Passive Aggressive Behavior

Passive aggressive behavior can be best described as a negative manifestation of feelings dues to inactive, non-verbal anger brewing inside of someone. It is just the opposite of active anger which an individual expresses verbally as soon as he feels it. With passive aggressive attitude you are actually angry with someone over something but you choose not express it or you cannot, circumstantially, express it. Instead of coming out in open and letting people know that you are angry and upset with them, you bottle up the feelings, stifle yourself with anger and then be negative, antagonistic and sullen. It may also give rise to evasive behavior and the individuals suffering from it would start ignoring positive requests and feedbacks from others by creating bafflement around the main issue. Passive aggression can be projected in sly and concealed actions or can be expressed blatantly and obviously. Although people with passive aggressive tendencies have deep seated resentments and anger, they will not always project that in their behavior. They might come across as people with completely normal behavior patterns and would seem compliant, polite and down to earth. But under their cool exterior, there is repressed anger and manipulation. Passive aggression is considered poisonous in interpersonal relationships; it is dormant emotional abuse which gives rise to trust issues between two people. It affects an individual’s capacity to form stable and long-lasting relationships. There is a huge mismatch between what a passive aggressive person does or says. They usually do not mean what they say or promise. This kind of an individual shows how he feels by actions/inactions, but rarely through words.

 

There could be many reasons for passive aggressive behavior to develop in an individual. The most common reason, according to studies, is having a controlled childhood. If the individual in question has been a curious and just a tad bit more excited than other child in his/her childhood and unfortunately had parents who were either too busy or were over stressed work-wise or emotionally, then there are chances that his/her enthusiasm was controlled or he/she was often reprimanded for it. This, for the very first time, instilled passive anger into him/she and he/she held his/her parents responsible for his/her unhappiness but could not express it to them either because he/she was not given an opportunity or he/she was not very expressive anyway. This leads to bottling up of emotions, a lesson learnt for the rest of the life because what a child learns in the early years of his/her growing up, it stays with him/her forever. These passive aggressive children eventually start to feel inadequate in pleasing their parents and fails in their own eyes. Also, passive aggressive behavior develops in people who do not express their needs and opinions much often. These people then develop the tendencies for a secret life wherein they take revenge from manipulating people whom they hold responsible for their misery or dissatisfaction.