Verbal aggressiveness involves communicating in a destructive way by attacking another person’s self-concept and causing psychological pain. This kind of communication can occur in many settings, from a one-on-one argument to a full-blown war between nations. Individuals predisposed to this type of aggression typically lack basic argumentative skills, so they attack instead. Verbal abuse can be very harmful to the victim, and it often escalates over time unless someone intervenes or the offending party is punished.
Verbally aggressive people tend to use threatening, hurtful and manipulative language to gain control over others. They might threaten to physically harm someone or say something that would cause them to lose their job or other important aspect of their lives. Threats might be made in a tone that sounds angry or sarcastic, or they might include shaming and other insults. Another common form of verbal aggression is withholding, or simply refusing to communicate. This might involve giving the silent treatment, ignoring someone or even leaving them alone in the same room.
Various studies have found that verbal aggression is associated with lower levels of relational satisfaction and a less positive perception of supervisors in the workplace. It also can lead to higher levels of stress and anxiety, which in turn affects the health of the victims. It is also associated with greater difficulty maintaining close personal relationships. It is a key reason why individuals who engage in verbally aggressive behavior need to be placed on anti-aggression programs.
Some researchers have argued that aggressive behaviors are the result of biologically-based differences in how people perceive threats and respond to them. Other scholars have viewed verbal aggressiveness examples as a learned response to specific situations. For example, individuals who were abused as children may unconsciously develop a pattern of verbally aggressive communication to deal with their emotional trauma. This can be passed on to their offspring, who are more likely to become abusive themselves.
A third line of theoretical reasoning is that verbal aggressiveness is determined by the social situation in which it occurs. For example, customers might display customer verbal aggression through incivility towards employees working at a restaurant or retail store. This can negatively impact the company’s competitive status and damage employee morale.
As a consequence of these theories, some scholars have recommended the development of a verbal aggressiveness scale. Infante and Wigley created a measure of this trait by developing a set of items that could be used to determine an individual’s tendency to attack the self-concept of an opponent rather than simply their position on a topic.
However, the results of these tests were inconclusive. Infante and Wigley noted that two dimensions emerged in their data, but it is not clear whether this was because the positive and negative wording of the items was distinct or because these two different factors were measuring something else entirely. More recent research has attempted to reassess the dimensionality of the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale. Some studies suggest that a single factor may account for all of the observed behaviors.