On the decision to be assertive

Examines the applicability of an expectancy/decision model to assertiveness in a nonclinical population of 111 college students. Assertiveness, defined as refusal to comply with an unreasonable request, has been researched extensively from the viewpoint of behavior theory, which prescribes anxiety reduction and skill acquisition for the training of assertive behaviors. However, little has been done to investigate the reasons why assertive behavior occurs in one situation and not in another. Results suggest that the Ss, irrespective of their scores on standard measures of assertiveness and of anxiety (Rathus Assertion Inventory and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Trait Scale), considered the consequences of being assertive when making a decision about how to behave. Moreover, it was found that the difference between Ss who chose an assertive response and those who did not lies in the formers' assessments of the probabilities that bad consequences will occur and good consequences will not rather than in their evaluations of how bad or how good those consequences would be. Results imply that training programs should take into account the participant's perceptions of the risks involved in being assertive and that the focus should be on changing these perceptions rather than on attempting to change his or her values or focusing solely on specific assertive behaviors. (22 ref)