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Passive-Aggressive Personality

Someone who has a passive-aggressive personality is usually passive, sometimes to the point of obstructionist resistance to any instructions received from authorities. This authoritative resistance can be in response to interpersonal or occupational situations. It can also be a method of an individuals way to deal with stress or frustration, which usually results in the person attacking another individual in a way that is subtle, indirect and passive. This personality can also be manifested as resentment, stubbornness, procrastination, sullenness, and/or intentional failure when performing required or requested tasks.

Description

If a person has a passive-aggressive personality they will usually not directly confront a person about their problems, rather they will try to undermine a persons confidence or their success by their comments or actions. Most of their comments and actions can be explained away if they are challenged so that blame cannot be placed on the passive-aggressive individual.

In some serious cases of passive-aggressive personality individuals may pretend to have confidence in someone’s abilities and then purposefully sabotage the person’s abilities in some way. The delays and poor performance are the fault of the passive-aggressive individual but their perception is that it is demeaning to insult them.

Therefore, the omission of performance placed the individual with passive-aggressive personality in control of a certain situation which allows them to continue their behavior towards other individuals. These behaviors will often continue no matter how great the personal loss to the individual.

Individuals who view themselves as peaceful will often develop passive-aggressive personality. They often feel and believe that by expressing their anger through passive-aggressive ways their behavior is morally acceptable instead of direct confrontation.

Since repercussions are not common with passive-aggressive personalities this can often lead to continued attacks at the individuals around them. Treatment of this condition is often difficult because it can be difficult to convince the passive-aggressive person that they have the problem and they will often resist and leave the treatment process with claims that it is doing no good.

History

The first time the passive-aggressive personality was used as a description for a persons behavior was during World War II. At this time U.S. military officers used the term to describe soldiers there avoided their duties by using passive-aggressive behaviors.

The Passive-Aggressive Personality as a Disorder

The proposal to make passive-aggressive personality a disorder has been met with controversy. Many psychologists argue that is is a pattern of negative attitudes and passive resistance that can lead to difficulty in interpersonal and/or occupational situations which makes it a personality disorder.

Signs and Symptoms of Passive-Aggressive Personality

There are many identifiers that can indicate a person has a passive-aggressive personality. The following is the signs and symptoms used to diagnose the condition:

• Ambiguity.
• Using forgetfulness as a claim to avoid ones responsibilities.
• Consistently blaming others for problems.
• Constant forgetfulness or tardiness.
• Frequent complaining.
• Hardly ever expresses anger or hostility towards others opently.
• Has a fear of competition with others.
• Does not want dependency on another individual.
• Has a fear of intimacy with another individual.
• Dislikes authority.
• Prefers to be in an environment of chaos.
• Tries to intentionally create inefficiency.
• Frequency making excuses or lying to cover their own involvement in a situation.
• Obstructionism.
• Frequent procrastination when doing a project and then blaming others.
• Resentment of other people’s abilities.
• Does not listen to suggestion presented by other individuals.
• Frequent use of sarcasm.
• Sullenness.

A passive-aggressive person will not have all of these behaviors. In addition, some passive-aggressive people will have other traits not listed above. However, the list covers the majority of signs and symptoms found in most passive-aggressive personalities. Just a few of the above signs and symptoms may be an indicator of an individuals having a passive-aggressive personality.

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