Combien de types de comportements interpersonnels ?

Interpersonal behaviors constitute a key area of human functioning and are thus frequently evaluated. Different conceptual models are implied by the various questionnaires designed to assess interpersonal behavior: some oppose assertive and passive behaviors, other are based on the demonstrated independence between assertive and aggressive behaviors. We propose a model that integrates manipulative behaviors and postulates that the four types of behaviors mentioned above are independent. With a sample of 162 psychiatric patients suffering from assertiveness deficits, we used a questionnaire measuring assertive, passive, aggressive and manipulative behaviors to compare these three types of models with confirmatory factor analysis. The best fit to the observed data was obtained with the model representing these four types of behaviors as independent, highlighting the importance of taking these four aspects into account when evaluating interpersonal behaviors.