What are some examples of passive/aggressive behavior?

Here

Orthodox passive-aggressive behavior is defined as saying one thing and doing another, or agreeing to do something and then not doing it.

Being bad-tempered, peevish, irritating or cranky is something different.

For example:

You ask your teen-aged son to take out the garbage.

He says, “Ok.”

Then he doesn’t do it.

Me: “Honey, can you reach up and get that for me?”
Him: “Do I have to do it RIGHT now?”
Me: “Well, you’re standing right next to it….
Him: “I’ll do it next time I come down.”

Passive-aggressive to me is bitching about your boss, then kissing his butt when he walks in the room.

Farting on Santa’s lap, I did this once & you know what…the jolly fat bugger never did forgive me :(

These are all nasty bits of behavior but not classic Passive Agression.

OMG….. just catalogue my last marriage. He refused to do any garden work in our new house, so, when he took up smoking again, he would throw his butts in the garden for me to clean up. Also…. when he left for weeks of work away, he would refuse to send funds home so I could pay bills and then he would blame me that they weren’t paid, and he tried to use this against me saying that I was unreliable in paying bills. Now, he is saying that I am using the custody paper I had him sign to keep him from his child. I have never refused him a phone conversation or a visit with his kid but he has only seen his child twice in over 12 weeks and that is by HIS choice and not because I have stood in the way of his ‘initiative’.

@gailcalled Stop being so passive-aggressive and give us an example then. ha!

Nowt nasty about farting, it just popped out, bad timing that’s all.

@cazzie It’s mind boggling. “Why didn’t you pay that bill?” “We didn’t have the money.” “Well you should have FOUND a way to get the money!”

Or, better yet, “No, we can’t buy that piece of furniture. The house payment is coming out of this check.” “Screw the house payment. I want that piece of furniture.”

@Dutchess_III yep….. pretty much so… but it wasn’t ‘piece of furniture’ it was a motorcycle. He took all his holiday pay and ignored the unpaid bills and bought a motorcycle and then imported it from the US to Norway and ended up broke and begging the import fees from his mother. He ignored everything including the car we had that I was meant to use for a job and get the kids around in. Then, he crashed that motorcycle last summer and didn’t have the money to fix it so this summer, with his tax refund and holiday pay, he bought a new motorcycle and has been ignoring us with that.

Disgusting! Just disgusting.

I paid over 6,000kr in medical bills that were over due with his accident and psych appointments. He is trying to say that when he sent me the money to repay me for those bills that is was ‘child support payments’ and not repayment for the medical bills I paid.

@KNOWITALL I’d define that as hypocrisy.

For me there is a correlation between sarcasm and passive aggressiveness, but I don’t know if that’s correct.

I wouldn’t call it hypocrisy. I’d define it as “Keeping your job,” @tups.

I don’t know if this example is orthodox passive-aggressive behavior, but I label it as such in my own mind . . . “A couple of people told me that you should . . .”; “My husband said to tell you . . . ”. It’s expressing an opposing or potentially contrary opinion as having originated with someone else.

Quote: You don’t have to worry about me, go ahead and take your vacation. If anything happens, I can just call an ambulance, assuming I am conscious.

Oh, I don’t need anything for my birthday / Christmas.

I deal with passive-aggressive people on a daily basis. You see, people on vacation (at least around here) tend to be rather mean-spirited and if something doesn’t go their way, they will fuss at you even if there is nothing you can do for them because it was their own mistake to begin with.

For instance:

Guest: “I have a dining reservation at 6pm, what time should I leave?”
Me: “We normally recommend allowing about 90 minutes of travel time if you’re using our internal transportation.”
Guest: “90 minutes? Ok, that’s a bit much, but sure. It’s only 11am, I’ll have enough time to prepare for it.”

The same guest returns, 30 minutes before the reservation time:

Guest: “I’m running late for my reservation.”
Me: “Well, if you leave now you might still make it.”
Guest (in a patronizing, passive-aggressive tone): “I better make it, or you’re going to have to deal with me later. And if they charge me a late or no-show fee, you’re paying it.”
Me (in my sweetest voice): “Absolutely! Have a magical day!”

