I was wondering about this, after seeing an article noting the passive-aggressiveness of a public statement. Most of the time, the term “passive-aggressive” is brought up as a negative factor, but it made me wonder whether most people would actually prefer just straight out aggression. (I know there are other possible reactions, but most of the time, this happens because someone wants to express negative feelings, but feels constrained against it somehow.)
Would you?
Passive aggression is by definition potentially misleading - I’d say that people would generally prefer others to act in a straightforward, honest manner with them, so yes, in a way, plain aggression would at least be easier to interpret.
However, in many cases, passive aggression is used where friendly compliance should be the normal reaction, so that factor makes it hard to choose.
The thing about passive-aggression is that it IS aggression, it’s just not open aggression. I know this sounds obvious, but passive-aggressive behavior causes harm just like regular aggression causes harm, only you might not find out about it until much later because your aggressor is being sneaky.
So, in a scenario in which I ask my son to wash the dishes, and he either gets aggressive (yells at me) or passive-aggressive (washes the dishes but purposefully-“accidentally” breaks a dish so I won’t ask him again), I’d rather him yell at me.
I was once a victim of identity theft, which sucked. Why couldn’t they just have mugged me instead?
Passive aggressive-ness (for some reason, passive aggression sounds wrong to me) is hard to confront head-on. It’s very easy for a person to pretend someone just misinterpreted them, or read too far into what they said, etc, etc. At least aggression is obvious and can be dealt with bluntly.
Well, generally with a mugging you know exactly when it happens and exactly what’s been taken, so…
Passive aggression isn’t as bad as outright aggression, but why is EITHER approach necessary?
Just SAY what you think. ASK for what you want. Don’t play games.
In addition to what others have writen, i hate PA because it’s the coward’s way out. When someone is overtly jerkish, at least they are owning who they are. It’s easier to respect people like that.
There’s something to be said for “aggressive aggression”. If I’m telling someone about an incident with an aggressive person, I usually don’t have to worry about them playing Devil’s Advocate and downplaying my righteous annoyance. But if I’m talking about a person who is PA, then chances are I’m going to be lectured on how I really don’t KNOW they meant it like that. And listening to that shit will only exacerbate my pissed-off mood.
But I also think it’s easy to say I’d prefer aggressive aggression from the comfort of my living room. Just like it’s easy for me to imagine I’d prefer overt racism to covert racism , when in reality I don’t know which would be harder to deal with. I think I’d be more likely to have hurt feelings if dealing with an aggressive person than if they were merely passive aggressive. Open meanness directed at me tends to make me tearful.
How about if people just aren’t assholes? If they’re using PA as a way of trying to fit in socially normative behavior, but it’s something they don’t want to do, or are feeling aggressive about, then they’re being an asshole. Suck it up, buttercup, and don’t take your issues out on others. That’s my first choice.
Second choice, that they’re reasonably grown up about it and we can at least discuss the issue/cause for aggression.
I’m torn between whether I’d rather deal with actual aggression or passive aggression as my last choice. Depends on the setting and how heated it gets, I suppose. I’ll take aggression.
I believe that’s the point. The PA person is someone who wants to avoid confrontation, but doesn’t want to be submissive either.
I find that passive-aggressive is often used in places where I don’t actually think it’s appropriate. The opposite of straightforward is not “passive-aggressive”, it’s “weaselly”. You can only be passive-aggressive if part of your aim is actually to hurt the other person - the “aggression” part of it.
So - in the washing up example, breaking the plate might be passive-aggressive if it’s a plate he knows you like, and he wants you to suffer. If he just wants to give an impression of incompetence so you’ll stop asking him? Weaselly.
There’s a big list here of ways to be passive-aggressive - to my mind, 1,3,4 and 5 aren’t passive-aggressive at all. They’re avoidant. There’s no particular aim of making the other person feel bad - the passive person is just trying to avoid doing stuff they don’t wanna (2,6 and 7, on the other hand, are totally passive-aggressive).
Having said that - I can understand why people would prefer actual aggression over passive aggression (real passive aggression), but I don’t personally feel that. At least with passive-aggression you actually have time to think about how to deal with the situation. Actual aggression tends to leap up on you unexpectedly, and I don’t deal well with surprises.
