People do a lot of mean and nasty things to one another. Collectively, these behaviors are referred to as aversive interpersonal behaviors. To examine the structural elements of different aversive interpersonal behaviors and individual differences in perceptions of those behaviors, 96 male and 149 female students each wrote a victim narrative and a perpetrator narrative about one of seven aversive behaviors: betrayal, lying, improprieties, teasing, complaining, arrogance, and dependency. Significant victim/perpetrator differences were obtained, but, importantly, they were influenced by the particular aversive behavior being examined. Relative to perpetrators, victims perceived betrayal, lying, teasing, and arrogance more negatively. Victims and perpetrators did not differ in their evaluations of complaining and dependency. In addition, differences among victims and among perpetrators were obtained such that victims evaluated the behaviors of betrayal, lying, and arrogance as more aversive than the other behaviors. Perpetrators reported feeling more guilt when they had perpetrated a betrayal than when they had complained or engaged in excessive reassurance-seeking. Implications of these differences for relationships are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Andersson, L. M., & Pearson, C. M. (1999). Tit for tat? The spiraling effect of incivility in the workplace . Academy of Management Review, 24, 452–472 .
2.
Baumeister, R. F. (1994). Introduction to symposium . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 649–649 .
3.
Baumeister, R. F. (1997). Evil: Inside human violence and cruelty. New York: Freeman .
4.
Baumeister, R. F., & Newman, L. S. (1994). How stories make sense of personal experiences: Motives that shape autobiographical narratives . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 676–690 .
5.
Baumeister, R. F., Stillwell, A. M., & Wotman, S. R. (1990). Victim and perpetrator accounts of interpersonal conflict: Autobiographical narratives about anger . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 994–1005 .
6.
Baumeister, R. F., Wotman, S. R., & Stillwell, A. M. (1993). Unrequited love: On heartbreak, anger, guilt, scriptlessness, and humiliation . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 377–394 .
7.
Besag, V. (1989). Bullies and victims in school. Milton Keynes: Open University Press .
8.
Bolger, N., DeLongis, A., Kessler, R. C., & Schilling, E. A. (1989). Effects of daily stress on negative mood . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 808–818 .
9.
Cupach, W. R., & Spitzberg, B. H. (Eds.). (1994). The dark side of interpersonal communication. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum .
10.
Felson, R. B., & Tedeschi, J. T. (1993). Social interactionist perspectives on aggression and violence: An introduction. In R. B. Felson & J. T. Tedeschi (Eds.), Aggression and violence: Social interactionist perspectives(pp. 1–10). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
11.
Francis, M. E., & Pennebaker, J. W. (1994). LIWC: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Unpublished manuscript, Southern Methodist University.
12.
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. New York: Pantheon Books .
13.
Horowitz, L. (1986). The interpersonal basis of psychiatric symptoms . Clinical Psychology Review, 6, 443–469 .
14.
Jones, W. H., Moore, D. S., Schratter, A., & Negel, L. (2001). Interpersonal transgressions and betrayals. In R. M. Kowalski (Ed.), Behaving badly: Aversive behaviors in interpersonal relationships(pp. 233–256). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
15.
Katz, J., & Joiner, T. E., Jr. (2001). The aversive interpersonal context of depression: Emerging perspectives on depressotypic behavior. In R. M. Kowalski (Ed.), Behaving badly: Aversive behaviors in interpersonal relationships(pp. 117–147). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
16.
Kirk, R. E. (1982). Experimental procedures for the behavioral sciences(2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole .
17.
Kowalski, R. M. (Ed.). (1997a). Aversive interpersonal behaviors. New York: Plenum Press .
18.
Kowalski, R. M. (1997b). The underbelly of social interaction: Aversive interpersonal behaviors. In R. M. Kowalski (Ed.), Aversive interpersonal behaviors(pp. 1–9). New York: Plenum Press .
19.