Happens at least once a week! haha

Apparently, it should be defined, since it seems that some respondents only know (as I only knew) bits and pieces of what it is. So, from Wikipedia:

Passive-aggressive behavior is a general term used in many contexts.

According to some, passive-aggressive behavior can manifest itself as learned helplessness (in which an organism has learned to be helpless because proactive behavior is useless), procrastination, hostile jokes (though jokes in general are recognized as a method of expressing veiled hostility), stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, or deliberate/repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible. According to Living with the Passive-Aggressive Man, a self-help book, a passive man does little to get what he wants as it is too much effort to do so, and ranges from the inept “loser” type to the conformist who does anything to be liked, avoids making waves and rarely says what he feels.

In psychology
In psychology, passive-aggressive behavior is characterised by a habitual pattern of passive resistance to expected work requirements, opposition, stubbornness, and negativistic attitudes in response to requirements for normal performance levels expected of others. It occurs in the workplace or interpersonal contexts, but behavior is not considered passive-aggressive if exhibited during a Major Depressive Episode or cannot be attributed to Dysthymic Disorder. Most frequently it occurs in the workplace where resistance is exhibited by such indirect behaviors as procrastination, forgetfulness, and purposeful inefficiency, especially in reaction to demands by authority figures.

Another source characterizes passive-aggressive behavior as: “A personality trait marked by a pervasive pattern of negative attitudes and characterised by passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to complying with expectations in interpersonal or occupational situations. Behaviors: Learned helplessness, procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, or deliberate/repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible”.

Passive-aggressive may also refer to a person who denies (in the sense of “refuses to acknowledge”) his or her own aggression (in the sense of “agency”), and who manages that denial by projecting it. This type of person insists on seeing himself or herself as the blameless victim in all situations.

These may not be complete and comprehensive definitions, but they are very illustrative.

So, according to this, the teenager (or husband, or anyone) who agrees to take out the trash and then continues to walk by it and not take out the trash is definitely exhibiting passive-aggressive behavior.

The workers who appear to listen to a technician and appear to understand what he’s saying and in fact demonstrate understanding… and then go back to old ways of working when he leaves that area… those people are passive-aggressive.

I don’t want to give too many more examples, because they’d probably hit too close to home and offend too many jellies if I started pulling from examples that we can all see here in Fluther (including my own, and probably including this non-example, too).

Actual definitions aside, here’s my understanding of the modern, everyday usage of the term:

Something hostile done purposefully that has an aura of ‘deniability’ around it. Like doing something that you know full well will annoy someone, then pretending that it was an accident. Or muttering under your breath and slamming things around, prompting someone to ask if you’re okay, only to then claim you are ‘just fine, thank you very much’.

Another example “OK, fine, do whatever you want” followed by “I asked you not to do that”.

“Whatever.”

Refusing to post your wife’s essay, that she stayed up to write until 4am when you know it’s due that day and she can’t take it to the post office.

Calling social services to suggest your now ex wife is ripping off the welfare system because you found out she has a new boyfriend.

Putting damp magazines on top of your wife’s sketch pad and ruining the drawings she’s spent months creating.

Jerk! Do passive aggressive behaviors show up more in men than women?

OMG! I HATE P.A. people and once I recognize them I drop ‘em like a hot potato.
My ex friend I dropped a few years ago was so P.A. Never asking a direct question, beating around the bush, selective hearing, not verbally responding to a request or attempted agreement and then completely blowing you off when you thought she did, infact, agree. My ex husband was horrible too, he would appear to agree but “forget”, foot drag, not follow through and always claim, when confronted, that he was just about to do such & such.
Most of the time P.A. types are introverts and fear confrontation.

Being an extrovert I am a ” lets just get this worked out NOW” type.
P.A. people also are professional victims, it is ALWAYS how they have been done wrong but they NEVER look at their own behaviors.
HORRIBLE, just fucking HORRIBLE, “communicators.” Gah!
If ever I could kill someone with my bare hands and poke their eyes out with a stick, it would a flippin’ P.A. person. lol

I see passive aggressive behaviour in the toddlers I look after. All the time. Spooky.