Content

• Steps
• Part 1 of 4: How to Identify Passive Aggression
• Part 2 of 4: How to Reduce Passive-Aggressive Bias
• Part 3 of 4: How to Develop Healthy Emotional Habits
• Part 4 of 4: How to get the help you need
• Tips

The term "passive aggression" was first used after World War II to describe the behavior of soldiers who expressed subtle insubordination. Passive-aggressive behavior carries in itself indirect opposition to superiors or indirect dissatisfaction with a person. Passive-aggressive people usually try to avoid conflict. Destructive passive-aggressive behavior can go unnoticed, as the person masks frustration with superficial courtesy. After a while, your inner anger will reach a boiling point and splash out. Learn to notice and correct your passive-aggressive tendencies in order to bring about positive change, build a happy career, and lead a healthy social life.

Steps

Part 1 of 4: How to Identify Passive Aggression

1. 1 Keep a behavior journal. The diary allows you to describe, evaluate and correct your own behavior. It can help you identify triggers for this behavior and openly consider your reactions, as well as ponder how you should react in the future.
2. 2 Explore the stages of passive-aggressive conflict. A person with passive-aggressive tendencies may develop a passive-aggressive style of behavior in conflicts.
   • First stage the cycle of passive-aggressive conflict is the development of passive-aggressive behavior. People live and form in society, so it is generally accepted that open anger is dangerous and unacceptable. As a result, a person masks his angry outbursts in passive aggression.
   • Second phase the cycle of passive-aggressive conflict is a stressful situation that provokes irrational thoughts based on previous life experience.
     • For example, if a teacher asks a student to distribute work materials, and the student has encountered situations in the past where he was asked to complete an assignment and did not appreciate such assistance, then he may extrapolate past experience to the current situation. Instead of a feeling of respect, he will see in the request an echo of the past and will be offended, since the request provoked a “conditioned” reaction.
   • Stage Three occurs at the moment when a passive-aggressive person denies his anger, as a result of which negative feelings and resentment are projected onto other people.
   • Fourth stage the cycle is passive-aggressive behavior itself. It includes (the list is incomplete): denial of feelings of anger, isolation, gloom, resentment, procrastination, inept or unacceptable task performance, hidden attempts at revenge.
   • Heel stage cycles are the reactions of others. As a rule, people react negatively to passive aggression, which is usually what the aggressor wants. As a result, this reaction intensifies passive-aggressive behavior and the cycle repeats.
3. 3 Identify incidents of passive aggression. The number of examples of your passive-aggressive behavior can be discouraging, so pick three or four times you have noticed passive aggression.
   • For example, passive aggression is common in the workplace. There are four specific examples that are specific to the work setting: temporary agreement, deliberate inefficiency, aggravating the problem, and covert but deliberate revenge.
   • As you seek to identify your passive aggression, it is recommended that you start with your own professional behavior at work in order to discover clear patterns.
4. 4 Write down information about what happened. It is important to find and eliminate the erroneous way of thinking that was formed earlier. First of all, you need to understand when and how they appeared. Look back and try to remember the characteristic details of your behavior. Thus, it is useful to look at circumstances through the eyes of an outside observer in order to think with maximum objectivity. If emotional evaluations begin to show, take a deep breath and let go of those thoughts. Don't misrepresent your role in what happened. Your task is to investigate the circumstances and motives that provoked the passive aggression. Consider these questions:
   • Who else was involved in the situation? What kind of relationship do you have (for example: boss, employee, friend, parent, neighbor, or teacher)? A person has power over you, is an equal, was the decisive role for you?
   • Where did the situation take place? At work, at home, at school, at a party, at a match, in a club?
   • When did the situation occur? Sometimes time is important (the start of the school year or the busy holiday season).
   • How did the events develop? Was there a specific stimulus or a series of events? In what order did the events and subsequent reactions take place?
   • What happened at the end? Has your negative behavior achieved its goal? What were the reactions of the others?
5. 5 Consider your passive-aggressive reactions during such incidents. As a rule, this behavior manifests itself in the form of a deliberate contradiction between your words (passivity) and the further action (aggression). Most often, passive aggression manifests itself as follows:
   • a person publicly offers support, but indirectly opposes, drags on time or interferes with the successful implementation of social and work tasks;
   • the person agrees to complete the task, but does not fulfill the promise or pretends to have forgotten about it;
   • the person stops communicating with the opponent, but does not explain the reasons;
   • a person publicly praises others, but humiliates them behind his back;
   • a person lacks the determination to express his feelings and desires, but he expects others to understand everything;
   • the person complements positive words with caustic sarcasm or negative body language;
   • a person complains that he is not understood and appreciated;
   • the person gets angry and argues, but does not offer constructive ideas;
   • a person blames others for everything, and he himself evades responsibility;
   • a person unjustifiably criticizes and ridicules his superiors in the presence of colleagues;
   • a person reacts to criticism with secretive, dishonest actions;
   • the person suppresses emotions because they are afraid of conflict, failure or disappointment;
   • a person envies and takes offense at more successful people;
   • a person exaggerated and persistently complains about personal failures;
   • man is tossed between hostile disobedience and repentance;
   • the person predicts negative results even before starting the task.
6. 6 Look for patterns in behavior. Have you noticed how your reactions to specific situations or people are repeated when you considered your past actions? Was the outcome always the same? Did people react to you the same way? Did you feel better or worse? Do you think that such patterns have done a disservice?
7. 7 Accept your emotions. Often the problem with passive-aggressive tendencies is that the person denies their true feelings. You don't want to show your anger, pain, or resentment, so you act like you don't. Feelings only intensify and become irrational, because you have not found a useful outlet for them. Investigator, it is important to allow yourself to feel and accept such emotions in order to properly deal with them.
8. 8 Develop self-awareness. Be honest with yourself to understand the true causes of negative emotions.Is it the employee's words? Did you feel like you are being forced to do something you don’t want to do? Has the manager not noted your contribution to the last project? Did your friend get a higher grade than she deserved (in your opinion)? Dig deeper to find your true motives.

