Can Verbally Aggressive Messages in the Instructor-Student Relationship Be Constructive?.

How instructors communicate with their students impacts their students' instructional attitudes, motivations, and behaviors. Verbal aggression in the classroom often leads to negative instructional and relational outcomes (Infante, 1995; Myers, 2001; Myers & Knox, 2000; Myers & Rocca, 2001). This study investigated whether verbally aggressive messages in the instructor-student relationship could be constructive. Participants answered questions that included how instructors use verbally aggressive messages in the classroom, whether students could identify any positive outcomes from those verbally aggressive messages, and whether students communicating verbally aggressively with their instructors had ever led to positive outcomes. Findings confirm that some instructors use verbally aggressive messages regularly (while some instructors never use verbally aggressive messages). Students also report that the use of verbal aggression in the classroom, both by instructors and by students, have led to positive outcomes. ********** The instructor-student relationship is an interpersonal relationship. Providing evidence for this proposition, Frymier and Houser (2000) noted that this relationship has initiation stages as well as disengagement stages. They also stated that instructors and students both have communication goals and that their communication is focused on achieving those goals and avoiding conflict. Frymier and Houser did add however that this relationship is not one of equality; there is an inherent status differential between students and their instructors. Depending on their goals, students will differ in how they communicate with their instructors and their willingness in addressing their own needs and their instructors' needs (Sabee & Wilson, 2005). Additionally, how instructors communicate with their students on topics such as students taking ownership of their education and having students applying the material to their everyday lives impacts students' independence needs and relational needs (Kerssen-Griep, 2001). How instructors communicate with their students impacts their students' instructional attitudes, motivations, and behaviors. And we know that verbal aggression in the classroom often leads to negative instructional and relational outcomes (Myers, 2001; Myers & Knox, 2000; Myers & Rocca, 2001). But can verbally aggressive message in the instructor-student relationship be constructive? That is the question that was investigated in this study. Verbally aggressive messages are messages that are sent with the intent of hurting the receiver (Infante & Wigley, 1986). Some verbally aggressive messages attack the competence (e.g., you are a moron, you drive like my great-grandmother) or character (e.g., you are a slut, you are spineless) of another individual. Other verbally aggressive messages include physical appearance attacks (e.g., four-eyes, Unabrower) or background attacks (e.g., what do you expect from someone who received a degree from the University of Pittiful, she is from the wrong side of the tracks). Other verbally aggressive messages include teasing, swearing, maledictions, and nonverbal emblems (e.g., giving someone the middle finger). Giving someone the middle finger is considered to be a verbally aggressive message because nonverbal emblems have literal meanings for members of a culture. As Wigley (1998) noted, "There seems to be no shortage of ways to cause other people to feel badly about themselves (p. 192)." Research consistently suggests that being verbally aggressive in a relationship leads to negative relational outcomes (Infante, Myers, & Buerkel, 1994; Martin & Anderson, 1995a). In dating relationships, people are more like to end relationships when their partners are verbally aggressive (Venable & Martin, 1997). Anderson and Martin (1999) found that group members who reported a higher number of verbally aggressive messages in their groups also reported less group satisfaction and less cohesiveness to their groups. …