Abstract

This investigation explores the relationship between compassion, interpersonal communication apprehension, narcissism, and verbal aggressiveness in friendship relationships. First, it discusses the novel construct of compassion for others and its inverse relationship to constructs such as interpersonal communication apprehension, narcissism, and verbal aggressiveness in friendship communication. Second, it examines whether there are gender differences in compassion, interpersonal communication apprehension (CA), narcissism, and verbal aggressiveness. Participants were 613 undergraduate students who completed the Compassion Scale, PRCA-24, Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale, and the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale. Data were analyzed using Pearson Product-moment correlations to examine the associations among the variables of interest and Independent-sample t-tests to investigate sex differences. The results of this study revealed that compassion was inversely correlated with interpersonal CA, narcissism, and verbal aggressiveness. Sex differences were also found in compassion, interpersonal CA, and verbal aggressiveness.

Keywords: Compassion, Other-compassion, Interpersonal Communication Apprehension, Narcissism, Verbal Aggressiveness