the situation; that is, they either increase or dampen their desire to argue depending upon who they are arguing with, what they are arguing about, and the situation or context in which the argument takes place. It was clear, however, that people seem to differ in their underlying motivation to engage in argumentative communication and thus a systematic program designed to study aggressive communication started. We began by defining aggressive communication and then developed a conceptualization and measure of one form of aggressive communication, argumentativeness. In so doing, we made sure to distinguish argumentativeness from another form of aggressive communication, verbal aggressiveness. A few years later, Infante and Wigley (1986) developed a more complete conceptualization and measure of verbal aggressiveness.

Purpose of This Book

It is the purpose of this book to review the journey that has been taken toward the development of what is called the theory of argumentative and aggressive communication. Hopefully by the end of this journey, you will better understand the differences between constructive and destructive communication exhibited when conflict exists or when people disagree with each other. As communication scientists, we believe that the most important “way of knowing” comes about as the result of “the activities of scholars committed to a scientific approach to generating answers to questions” (Beatty, 1996, p. 37). In this book we will identify a number of questions that have been raised about communication during disagreement, and through reviewing and synthesizing this body of research, we will attempt to provide some answers to those questions.

Several years ago, Infante and Rancer (1996) reached a number of conclusions about argumentative and aggressive communication based on the research available at that time. In this book, we will update many of those conclusions and attempt to articulate new ones as well. In summarizing that research over a decade ago, Infante and Rancer presented “the rather unequivocal conclusion that the effects of argumentativeness are constructive and those of verbal aggressiveness are destructive” (p. 345). We believe this conclusion is further strengthened by an examination of the studies reported here.

Part I will begin by defining the structure and origin of argumentative and aggressive communication. We will first present a conceptualization of argumentative and aggressive communication as they are situated within the cluster of other communication and personality traits. This section will also review the major approaches to studying argumentative and aggressive communication and present the issues related to the measurement of these predispositions. In Part II we will present a rather thorough review of how the argumentative and aggressive communication traits function in a variety of communication contexts. A plethora of research has been conducted over the past 25-plus years on the influence of argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness in the relational and family context, in the organizational context, in the instructional context, in the intercultural context, in mediated contexts, and in persuasion and social influence situations. Much of that research will be discussed in this section of the book. Part III of the book will present suggestions based on this corpus of research regarding how one could modify these traits to enhance the chances of more effective and satisfying outcomes of communication encounters. This part of the book will also describe how knowledge and understanding of these traits has been, and can be, employed to try and overcome social and personal problems dealing with communication during conflict. The book will conclude with suggestions for future directions for research and theory-building efforts offered by some of the most noteworthy scholars in argumentative and aggressive communication.

The Importance of Communication Traits

If you were to search the literature in the communication discipline for the past 35 years, you would discover that communication traits and predispositions have occupied a central place. A large percentage of research and theory building activity has been directed at (a) identifying a cluster of communication traits, (b) understanding how these traits and predispositions emerge, and (c) determining how these traits influence our actual communication behavior in several communication contexts. Communication trait researchers believe that a better understanding of other people can be obtained by knowing the traits an individual possesses. By examining communication traits, scholars hope to identify ways in which individuals might be able to enjoy more favorable communicative outcomes in their lives. More specifically, these situations range from teaching argumentative skills to children and adults in an effort to de-escalate a volatile situation to helping employees interact with a difficult boss. The chapters throughout this book will highlight these and many other important communication goals.

Your exposure to traits probably goes back to your early experiences in school. You may recall that you, or someone you knew, was described as possessing a given personality trait. Shyness, friendliness, talkativeness, and assertiveness, for example, were potential traits ascribed to you or your friends by others. It is not difficult to conjure up images of individuals we know whose communication behavior is defined by those traits. One of the authors, in the second grade, was described as a troublemaker. You can probably imagine, without too much effort, the cluster of cross-situational behaviors that give the impression of a troublemaker.

The concept of a trait originated in personality theory. Psychologist Guilford (1959) defined a trait as “any distinguishable, relatively enduring way in which one individual differs from others” (p. 6). Another psychologist, Mischel (1968), suggested “a [personality] trait is a construction or abstraction to account for enduring behavioral consistencies and differences” (pp. 4–5).

Communication scholars Daly and Bippus (1998) suggest that communication and personality traits differ along several dimensions. For example, some traits are broad such as locus of control (i.e., the way in which people see their actions in relation to life’s outcomes), whereas others are more narrowly focused such as communication apprehension (i.e., the fear associated with either real or anticipated communication with other people). Some traits highlight social characteristics such as shyness (i.e., the tendency to talk less than the typical person) while other traits are focused more on an individual’s cognitive orientation such as dogmatism (i.e., closed-mindedness or the tendency to ignore the belief systems of other people that deviate from their own). Some traits are part of a larger conceptual framework or fit into a larger supertrait (e.g., Costa & McCrae’s [1980] five factor model of personality; Eysenck & Eysenck’s [1985] three dimensions of personality), whereas other traits stand alone (e.g., communicator style). Some traits are measured primarily as responses to questionnaires, whereas other traits are measured by observing a person’s behavior (e.g., disclosiveness) (Daly & Bippus).

Regardless of how traits differ, the underlying assumption among communication trait theorists is that people differ from each other because of the different clusters of traits or predispositions that they possess. That is, trait theorists believe there is a great deal of variation in the way individuals interact with each other and respond to situational factors. The way a person responds, trait theorists believe, is primarily controlled by this cluster of traits. Scholars who adhere to the trait perspective of behavior suggest that individuals will most often respond to different situations with similar behavioral and interactional patterns (Nicotera, 1993, 1994; Rancer & Nicotera, in press).

That is not to say that situational influences do not have any impact on the way a person will respond communicatively in a given situation. The specific characteristics of each situation do impact somewhat the behavior of an individual. For example, consider Bob, who is absolutely terrified to speak at an interpersonal level. Let us also assume that in the past week Bob has experienced a great degree of loneliness. The loneliness (in this case a situational factor) will influence Bob’s communication apprehension. Bob may want to be free from apprehension and appear interpersonally savvy. In this case, Bob’s need to reduce the feelings of loneliness (a temporary state) serves to subdue his tendency for being apprehensive (an enduring trait). Some scholars believe that situational factors are more important in predicting an individ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I: The Structure and Origin of Argumentative and Aggressive Communication
• Part II: The Function of Argumentative and Aggressive Communication
• Part III: Enhancing Communicative Outcomes Through Improved Understanding of Argumentative and Aggressive Communication Processes
• Appendix A: The Argumentativeness and Verbal Aggressiveness Scales
• Appendix B: The Adolescent Argumentativeness and Adolescent Verbal Aggressiveness Scales
• Appendix C: Short-Form Versions of the Argumentativeness and Verbal Aggressiveness Scales
• Appendix D: The Affective-Behavioral-Cognitive Scale (ABCAS)
• Appendix E: The Indirect Interpersonal Aggressiveness Scale
• Appendix F: The Beliefs About Arguing Measure
• Appendix G: Additional Resources on Argumentative and Aggressive Communication
• References
• Index
• About the Authors