Student Antisocial Compliance-Gaining as a Function of Instructor Aggressive Communication and Classroom Justice

Abstract

This study investigated students’ perceptions of their instructors’ argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness, classroom justice, and effectiveness of and likelihood of communicating student antisocial behavior alteration techniques (BATs). Results indicate that student perceptions of instructor argumentativeness were not related to their perceptions of the effectiveness of or likelihood of communicating antisocial BATs, or to their perceptions of classroom justice. In contrast, student perceptions of instructor verbal aggressiveness were positively related to their perceptions of the effectiveness and likelihood of communicating virtually all the antisocial BATs and negatively related to all three types of fairness. Finally, classroom justice mediated the relationships between instructor verbal aggressiveness and antisocial BAT effectiveness and likelihood of use, but did not mediate the relationship between instructor argumentativeness and antisocial BATs.