There are certain behaviors that help identify passive-aggressive behavior. [3]
- Ambiguity
- Avoiding responsibility by claiming forgetfulness
- Blaming others
- Chronic lateness and forgetfulness
- Complaining
- Does not express hostility or anger openly (e.g., expresses it instead by leaving notes)
- Fear of authority
- Fear of competition
- Fear of dependency
- Fear of intimacy (infidelity as a means to act out anger): The passive aggressive often can’t trust. Because of this, they guard themselves against becoming intimately attached to someone.
- Fosters chaos
- Intentional inefficiency
- Making excuses
- Losing things
- Lying
- Obstructionism
- Procrastination
- Resentment
- Resists suggestions from others
- Sarcasm
- Stubbornness
- Sullenness
- Willful withholding of understanding
A passive-aggressive person may not have all of these behaviors, and may have other non-passive-aggressive traits.
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