A lot of times, passive-aggressive behavior causes you more lost time and hassle than if the person doing it were aggressive.
In another thread, a poster was complaining that this well qualified person kept volunteering to work in her research lab. Why? Because she couldn’t just straight up tell this person “hey, I can’t hire you because your references say you are a bad employee”.
This person, if she knew that (1) she was wasting her time at this lab and (2) one of her references was saying bad things about her, possibly even untrue things, would have been able to move on and save a lot of time if she had been honestly told what the problem was.
Ditto when people shun or give a bad assessment or something to a coworker who smells bad, instead of just saying “hey you stink.”
Ditto when they do the same to a coworker who talks to loud or something, being annoying - they just get quietly pushed out and never know what the actual problem is.
Yes.
Oftentimes, though, it’s worth noting that passive-aggressiveness happens because of an environment where one cannot safely speak up directly or stand up for oneself. And oftentimes, the same bosses or spouses or leaders or coworkers etc. who complain about passive-aggressiveness are the very ones who would smack down someone for contradicting them openly.
In other words, “Why won’t people just be bold and direct?” becomes, “How dare people be bold and direct!”
All political image macros posted on Facebook are shallow and simplistic; most of the ones on my side and nearly all of those that are not are factually incorrect; but the only ones that really piss me off are the ones say so-and-so should (or will) be put in prison when there’s no accusation that so-and-so committed a crime, and that don’t explicitly make any argument whatsoever but merely strongly imply it. The latter, because they’re impossible to argue against even by bumper-sticker (or image macro) standards. And the former are arguably a special case: what will/should so-and-so be put in prison for, exactly? What are you claiming here, image?
None of those except the “giving a bad assessment” one are passive-aggressive - they’re avoidant. People don’t shun the bad smeller/loud talker because they want to be mean to them. They’re just avoiding the unpleasant task of dealing properly with the issue, in the hope that someone else will do it.
I’ve been in situations where passive-aggressive sure seemed to be the only viable approach.
When i was contemplating moving in with my gf the only stumbling block was her 70 year old aunt, who lived nearby and had a habit of just walking in to visit. That freaked me out. I could never relax knowing she might appear. (“relax”=smoke dope, scratch balls, etc)
My gf wanted the visits to stop, but was afraid of hurting aunties feelings. I was not allowed to have an honest discussion with auntie.
Eventually my house sold and I moved in. I told auntie how much I loved her visits, and that I hoped my habitual nudity would not offend her. Passive-aggressive but totally effective; she hasn’t dropped in without calling first since.
IMO your nudity trick was more avoidant than passive-aggressive. And it was more “pure genious” than either of those. 
Color me as agreeing with many above that the term “passive-aggressive” is overused. And that a lot of sick social or work environments all but demand passive aggression since they refuse to countenance anything approaching actual aggression.
Sorry, yes, you’re right (I was writing my post seconds before I had to leave for a meeting :)). The key of passive aggression is that you do indeed express aggression in a harmful way, you just do it indirectly and without taking responsibility for it.
Here’s a real-life example: my friend Anne recently told me that when she lived with her roommate Laura, and Laura pissed her off for some reason, Anne would clean the bathroom (including toilet) with Laura’s face towel and wouldn’t tell her. Anne, laughing loud and hard while saying this too, said Laura had terrible acne that year but just couldn’t figure out why. HA HA HA, amirite?
If I were Laura, I would much rather my roommate have one solid, screaming, dishware-throwing fight about how I never fucking wash my dishes (or whatever) than months of inexplicable skin problems. And I hate confrontation! But I just find passive-aggressive behavior so shameful and low, I lose so much respect for people who use it and I’m embarrassed for them on their behalf.
Personally, my problem is that I find it really hard to be assertive except under certain circumstances, so my behavior is usually passive until I get aggressive. (E.g., months of telling myself Laura’s inability to wash her dishes is no big deal and trying to get over my irritation, until the day that I can’t deal with it anymore and I yell at her for it.) But I don’t mix the two.