Part 2 of 4: How to Reduce Passive-Aggressive Bias

1. 1 Admit passive-aggressive behavior. The first step to weakening passive-aggressive tendencies is to be able to soberly assess your own behavior. Pay attention to isolation from society, resentment, intentional low efficiency, stubbornness, and procrastination. The constant nature of such actions means that your behavior pattern was not formed in one day, so it will take time and perseverance to change.
2. 2 Listen and watch. Communication includes not only the ability to speak openly and directly, but also listen and notice unspoken cues. Notice what people say and don't say in response to your actions. They can show the same passive aggression. Take a look at this situation from the outside. Are you overreacting? Stop and reassess the situation.
3. 3 Forget sarcasm. Sarcasm is a common passive-aggressive reaction that only makes the problem worse. Try to avoid phrases like this:
   • "Let's go."
   • "Yes, I'm OK."
   • "Why are you so upset?"
   • "I'm just kidding".
4. 4 Forget about temporary consent. In a work environment, a subordinate may exhibit a special kind of passive aggression when he agrees to complete a task, but does not have time to complete the task on time. This is called temporary consent. Failure is usually caused by delays, being late for planning meetings and meetings, or careless handling of documents. Subordinates often use temporary consent when they think they are being underestimated at work but cannot find a suitable way to express their feelings.
   • If you have noticed this behavior, try to understand if it is caused by underestimation of your work.
   • This type of passive aggression is also found in everyday life. For example, you repeatedly promise your partner to wash the dishes, and then deliberately fail to keep the promise.
5. 5 Notice intentional inefficiencies. With the help of deliberate inefficiency, a person puts the ability to behave in a hostile way higher than his own competence. An example is an employee who continues to perform the same amount of tasks, but the quality of work decreases markedly. Employees accused of this behavior often play the victim role. This situation is extremely dangerous both for the company and for the employee's reputation.
   • Be aware of these behaviors to dampen passive aggression in the workplace and not ruin your career.
   • At home, this can manifest itself in the following: a person deliberately does not wash the dishes for a long time or does it somehow, as a result of which the spouse has to wash the dishes again.
6. 6 Don't make problems worse. Allowing problems to escalate is an example of passive aggression in which the person refuses to acknowledge or solve the problem. Instead, things get worse and turn into a disaster.
   • Examples of such behavior in the workplace include procrastination and abuse of sick leave or leave at the wrong time.
   • At home, this can manifest itself as a refusal to wash the dishes for so long that a huge mountain of dishes gathers in the kitchen, and people have to eat lunch and dinner from disposable plates, since there are no clean dishes left (with this development of events, the partner will probably also get angry with you).
7. 7 Notice hidden but deliberate revenge. Hidden but deliberate revenge is behavior in which a person secretly harms another person who upset him. Such revenge manifests itself in the form of gossip or other cases of silent sabotage.
   • In the office, a person can spread rumors about their abuser, thereby discrediting their professionalism and the reputation of a colleague.
   • At home, these are attempts to gain the favor of children and insidiously turn them against a partner.
   • Do not self-flagellate. You don't have to try to hurt yourself in order to get revenge on your abuser.
   • Example: a student deliberately fails an exam in order to take revenge on a teacher; the athlete rejects the game to substitute the coach.
   • At work, an employee may deliberately lose a client or disrupt a project in order to “punish” the company, even if such an act affects the employee himself.

