A Field Guide to Passive Behavior

This article is second in a series of 31 blog posts on assertiveness, dating Friday, August 5, 2011 to Monday, April 2, 2012, with a few excursions elsewhere along the way.  Most of the material is based on Dr. Randy Paterson’s Assertiveness Workbook.  There are exercises you can do, either on your own or with a partner – worth the twenty bucks! 

We gravitate towards one of four basic styles of communicating: passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, and assertive.  Randy Paterson breaks it down in an introductory chapter of the Assertiveness Workbook with a look at passive behavior.  Today we look at passive behavior.  Next time, aggressive.  

Would you know passive behavior if you saw it?  Does it mean to sit there, inert? Catatonic?  Or how about this?  Are you a conflict avoider?  The passive skill set avoids conflict at all costs.  People whose default skill set is passive unwittingly give control of their lives to others, whether they intend to or not.  It may be by:

ü  Giving into unreasonable demands by other people

ü  Going along with the crowd

ü  Not offering your opinion until others have offered theirs 

ü  Never being critical or giving negative feedback

ü  Being as invisible as possible.  In other words, avoiding anything that might draw a reaction.  Passive behavior looks down, avoids eye contact, fidgets, squirms and yields. 

Can you think of a time you responded this way?  Does it happen more than you’d like? 

Passive Waters Run Deep:  Underlying Beliefs of Passive Actors 

One comment:  Notice I am not saying “passive people.” We make a distinction between the behavior and the person.  These are skills and behaviors we are talking about.  Behaviors that can be learned and changed.  They are not personality traits we’re stuck with through life. 

This kind of behavior doesn’t come from nowhere.  Whether we will be passive in a given situation is up to you.  It’s a choice you make.  Usually, however, our beliefs drive our behavior, and we operate out of our beliefs more than we reflect about them.  When we’ve been conditioned into responding passively in social situations, it is often because we believe:

ü  Other people are more important than I am

ü  Other people can have control over their lives, but not me

ü  Other people are effective/successful/ worthy/ empowered – but not me. 

ü  My place is to be subservient 

Do you believe any of these?  Deep down? 

What Passives Often Feel

ü  Fear of rejection – For people's whose responses tend to be passive, fear of rejection can lead them to compromise core convictions. 

ü  Helplessness and frustration over a lack of control over one’s life – some psychologists believe that this feeling of helplessness is a major risk factor in developing depression. 

ü  Resentment at the demands and expectations of others – growing resentment began to squirt out in blunt, insensitive statements of truth. 

How do we get this way? 

ü  Some people grow up in very considerate families

ü  Some kids learn to equate being passive with “being good” 

ü  Some of us have had our boundaries violated, either traumatically or repeatedly, and we have lost sight of healthy ways to stand up for ourselves. 

ü  Some of us have been physically abused for trying to stand up for ourselves. 

ü  Some of us have never seen assertiveness in real situations – we don’t know how to be assertive. 

ü  Some of us get beaten into passivity by bullies