Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons^™

Fathers' Trait Verbal Aggressiveness And Argumentativeness As Predictors Of Adult Sons' Perceptions Of Fathers' Sarcasm, Criticism, And Verbal Aggressiveness, Michael J. Beatty, James R. Zelley, Jean A. Dobos, Jill E. Rudd

Communication Faculty Publications

This research used Infante's (1987) conceptualization of trait verbal aggressiveness and argumentativeness to analyze adult males’ perceptions of their fathers’ messages. In the present study, fathers’ self‐reports of verbal aggressiveness and argumentativeness were used to predict their adult sons’ reports of fathers’ sarcasm, criticism, and global verbal aggressiveness. Results of multivariate regression analyses indicated that (1) fathers’ argumentativeness accounted for a significant percentage of variance in the dependent variable set but did not contribute significantly to the univariate equations and (2) fathers’ verbal aggressiveness explained a significant percentage of the multivariance and contributed significantly to each univariate equation. Overall, the …