Passive-aggressive?

[Aroura]

Naturally I've heard this term often throughout my life, but I never really grasped what it meant.  Recently I've been diving head first into psychology and I'm learning what this is and how people employ it.  It has been an accusation directed at people on this forum, and mostly I just scratched my head and shrugged.  But for reasons I'll get into in another thread (someday), I've recently become more curious.

I think everyone uses passive aggressive techniques now and then.  But some people do these things constantly and it can be very hard to identify or spot these things, because they are usually not overt, it is implicit, indirect, and for that reason much more insidious.

5 signs of a passive-aggressive person ,---for more details on these 5 things, click here.

1. The silent treatment
2. Subtle Insults
3. Sullen Behavior
4. Stubbornness
5. Inability to finish tasks

This last seems like something more directly related to work or school, and we wouldn't see it so much in purely social interractions.

In any case, it seems chronic passive-aggressive behavior is often one of many symptoms in a larger personality disorder or issue, though it can present alone.  Notably, it is co-concurrent with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is why I got interested in it.

I think the majority of people displaying this do not suffer from some larger disorder, but are simply uncomfortable with more overt displays of aggression and so they take out build up emotional issues in this way instead.  It is often attributed to women, but in the research I've done it is just as often men displaying this behavior.

Do you know any passive-aggressive people in your life?  How do you deal with them?

Well bless your heart dear, you left out sarcasm. 

hehehehe

OMG, and I totally hit you with that a while back, didn't I!?  I'm sorry.  As I said later, I know I am guilty of this behavior myself (though I hope it isn't constant).  It is something I am now more self aware of and will try to limit.