Review of research on verbal aggression and aggressive forms of humor in educational contexts

This paper provides a review of selected research on verbal aggression and aggressive forms of humor that can be observed in educational settings. These include acts of verbal aggression committed in school and college classrooms by both students and teachers. This review focuses on the interpersonal model of verbal aggressiveness (Infante, Wigley, 1986), which is rarely used in psychology, as well as the typology of humor styles, with emphasis on the aggressive style of humor (Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, Weir, 2003). Another aim of this paper is to show that disparaging, hostile, and aggressive forms of humor can be considered a significant subtype of verbally aggressive behaviors and should be recognized as such in future studies concerning these behaviors (especially bullying). The final part of this paper provides several practical implications of the review, as well as suggestions for future research.