Chapter 10 Further Reading

The following twelve sources are annotated for students who want to go deeper into the theory, research, and practice covered in this chapter. Sources are grouped by focus area.

Foundational Texts on Assertiveness

1. Smith, Manuel J. (1975). When I Say No, I Feel Guilty. Bantam Books.

The foundational popular text on assertiveness, and still the most thorough treatment of the "permission problem" — the implicit beliefs that prevent people from claiming their right to express themselves. Smith introduced the concept of assertive rights, the broken record technique, and the idea that guilt is used as social control to suppress assertive expression. The writing is direct and occasionally blunt. The behavioral techniques he provides have been replicated, refined, and extended by decades of subsequent work, but his core insight — that non-assertiveness is a belief problem before it is a skill problem — remains central to the field. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the roots of contemporary assertiveness training.

2. Paterson, Randy J. (2000). The Assertiveness Workbook: How to Express Your Ideas and Stand Up for Yourself at Work and in Relationships. New Harbinger Publications.

The most practically comprehensive contemporary workbook on assertiveness. Paterson draws on cognitive-behavioral therapy to address both the belief layer (identifying and revising anti-assertiveness cognitions) and the skill layer (communication techniques, graduated practice, physical assertiveness). The workbook format makes it genuinely usable — not just readable. Particularly strong on the relationship between self-esteem and assertiveness, and on the common experience of going "too far" when you first start being assertive (the overcorrection problem). Appropriate for both individual self-help and classroom use.

3. Alberti, Robert E., & Emmons, Michael L. (2017). Your Perfect Right: Assertiveness and Equality in Your Life and Relationships (10th ed.). New Harbinger Publications.

The text that, alongside Smith's, launched the assertiveness training movement in the 1970s — now in a thoroughly updated 10th edition. Alberti and Emmons provide a broader social justice framing than Smith, explicitly addressing assertiveness in the context of social inequality and systemic power. They distinguish clearly between assertiveness, aggression, and submissiveness; provide detailed behavioral guidance; and address the cultural and gender dimensions that the first edition largely ignored. The 10th edition represents fifty years of learning about what assertiveness actually means in practice. Highly recommended as a companion to this chapter.

Gender and Assertiveness

4. Eagly, Alice H., & Karau, Steven J. (2002). "Role Congruity Theory of Prejudice Toward Female Leaders." Psychological Review, 109(3), 573–598.

The foundational theoretical paper for understanding the communal-agentic double bind. Eagly and Karau propose that prejudice toward female leaders arises from the perceived incongruity between the female gender role (communal) and leadership roles (agentic). The paper synthesizes a large body of experimental and organizational research and provides a theoretical architecture that has organized subsequent work in this area. Technically dense in places but accessible to motivated undergraduates. Essential for anyone who wants to understand the structural basis of why assertiveness costs more for some people than others.

5. Heilman, Madeline E., & Okimoto, Tyler G. (2007). "Why Are Women Penalized for Success at Male Tasks? The Implied Communality Deficit." Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(1), 81–92.

This experimental study directly investigates the mechanism of backlash against successful women. Heilman and Okimoto show that the penalty arises from a perceived "communality deficit" — women who succeed in agentic roles are assumed to lack warmth and cooperativeness — and that this deficit drives the likeability penalty. Crucially, they also show that when women are described as having communal characteristics (warmth, team-orientation) in addition to their success, the penalty is substantially reduced. This finding is both practically useful and disturbing: it suggests the penalty can be mitigated, but only by requiring women to perform communality alongside competence — a burden not applied to men.

6. Rudman, Laurie A., & Glick, Peter. (2001). "Prescriptive Gender Stereotypes and Backlash Toward Agentic Women." Journal of Social Issues, 57(4), 743–762.

Rudman and Glick's research on the "backlash effect" — the social and professional penalties women face for self-promoting, assertive behavior in hiring contexts — is among the most cited work on this topic. Their key finding, that assertive women were rated as more competent but less hireable than modest women, illustrates the specific mechanism by which the double bind operates: competence and likability trade off for women in ways they do not for men. This paper is readable, clearly structured, and provides concrete data rather than anecdote. Recommended for students who want to understand the empirical basis for the claims in Section 10.5.

