Characteristics of Passive Aggressive Behavior

Sometimes "yes" doesn't always mean "yes." If you've ever reluctantly agreed to help a friend move and arrived late out of spite, you've displayed passive-aggressive behavior. Expressing your frustration or displeasure indirectly instead of stating how you feel may enable you to get your point across, but there is often a cost.

Features

• Passive-aggressive behavior is marked by a desire to avoid conflict and keep relationships running smoothly, even if that means ignoring your own feelings and needs. In time, however, resentment and anger can seep out through procrastination, memory lapses, complaining, stubbornness, sarcasm and inefficiency. These characteristics do not qualify as an actual mental illness according to Daniel K. Hall-Flavin, a Mayo Clinic psychiatrist, but he notes that researchers are attempting to determine how to classify such habitual and problematic patterns of behavior.

Origins

• The seeds of passive-aggressive behavior are planted in our childhood, asserts Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D., in "Afraid to Rage: The Origins of Passive-Aggressive Behavior." If you received the message that your wants and needs were burdensome, unwelcome or simply inconvenient, you may have learned to suppress them out of a desire to avoid risking punishment or disapproval. Stating how you feel or asserting yourself can produce a great deal of anxiety, and it may be easier in the short run to appear cooperative and compliant, even if how you truly feel is anything but.

Effects

• If you consistently find subtle ways to sabotage plans or agreements when your heart isn't in them, you may be sending the message that you are irresponsible, manipulative or deceitful. Paradoxically, the passive-aggressive strategies that are employed to maintain relationships and avoid conflict can push people away and result in bigger confrontations than would have occurred if issues were addressed directly from the beginning. Being assertive, or stating your views calmly, respectfully and honestly, may be increasingly difficult over time if you routinely resort to unhealthy strategies for expressing yourself.

Misconceptions

• In "Living with the Passive-Aggressive Man," Scott Wetzler, Ph.D., notes that people sometimes mistakenly assume that passive-aggressiveness means alternating between being passive and being aggressive. This is not the case. A passive-aggressive person is expressing true aggression and hostility but in an indirect way that might not be easy to identify initially. Whoever is on the receiving end of such behavior is hearing a mixed message: You want to please me and hurt me at the same time.

Prevention/Solution

• In order to break the pattern of passive-aggressiveness, practice stating what you need and how you feel directly. Remember that it's OK to say "no" to requests and that it is not your job to please everyone and keep everybody happy. Address issues that are bothering you as soon as you identify them; do not give irritation or resentment an opportunity to fester. Seltzer encourages us to develop compassion and empathy for others. Being on the receiving end of such unpleasant behavior may be a healthy reminder not to engage in such actions ourselves.