Have you experienced:
- The person at home or at work that makes you feel like you are riding an emotional roller coaster. You know the one, he is friendly one day, but sulks and withdraws the next (and you, being the conscientious person you are, are wondering what you may have done to cause such behavior).
- Someone who might appear to agree―with enthusiasm―to your request. Rather than completing the task, however, he or she might express anger or resentment by missing deadlines, showing up late to meetings, making excuses, or even interfering with the task.
- Someone who pays you a “comp-insult” (a compliment and an insult in the same sentence). Something like, “Darling, you look fabulous in spite of your new hairstyle.”
- The ex-spouse who, knowing his ex-wife is allergic to cats, buys one for their child.
- The co-worker who engages in the crime of omission by choosing not to share a piece of key information that could or would have prevented a problem. For example, the jealous co-worker who fails to alert his colleague about a mandatory meeting and excuses it by saying something like, “I thought you knew.”
- The individual who have caused you to be so frustrated that after your interaction you scratch your head and ask, “Am I crazy?”
If you answered yes to experiencing any of the above scenarios, you may be interacting with a person engaging in passive aggressive behavior. If you see yourself as the purveyor of this type of chaos, you may be the one engaging in it.
The truth is that the passive-aggressive does not ride an emotional roller-coaster, although he or she may put you on one. When dealing with someone who engages in passive-aggressive behavior, you are dealing with a complex and fundamentally ambivalent creature.
At its root, passive-aggressive communication seeks to control the emotions of others, and in doing so, to control their behavior. Typically, this behavior style aims to express anger or negative emotions in an indirect manner so the individual is able to deny all responsibility, yet score a direct hit on their target.
Further complicating this behavior is the passive aggressive who merely wants to avoid conflict. In doing so, he or she instead engages in dishonesty.
Note: This is a popular behavior technique for the workplace bully. Passive-aggressive behavior is a great way to perform workplace sabotage. By the nature of their covert and justifiable acts, chronic insubordinates and covert troublemakers are professionals when it comes to frustrating colleagues and employers.
The best way to recognize passive-aggressive behavior is by analyzing the process and purpose of the behavior.
Here are the main reasons people engage in this type of behavior:
- To control and/or deflect responsibility for anger―causing frustration or anger in the recipient and will escalate conflict unless the recipient handles it passively by swallowing, ignoring, or discounting their anger.
- To escalate conflict―the passive-aggressive behavior is calculated to cause the recipient to act unreasonably.
- To avoid conflict―sometimes, the intent is not to hurt the other person. Instead, it is a way for an individual to avoid direct conflict. Why? Because he or she doesn’t know how to express his or her position with grace. In an attempt to be a “positive” person, he or she feels the need to avoid owning his or her negative emotions and instead stifles anger and avoids direct confrontation. The underlying belief is that life will be somehow worse if he or she is direct. This person is still somewhat trying to control the other person by controlling the his or her emotions. He or she doesn’t want the other person to feel bad, so he or she will try to refrain from any communication that may seem negative.
Let’s talk more about the malicious passive aggressive behavior. A common example is criticizing as if concerned, “You’ve put on so much weight! You might get diabetes or heart disease if you don’t ease up on the sweets.” Certainly, in the right context this could be an expression of concern. However, the right context doesn’t include making such a statement in front of others just as the individual is taking a bite of dessert. In this instance, if the comment is confronted, the person will often deny responsibility by stating something like, “I’m just concerned about you. Wow, are you sensitive!”
Passive-aggressive behavior shows itself in a multitude of ways. Although the best way to identify the behavior is that it succeeds in indirectly expressing negative emotions (inwardly or outwardly); the passive-aggressive individual does not have to take responsibility for the controlling behavior and angry or dishonest message. We can divide the behaviors into several common categories as described below.
You will see that these behaviors often overlap so more than one may occur in a situation.
- The Blame Game: The blamer can rephrase almost any comment to make it appear the recipient’s fault. “You should have known!” or “You’re too sensitive!” are common methods of blaming the victim. Sometimes it can be so extreme as to border on the ridiculous if it wasn’t so hurtful; for example, “You know not to ask me a question when I’m hungry. I wouldn’t have yelled at you if you wouldn’t have asked me a question.” This person deflects all attempts to communicate about problems by blaming the other person.
- Back-stabbing: This behavior often uses techniques such as hitting below the belt by using previously confided or sensitive information against the person or by communicating through someone else but with plausible deniability. This individual may seek validation by showing artificial concern.
