An Inductively Derived Typology of Verbal Aggression and Its Association to Distress

Threats elicit distress in the form of negative affect. To examine how communication functions as a threat, this study developed a typology of verbal aggression and then examined its association to distress. To develop the typology, similarity data for 100 written aggressive messages were submitted to a hierarchical cluster analysis. The results revealed messages clustered into three broad domains of attack: group membership, personal failings, and relational failings. The typology demonstrated reliability, predictive validity, and content validity. In addition, a multidimensional scaling was conducted on an audiotaped subset of the 100 messages. The results revealed aggressive messages can be characterized along three dimensions (disposition, target, and force) that define the nature of an attack. These three dimensions elicited different emotional reactions in recipients and suggest nonverbals allow recipients to discriminate aggressive messages in terms of the tone and the force of an attack.