I am Okay. Am I Okay?
Passive aggression, in my opinion, is the trickiest abnormality to possess as the possessor doesn’t acknowledge its presence in the first place! According to Science Daily, passive-aggressive behavior refers to passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to authoritative instructions in interpersonal or occupational situations.Sometimes a method of dealing with stress or frustration, it results in the person attacking other people in subtle, indirect, and seemingly passive ways. Passive-aggressive people regularly exhibit resistance to requests or demands from family and other individuals often by procrastinating, expressing sullenness, or acting stubborn. Instead of confronting a problem in a healthy manner, passive aggressors refuse to look at the problem in the eye and yet communicate their feelings using hidden symbolic language.
Passive-aggressive behaviour is a great demonstration of the complexity of human interpersonal communication, like the fact that you can say “I’m fine” while your body language and tone clearly reveal you’re not, or how stopping talking to someone can reveal your frustration with them more than actually saying it.
As a communications student I cannot overlook the fact that passive aggressive is also rife via technological mediums. Curt texts, unanswered emails, Instagram statuses along with a hashtag dedicated, the notorious subtweet; if you can communicate with it, people can be passive aggressive with it. No doubt there existed frosty telegrams in centuries gone by.
Having a prior knowledge of psychology, my understanding suggests that the brain is unable to comprehend how to deal with the passive mannerisms of the aggressor, which are completely opposite to his thoughts and feelings, thus creating a state of cognitive dissonance. According to Festinger, cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. People who are avoidant and afraid of conflict are more likely to be passive-aggressive, as are people who are low in self-esteem and self-confidence because they have never been given permission to have their feelings, especially their anger. This produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance.
This is the reason why it is advised that the most effective approach is to ignore the behavior and pretend you don’t notice it. If it doesn’t appear to affect you, there is not much in it for them, and they may stop the behavior because of your lack of a reaction. When ignoring passive-aggressive behavior is not feasible, perhaps because it strongly affects you psychologically, the best you can do is to maintain distance from the person as much as possible. Also, psychiatrists often advise a kind of protective engagement: don’t attack the person; that only reinforces your position as an authority making demands. Take into account the probable cause of the person’s unexpressed anger and acknowledge it, if possible, when being stonewalled during a discussion.And be sure to be on guard against likely retaliation.”If he agrees to go over to your relatives’ place for Thanksgiving, but you know he’s upset about it, make sure you have alternate transportation to get over there,” Dr. Wetzler said.”He may take the car and not manage to get home in time to make it.”
