Abstract: Complaining is pervasive and has become universal due to heavy pressure. However, complaining, which has negative energy, affects people negatively. In this study, the main participants of the interview are complainers in early adulthood (18-35 years), middle adulthood (35-60 years), and late adulthood (over 60 years). This study aimed at exploring the common characteristics of adult complaints in seven aspects including essence, content, motivation, object selection standard, expression form, result, and influencing factors. At the same time, this paper attempts to reveal the whole picture of complaining. Therefore, the current study may help to understand the characteristics of adult complaining under the background of Chinese culture. The semi-structured interview was applied to collect the data. 13 complainants and matched 26 complaining listeners were selected, according to the principle of purpose-oriented sampling (each complainant matched with 2 complaining listeners). A total of 39 interview records were collected. QSR Nvivo 10.0 qualitative analysis software was used for stepwise analysis, including open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. Three-level coding was adopted to summarize the common characteristics of adult complaining behaviors. At the end of this study, the participant test and non-participant test was used to test the validity of the study. The analysis revealed seven key issues: (1) In essence, a complaint is an act of expressing dissatisfaction and annoyance to a third person who is unrelated to the event when individual encounters events. This behavior is not problem-solving oriented, is full of negative characteristics, and is an indirect behavior. (2) In the content of the complaint, complaint behavior can be divided into academic complaint, family complaint, work complaint, natural and humanistic environment complaint, and social reality complaint. (3) In complaint motivation, it can be divided into internal and external motivation, the former includes venting emotions, responsibility-shirking, obtain support, attracting admiration and attention-grabbing; while the latter includes opening topic, bowing to the group, and comforting others. (4) When choosing a complaint listener, the complainer mainly considers whether he or she can give a sense of security to oneself or whether the other party has a certain sympathetic ability. (5) Complaining behavior is manifested in verbal and non-verbal behaviors. (6) Further, the complaint results are divided into two types: direct injury, includes Transmitting negative energy, dissolving relationships, affecting physical and mental health, maintaining or increasing negative emotions; and indirect benefit, includes Building alliances, providing information, and gaining psychological comfort. (7) The influencing factors of Complaint behavior can be divided into three aspects: individual, environmental and event-related factors. These factors don’t affect complaining alone, but act on complaining behavior comprehensively. Understanding the connotation and characteristics of Chinese adults' complaining behavior can provide a reference for the intervention activities to formulate complaining behavior. To clarify the nature and ultimate effect of complaining behavior is helpful for people to see the negative nature of complaining behavior and strengthen their confidence in correcting behavior. Clarifying the internal motivation and influencing factors of complaint behavior will be beneficial to formulate intervention strategies with a clear target and seek methods to reduce complaint behavior.

Key words: complaining behaviors, qualitative research, grounded theory

摘要： 为了解个体的抱怨行为特点，研究采用质性访谈法，分别对13位抱怨者和配对的26位倾听者进行半结构式访谈，并运用扎根理论分析程序对访谈资料进行三级编码。结果发现，抱怨行为在本质、内容、动机、对象选择、表现形式、效果以及影响因素七大方面具有一般特征；抱怨的本质是在情绪性动机或工具性动机驱使下产生的间接性行为，这些间接性行为可能会产生负能量，传递给第三者。研究从实证角度为抱怨的双重路径模型提供了证据支撑，同时也深化了对日常情景中的抱怨的认识。

关键词: 抱怨行为, 质化研究, 扎根理论