Cultural Dimensions of Assertiveness

7. Ting-Toomey, Stella. (2005). "The Matrix of Face: An Updated Face-Negotiation Theory." In W. B. Gudykunst (Ed.), Theorizing About Intercultural Communication. Sage Publications.

Ting-Toomey's face-negotiation theory is the most comprehensive framework available for understanding how cultural differences in "face" concern shape communication behavior, including assertiveness. This updated chapter-length statement of the theory explains the distinctions between self-face, other-face, and mutual-face concerns; situates these in individualist and collectivist cultural contexts; and provides extensive research citations supporting the framework. Indispensable for understanding why the "just be direct" model of assertiveness is culturally limited and how to think about adaptation without abandonment.

8. Hofstede, Geert, Hofstede, Gert Jan, & Minkov, Michael. (2010). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Hofstede's foundational work on cultural dimensions — including individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term vs. short-term orientation — provides the empirical and theoretical bedrock for cross-cultural communication analysis. The third edition includes updated data from over 90 countries and significantly expanded treatment of gender dimensions in cultural context. Not specifically about assertiveness, but essential background for understanding why cultural context shapes communication behavior so profoundly. The sections on individualism-collectivism and masculinity-femininity dimensions are most directly relevant to this chapter.

Practical Communication Techniques

9. McKay, Matthew, Davis, Martha, & Fanning, Patrick. (2009). Messages: The Communication Skills Book (3rd ed.). New Harbinger Publications.

A comprehensive, practical guide to interpersonal communication that devotes substantial attention to assertiveness within a broader communication framework. The assertiveness chapters complement this textbook particularly well because they situate the skill in the full context of listening, conflict resolution, and emotional communication. McKay and colleagues provide extensive script examples, graduated practice exercises, and clear explanations of the cognitive-behavioral mechanics underlying communication change. Written for a general audience; accessible and immediately applicable.

10. Linehan, Marcia M. (2015). DBT Skills Training Manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy's DEARMAN and FAST skills — developed specifically for interpersonal effectiveness — represent one of the most rigorously tested frameworks for assertive communication in clinical settings. DEARMAN (Describe, Express, Assert, Reinforce, stay Mindful, Appear confident, Negotiate) is a detailed elaboration of the same basic architecture as the DESC script, extended for high-difficulty contexts. FAST (Fair, no Apologies, Stick to values, Truthful) addresses the self-respect dimension of assertiveness. For students who want to go deeper into the behavioral science behind assertiveness communication, especially in emotionally charged situations, this is the most research-grounded resource available.

Broader Context: Power, Identity, and Assertiveness

11. Livingston, Robert W., Rosette, Ashleigh Shelby, & Washington, Ella F. (2012). "Can an Agentic Black Woman Get Ahead? The Impact of Race and Interpersonal Dominance on Perceptions of Female Leaders." Psychological Science, 23(4), 354–358.

This important study extends the gender double bind analysis to include race, showing that Black women face a compounded version of the assertiveness penalty compared to white women. Black women who display dominant, agentic behavior are penalized more severely on both warmth and competence dimensions than white women displaying the same behaviors. The paper is relatively short and accessible, and its implications for how we teach assertiveness — particularly in diverse educational contexts — are significant. Any honest treatment of the gender double bind should be read alongside this work.

12. Meyerson, Debra E., & Scully, Maureen A. (1995). "Tempered Radicalism and the Politics of Ambivalence and Change." Organization Science, 6(5), 585–600.

Meyerson and Scully's concept of the "tempered radical" — someone who pursues change within institutions by working strategically within their norms while holding firm to core values — provides a sophisticated framework for thinking about assertiveness in contexts where direct expression carries high costs. The tempered radical does not abandon assertiveness but adapts its expression to what the context can receive, while maintaining clear internal commitments to the underlying goals. This framework is particularly useful for women, people of color, and others navigating double binds between authentic self-expression and institutional survival. More theoretically oriented than the other sources, but rich in practical implication.

These sources are available through most university library systems. For students without library access, many of the journal articles can be found through Google Scholar, and most of the books are available as e-books or audiobooks through public library systems.