Warning Signs

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.