- Controlling: This behavior seeks to control the individual in an indirect manner. For instance, a man who emotionally abuses his partner says,”No one could ever love you the way I do.” with the intended result being insecurity in the woman so that she won’t leave him.
- Denial: This type of passive-aggressive behavior occurs when the individual appears to be distressed, frustrated, bored, confused, or any number of emotions but when questioned refuses to admit to the feeling. They may outright deny or they may avoid by ignoring, working, or deflecting with humor. However, the behavior has the outcome of frustrating the recipient because they are unable to confront and resolve the problem. Thus, this individual is able to control the other by not engaging in conflict resolution when an obvious problem has occurred.
- Guilting: This behavior controls through using guilt either directly or indirectly to control the other.
- Revenge-Seeking: This behavior is calculated to try to hurt the other person without taking responsibility. An example of this is the “comp-insult.” The individual somehow is threatened by the other, whether real or imagined, and seeks revenge in an underhanded manner. By doing so, they can claim ignorance if confronted such as “I had no idea you would take it that way” or resort to blaming “You must be imagining that. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
- Sarcastic: Sarcastic passive-aggressive comments are the ultimate indirect form of aggression because they are calculated to avoid responsibility such as “You know I was just kidding.” Yet, they have the impact of controlling the other person’s emotions and potentially his or her thinking and behavior.
Many times the actual words that the passive-aggressive person uses may seem reasonable or even caring. Therefore, to determine passive-aggressive behavior, the context, the relationship, previous experiences with the individual, and the non-verbal communication needs to be considered. However, without even considering all of these factors, you usually know that you are the recipient of passive-aggressive behavior by your own emotional reaction. If you feel frustrated, deflated, or crazy as a result of an interaction, it probably was passive-aggressive.
How do you handle passive-aggressive behavior?
Although each situation may vary, there are some basic steps you can take when dealing with passive-aggressive behavior.
Identify the reward.
Determine what the passive-aggressive person achieves by engaging in the behavior. Do they get something they want? Do they make you feel bad? Do they discharge their anger on to you so they can feel better? Do they escalate conflict so they can make you look bad?
If you are engaging in passive-aggressive behavior, what is your reward?
Once you have identified the reward, how do you feel about what you are trying to achieve? What more honest and productive ways can you identify to move forward?
You may want to consider engaging in ways to develop the language to speak up respectfully and express your feelings with grace. Once you master the art of being clear and direct as to intentions, and accept the consequences of stating them (we can only control what we say, not how it is received), it will lead to more authentic communication and better relationships for you.
Refuse to provide the reward.
If you refuse to provide the reward, they are no longer in control of the interaction which tends to cause the situation to backfire on them.
If you determine that the individual is trying to escalate conflict, then you want to become even more calm almost to an extreme. The more calm you become, the more apparent and ridiculous their behavior will appear. Plus, you are not allowing them to get the reward of freely discharging their anger on to you. What I mean is that if you allow the situation to escalate, they will then engage in a full battle while blaming you for “starting” the argument.
Indirect Confrontation
If you directly confront the passive-aggressive person is likely to turn it against you. However, if you confront with “I” statements instead of “you” statements and remain very calm you may be able to reduce the behavior. You can do this by asking questions to clarify the situation. I call this “The Columbo” approach.” A great question to ask is, “Would you mind explaining? I’m not sure what you mean.” Or, in the case of the comp-insult, “Thank you for the compliment. However, I am not sure what you meant by ________. Would you mind explaining?”
Keep in mind, they do not like to take responsibility, and they are more likely to reduce the behavior if they know they will be confronted every time.
When you start responding to this behavior-pattern in which you’ve engaged with someone for an extended period-of-time, sometimes you may see it worsen. At times, this is because you are still learning how to deal with it and still need more practice. Other times it occurs because the person, in an effort to obtain his or her reward, will escalate the behavior. If you remain firm and consistent, eventually he or she will decrease in making attempts.
It will take time to learn to handle passive-aggressive people, however, it will be well worth the effort.
Again, if you, your first step is to ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing and take steps to change. The bottom-line is that most of us have engaged in passive-aggressive behavior at one time or another in our lives. Hell, maybe it has worked for us. However, to move from victim to victor, you must take personal responsibility for everything in your life. Own it all. State your position, whether it is perceived good or bad. Do it all with grace and love.
Authenticity is key!