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Passive Aggressive Behavior

The Angry Smile comprehensively examines passive aggressive behavior (see below for a definition of passive aggression) in children, adolescents, and adults within families, school settings, and the  workplace.

Readers learn how to stop:
          • Frustrating arguments
          • Endless conflict cycles
          • Relationship-damaging wars of words
          • The powerful six-steps of Benign Confrontation

Benign Confrontation equips readers to unmask the hidden anger of a passive aggressive person, change the destructive nature of this behavioral pattern, strengthen the relationship, increase self-awareness, and affirm areas of competence.

Check out these video segments featuring The Angry Smile, on WFMZ-TV.

Click here to purchase your own copy of The Angry Smile at the $26 publisher's rate.
To arrange 1-day Angry Smile training seminars for your school, child-care organization, or workplace, please email swhitson@lsci.org 


What, exactly, does "passive aggression" mean?

Couched in backhanded compliments, insulting gifts, hostile sticky notes, and behind angry smiles, passive aggression is a deliberate and masked way of expressing covert feelings of anger.

Here's one of my favorite examples of passive aggressive behavior:

"Cash, check or charge?" I asked, after folding the items the woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet, I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse. "So, do you always carry your TV remote?" I asked. "No," she replied, "but my husband refused to go shopping with me and I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally."

Passive aggression is motivated by a person's fear of expressing anger directly and involves a variety of behaviors--from "forgetting," to procrastination, to all-out sabotage--that are designed to get back at another person without the other recognizing the underlying anger.

Passive aggressive people take genuine pleasure in frustrating others. They are masters at getting others to act out their angry feelings--to explode and appear crazy--while the passive aggressive person sits back and watches the emotional outburst with satisfaction, total control, and always with their own poise intact.

Sound familiar?  Is there a passive aggressive person in your life who makes you feel like you are on a perpetual emotional roller coaster?  If so, please head back to the Diary and post your story!