This week a study came out suggesting that passive aggressive behavior is a great way to harm a relationship.
Passive aggression "conveys discontent without providing the partner with clear information about how to address the underlying issue," study author and Florida State University professor James McNulty told NPR.
It shows that you're mad without conveying why you're mad. There's a pretty good chance you've been on both sides of passive aggression.
If your roommate(s) leave the dishes in the sink because they're upset about something or if you've ever purposefully read a text and not replied but made sure that they saw you read it — as a certain Canadian rapper is wont to do — then you've experienced passive aggression.
Out of the Fog, a blog and forum structured around how to live with family members with personality disorders, identifies five categories of passive-aggressive behaviors:
• Withdrawal: Procrastinating, acting incompetent.
• Silent treatment: Giving one-word answers and otherwise making yourself unavailable.
• Off-line criticism: Cutting someone down to a third party.
• Sarcasm/critical jokes: Targeting someone with humor in a cruel fashion.
• Indirect violence: Slamming doors, being cruel to pets.
Passive aggression was reportedly coined in a 1945 US War Department memo where a commander complained of how soldiers opted for "passive measures, such as pouting, stubbornness, procrastination, inefficiency, and passive obstructionism" instead of directly confronting their superiors.
Passive aggressive behaviors are likely learned in childhood.
University of Utah clinical psychologist Dr. Lorna Benjamin told the New York Times' Benedict Carey that passive aggressive people grew up in loving — but demanding — families, so they had more responsibilities than they thought they could handle.
Eldest children are especially at risk. If they're asked to help with raising the other kids, as many are, then they could grow to resent their parents' requests — while continuing to comply with them.
That resentful compliance shows up in the relationships they have with people they turn into authority figures, like a boss, romantic partner, coach, or instructor.
Passive-aggressive people "are full of unacknowledged contradiction, of angry kindness, compliant defiance, covert assertiveness," Benjamin said.
The way to break free of passive aggression, if you find yourself performing the behavior: express your needs directly, rather than acting out.
