A rapidly expanding area of research on assertiveness concerns the reaction of others to assertive behaviors. The present study examined psychiatric aides' and college students' reactions to four different types of assertive behaviors. Subjects viewed videotapes of a psychiatric inpatient responding either assertively, assertively with extra consideration, aggressively, or passively to a psychiatric aide's request to get out of bed. Unexpectedly, psychiatric aides rated the patient more favorably than college students in the aggressive, and to a lesser degree, in the assertive scene. Blacks also differed from whites in their perceptions of assertive behaviors, rating the patient in the assertive and aggressive scenes more favorably than whites. Generalization issues and the clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
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