Part 3 of 4: How to Develop Healthy Emotional Habits

1. 1 Give yourself time to change. Changing the formed behavior can only be done through multiple repetitions. Change is not always a linear process. There is no need to be afraid to go back to the very beginning and reconsider your behavior again. You also don't need to berate yourself excessively if the first attempt is unsuccessful. The more often and harder you try, the higher the likelihood of success. If your efforts do not lead to success, then evaluate what is happening. Think about it:
   • Can you establish the reasons why you are going in the wrong direction?
   • Need to take a break and take a different approach to change a specific aspect of the behavior?
   • Is there a latent feeling or emotional reaction that has not yet been recognized?
2. 2 Learn to be decisiveexpress your feelings honestly and respectfully. Find the problem that bothers you so that you can defend your point of view and speak without evasion. Rehearse your answers to help you find the right words and not rush into speaking. Listen to yourself. You can be convincing and straightforward without hurting others. Stop using accusatory words and express your feelings in a positive way. Try to open up, even if you feel vulnerable at first. Over time, you will gain confidence.
   • For example, you are annoyed by an employee who always finishes his coffee and does not turn on the coffee pot for the others. It is better to speak up, and not hide anger until the cup of patience is overflowing. Say, "I see you've decided to finish your coffee. Why don't you pour in another batch of coffee and turn on the coffee maker so everyone can pour themselves fresh coffee for lunch? Thanks!"
   • At home, be clear about your expectations of your significant other. If your partner has to wash the dishes after dinner, but he does not, then say: “I understand that you are tired after a day at work, but we agreed: if I cook dinner, then you wash the dishes. If you want to be in my place and to cook, so that I wash the dishes, we can change. I believe that we should share household chores equally. "
3. 3 Conflicts are normal. Disagreements are not uncommon. Some confrontations are more likely not conflicts, but simply misunderstandings. There is usually no danger if you are able to moderate anger and engage in constructive dialogue. You can disagree without quarreling and come up with a system of mutual compromises. Better to take control of the situation and not let passive aggression create chaos.
   • At work, employees often disagree about how a project should be implemented. For example, you want to develop a plan, and your colleague wants to get straight to the point and expresses his idea of ​​the final result, although he does not yet know how to achieve it. Instead of being angry and annoyed, try talking to him about the differences in your approaches. You may not be able to come to a consensus, but you can divide tasks in such a way as to exploit the strengths of everyone: your plan and its purpose.
   • At home, in a conversation, it may turn out that you have entrusted your partner with a task that infuriates him. Try to reallocate responsibilities so that your partner chooses things that don't annoy him.For example, instead of having to wash the dishes, he can vacuum, cook, and take out the trash.
4. 4 Choose success. There is no need to strive for negative results. Always aim for success. Sometimes people prepare in advance for failure so that they don't have high expectations. If you use passive aggression at work because you are underestimated, start taking pride in your work. Strive to make your work enjoyable.
5. 5 Take pride in your successes. If success comes, even very slowly, you are doing everything right. Avoiding passive aggression deprives you of your usual defense mechanisms. Feeling insecure is normal. Learn to express your feelings and emotions directly so you can complete tasks more effectively and strengthen relationships.

Part 4 of 4: How to get the help you need

1. 1 Get help. Don't be afraid to seek help from a qualified psychiatrist or psychologist. Passive-aggressive behavior is often deeply rooted and requires more than self-correcting behavior. Psychotherapy can help you identify and solve some hidden problems.
2. 2 Passive-aggressive personality disorder. There is debate today over whether passive aggression can be considered a mental disorder. Some experts insist that this behavior should be classified as a personality disorder, while others think otherwise. “Official recognition” does not in any way affect the fact that you should seek professional help if you are unable to control passive aggression.
3. 3 Increased risk of depression or suicidal thoughts. The researchers concluded that individuals with passive-aggressive personality disorder have a high propensity for depression and suicidal thoughts. If you suffer from similar problems, then you should immediately seek help! Contact your local mental health clinic or call the hotline for psychological help. In Russia there is a free helpline 8 800 333-44-34.

Tips

• If you are unable to cope with passive aggression alone, seek the help of specialists in order to undergo a course of therapy.
• There are usually other problems that reinforce passive aggression: the pursuit of excellence and the fear of failure, success, or rejection. Consider these aspects to understand the reasons for your actions or words.