The Psychology Behind Passive Aggressive Behavior
A lot of people would relate and consider themselves as Passive Aggressive. But, why do you think this sounds so common? Does our society play a role in our attitude and how we confront our day to day situations? The answer to that last questions is that probably yes, it is. We are expected to act a certain way so we can meet our society requirements. We are taught that crying is bad for boys and that girls can’t seem to have a strong attitude. That you have to be humble and nice enough but not seem too nice. You see, how confusing can this all be? Well you may look at the bigger picture now as to why we could analyze and blame Passive Aggressive Behavior to our well known society. We are taught to sugar coat everything and to not get too mad if people pass our limits but the reality of this is that we are humans with emotions and the anger, sadness or how we feel upset it’s ok to feel it because we have emotions and emotions are supposed to be felt.
Just as Whitson (2014) says “Anger is socially unacceptable” and it definitely is, never noticed how some may get angry or upset at you when you get angry or upset over something that happened? This may be the reason as to why we bottle everything up, take a deep breath and pretend nothing happened but some of us and in some situations don’t ever let it go and there is when you start showing said behavior. After this it may come accompanied with the feeling of revenge, because just as they say it may be sweet. Some people don’t ever let it go unless they don’t accomplish that will let them feel better, get even with that person. Later on when you learn about the so problem that escalated everything it may not even seem to your opinion as something so extreme that made this person show their true colors as they say.
This type of people plays the victim but may be the victim at the same time, for real. It’s easier to look like the victim that to engage in confrontation. Which is something understandable considering those who show Passive Aggressive Behavior are actually people that bottle up their feelings, and basically don’t ever directly let them go. But at the same time, don’t you think they are society’s victim? They act like this in some point to avoid judgement and to be accepted. In one way or the other I believe they are not people to blame because they were basically molded like this by their surroundings.