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   

Take a Stand

I walked into the fitness centre the other day and everybody greeted me with a smile.  You might think that happens all the time, but it doesn’t.  It surprised me actually.  Usually people look away and get back to what they are doing.  No, I don’t have B.O.  I don’t have boogers hanging out of my nose.  But I do usually look down, lost in my thoughts.  Plus, I have a great smile, but a resting grump face.  

This day was different.  I kept my head up.  I looked ahead and around me, aware of my surroundings.  To my surprise, regulars I don’t usually interact with greeted me first!  The only difference was how I carried myself when I entered the fitness room. 

How do people respond to you as you go about your business?  Where do you position yourself when you walk down the street?  

Do you walk right down the middle of the sidewalk, like you own the place, expecting others to give you the “road?” Do you walk to the side and step out of people’s way, as if they deserve to be there more than you do?  Do you tend to look down, look away, deferential?  Do you stare people down till they look away?  

Each stance reflects a coping skill.  It’s a way we carry ourselves that we’ve learned over time.  There’s a better way. 

Do you tend to be avoidance-oriented and passive, hoping no one notices?  Are you more aggressive? How about passive-aggressive?  Or are you just plain assertive?  Would you know the difference?  These don’t describe personality styles, though, but a skill set.  You can learn to be assertive. 

Randy Paterson, a psychologist practicing at the Changeways Clinic in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada has written a helpful, accessible workbook on assertiveness called, oddly enough, the Assertiveness Workbook.  

Part One, Understanding Assertiveness, covers foundational concepts like the four different styles of relating (above), the role stress plays in leading us away from assertive responses toward counter-productive ones, the expectations of others, our own assumptions, as well as a better way.  

Part Two of the Assertiveness Workbook focuses on skills we can learn that will help us communicate assertively, both verbally and non-verbally.  We’ll look at things like body language, giving and receiving feedback, and the ever-popular assertiveness in conflict.  And we’ll have a little fun while we’re at it. 

If you’re looking for tools you can use to get your own way, be a bully, or be your own selfish pig, you’ve come to the wrong place.  But if you’ve lost sight of what is a healthy way of relating to others – or, like me, never really learned – maybe this next series will help you.  Let me know! 

By the way, Randy Paterson has a blog too.  Check it out!