what is passive aggression?

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I always hear talk about someone being passive aggressive and how everyone hates passive aggressive people, but never fully understood the concept.

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Let’s say we’re going out to dinner. I suggest we go to the new Thai place.

Now, you could say “I don’t like Thai, I’d prefer we go to this bistro I love”. That’s ‘normal’ aggression – you’re explicitly creating a conflict with me. Certainly, a discussion over where we go to dinner isn’t a particularly high stakes conflict, but it is a conflict. You’re encouraging the two of us to resolve this conflict honestly.

On the other hand, you could say “Fine. We’ll eat Thai”… and then proceed to sulk throughout dinner because you really wanted to go to that bistro you loved. That’s passive aggressive. There’s a conflict, but rather than bringing out into the open so we can resolve it, you immediately adopt a tactic of resistance that makes it unpleasant for everyone.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s when someone, instead of saying that they are unhappy with you and confronting you, acts as if there’s nothing wrong, but with an underlaying, implyed anger or unhappiness with you.
I think what most people try to achieve with passive aggression is an apology without a confrontation. Anyway, that’s what I understand by passive aggression. I personally dislike passive aggression because it’s a cheap way of getting an apology or the like, without being upfront about it. I assume most people who dislike passive aggression does so for similar reasons.

Anonymous 0 Comments

From a poker players point of view, it simple means that in most of the hands he plays, he folds, but the ones he does play, he plays very aggresively.

Such as the tag, passive/aggressive.

You also have, loose/aggressive, tight and aggressive.

Anonymous 0 Comments

There are essentially two meanings of this term:

1) In psychology, when someone is being passive aggressive, they are aggressive towards someone by *not* to taking an action. Say by not removing an obstacle in someone’s path.

2) In common usage, essentially it means that someone is expressing themselves as if they weren’t angry even though they clearly are. (e.g. “it would be really nice if the certain someone who took my food out of the fridge fessed up, pretty please with sugar on top!”). (I guess unhinged shrieking with rage is preferable to some people.)