Kowalski, R. M. (1998, June). Teasing and the self . Paper presented at the meeting of the International Nags Head Conference, Boca Raton, FL.
20.
Kowalski, R. M. (2000). ‘I was only kidding!’: Victims’ and perpetrators’ perceptions of teasing . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 231–241 .
21.
Kowalski, R. M. (Ed.). (2001a). Behaving badly: Aversive behaviors in interpersonal relationships. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
22.
Kowalski, R. M. (2001b). Aversive interpersonal behaviors: On being annoying, thoughtless, and mean. In R. M. Kowalski (Ed.), Behaving badly: Aversive behaviors in interpersonal relationships(pp. 3–26). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
23.
Kowalski, R. M. (2003). Interpersonal teasing. Manuscript submitted for publication.
24.
Kowalski, R. M., & Erickson, J. R. (1997). Complaining: What’s all the fuss about? In R. M. Kowalski (Ed.), Aversive interpersonal behaviors(pp. 91–110). New York: Plenum Press .
25.
Leary, M. R., Bednarski, R., Hammon, D., & Duncan, T. (1997). Blowhards, snobs, and narcissists: Interpersonal reactions to excessive egotism. In R. M. Kowalski (Ed.), Aversive interpersonal behaviors(pp. 111–131). New York: Plenum Press .
26.
Leary, M. R., & Springer, C. (2001). Hurt feelings: The neglected emotion. In R. M. Kowalski (Ed.), Behaving badly: Aversive behaviors in interpersonal relationships(pp. 151–176). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
27.
Leary, M. R., Springer, C., Negel, L., Ansell, E., & Evans, K. (1998). The causes, phenomenology, and consequences of hurt feelings . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1225–1237 .
28.
Mikula, G., Athenstaedt, U., Heschgl, S., & Heimgartner, A. (1998). Does it only depend on the point of view? Perspective-related differences in justice evaluations of negative incidents in personal relationships . European Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 931–962 .
29.
Miller, R. S. (1997). We always hurt the ones we love: Aversive interaction in close relationships. In R. M. Kowalski (Ed.), Aversive interpersonal behaviors(pp. 11–29). New York: Plenum Press .
30.
Miller, R. S. (2001). Breaches of propriety. In R. M. Kowalski (Ed.), Behaving badly: Aversive behaviors in interpersonal relationships(pp. 29–58). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
31.
Morrow, J., & Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (1990). Effects of responses to depression on the remediation of depressive affect . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 519–527 .
32.
Murray, S. L., & Holmes, J. G. (1994). Storytelling in close relationships: The construction of confidence . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 650–663 .
33.
Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (1987). Sex differences in unipolar depression: Evidence and theory . Psychological Bulletin, 101, 259–282 .
34.
Pennebaker, J. W., & Seagal, J. D. (1999). Forming a story: The health benefits of narrative . Journal of Clinical Psychology, 55, 1243–1254 .
35.
Petrie, K. J., Booth, R. J., & Pennebaker, J. (1998). The immunological effects of thought suppression . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 1264–1272 .
36.
Rook, K. S. (1998). Investigating the positive and negative sides of personal relationships: Through a lens darkly? In B. H. Spitzberg & W. R. Cupach (Eds.), The dark side of close erelationships(pp. 369–393). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum .
37.
Ross, D. M. (1996). Childhood bullying and teasing. Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association .
38.
Schuetz, A., & Baumeister, R. F. (1999). The language of defense: Linguistic patterns in narratives of transgression . Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 18, 269–286 .
39.
Spitzberg, B. H., & Cupach, W. R. (Eds.). (1998). The dark side of close relationships. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum .
40.
Tedeschi, J. T., & Felson, R. B. (1994). Violence, aggression, and coercive actions. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
41.
Vangelisti, A. L., & Young, S. L. (2000). When words hurt: The effects of perceived intentionality on interpersonal relationships . Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 17, 393–424 .
