It ' s in Our Nature : Verbal Aggressiveness As Temperamental Expression I ? tJ

Over th£ past ten years, a substantial body of researchfocusing on verbal aggressiveness has acczlfIUllated. One major observation emerging from this literature is that some people are more disposed toward aggressive symbolic action than .. are others. Despite this considerable researdz effort, why individuals vary in their predispositions toward aggressive communication in interpersonal contexts is not well understood. Current speculation about th£ origin of verbally aggressive predispositions reflects a long standing paradigm whidz assigns importana to various learning prOC£5ses. However, communication sdzolars have ignored tire work of psydzobiologists that strongly points to inborn neurobiological bases for IUlman behavior and a trivial impact of environment. In this essay, we propose a tJreory of verbal aggressiveness supported by th£ work of psychobiologists as articulated in th£ temperament literature. We contend that verbal aggressiveness represents expressions of inborn, biological ftmctioning, whidz is anteC£dent to social experiena and, therefore, independent of social learning prOC£5ses. In formulating our position, we (1) delineate a lnetath£oretic rationale for a temperament-based model of verbal aggressiveness, (2) integrate neurologically-based temperament ftmctions into an explanation of researdz findings regarding verbal aggression, (3) present a working model of verbal aggression, and (4) discuss th£ implications of our th£oretical position.