You turn around and snarl at them, “Don’t you have any respect for others? If you don’t shut up immediately, I’ll call the manager and have him throw you out of the theater.”
x
Response C
You turn around, look directly at the talkers, and say, “Your talking is distracting from my enjoyment of the movie.”
x
SITUATION #1
A school principal makes frequent announcements over the loudspeaker system and interrupts Mr. Jones’s classroom unnecessarily.
Response A
Mr. Jones says, “When you make announcements over the loudspeaker system in the midst of the period when I am teaching, I feel frustrated because my lessons are interrupted.”
Response B
Mr. Jones is furious, thinking how insensitive the principal is. But Jones keeps his feelings to himself.
Response C
Mr. Jones says to the principal, “What kind of jerk are you sending
Submissive
Assertive
Aggressive
messages over the speaker system at all times of the day? Can’t you get organized enough to do them at one time? If you were much of an educator, you’d mimeograph the stupid announcements!”
SITUATION #2
Carlos Santos is often physically and emotionally drained when he returns home from his day at work. As soon as he comes into the house, his wife tells him about all the trouble she’s had during the day. Carlos needs a breather. He doesn’t want to listen to anyone for a few minutes. He needs to center himself first.
Response A
Carlos is seething inside while he half-listens to her words. Sometimes he glances at the newspaper while she is talking, hoping she will take the hint. All the time he thinks, “Boy, is she selfish. If she loved me, she would know how I feel right now.”
Response B
Carlos storms around the room screamihg at her, “You are the most selfish person I’ve ever known. All I want is a few minutes peace and quiet when I get home from work. But what do I get? Your depressing babble. I’m sick of it and I’m sick of you.”
Response C
Carlos immediately tells Mrs. Santos how tired he is and how much he needs a period of quiet before dinner. He says that unless there is something very pressing, he would like to wait until after dinner to hear about the events of her day, adding that he would also like to tell her about his day.
These examples may seem like caricatures. They were described in extreme terms to make recognition easier. Many people do behave in extreme ways, however.
I rate the responses this way:
Situation #1
Situation #2
Response A—Assertive
Response A—Submissive
Response B—Submissive
Response B—Aggressive
Response C—Aggressive
Response C—Assertive
The Swing to the Opposite Style
Whenever a person’s rights are persistently trampled on, or her needs go consistently unmet, she accumulates resentment and anger.
People who typically behave in submissive ways often accumulate enormous amounts of anger that finally spill over in a “Mount Vesuvius” response. This volcanic eruption, often over a trivial incident, spews the lava of aggressive anger on whomever happens to be nearby. Following the aggressive outburst, the normally submissive person feels very guilty and returns to her submissive behavior pattern. After a time, the pressure builds to the explosion point again and another Vesuvius is unleashed upon a victim who may be quite innocent—or whose current behavior did not warrant such a vigorous response.
Though it is usually less obvious, people who are primarily aggressive are apt to become submissive when they reach a certain level of inner stress or tension. As tension begins to climb, their aggression mounts and they become more autocratic or more attacking. At some point of increased tension, however, the aggressive person is apt to withdraw or acquiesce. But only temporarily. Like people who are primarily submissive, those who are basically aggressive swing from one end of the continuum to the other and then back again. They do not seem to realize that assertive options may better meet their needs.
Placing Yourself
on the Continuum
Most people tend to rely on one style of behavior more than others even though they are not completely consistent. A situationally submissive person normally behaves submissively. However, with some persons and in some situations, she is assertive or even aggressive. Likewise, a situationally aggressive person is one whose behavior is typically aggressive but who may use an assertive or submissive style, depending on the situation and persons involved. Persons who are situationally submissive or aggressive are most comfortable using their dominant style in the majority of situations. But there are occasions when they will rely on other responses.
Some people art generally submissive. In most situations and with virtually all persons, they behave submissively. Similarly, other people are generally aggressive. They tend to behave aggressively in nearly all situations and with nearly everyone they meet.
Take a few minutes to figure out where you belong on the submission-assertion-aggression continuum. Which style is most comfortable for you? When, and with whom, are you most likely to behave differently. Your responses to those questions can make the following pages more relevant to you.
PAYOFFS AND PENALTIES
OF THREE WAYS OF RELATING
There are benefits and there are liabilities for submissive, assertive, and aggressive behavior. Let’s take a look first at the rewards, then at the disadvantages of each of these three approaches to relating.
Payoffs for Submissive Behavior
Submissive behavior is appealing to many people because it is a method of avoiding conflict. Just as “it takes two to tango,” it takes two to tangle. Submission is a way of avoiding, postponing, or at least hiding the conflict that is so fearful to many submissive people
The person who behaves submissively also has the comfort and security of maintaining a familiar pattern of behavior. Most people have been trained for submission by parents, schools, and other agencies of our society. To break these established patterns of behavior is often quite stress-producing.
Submission is often a way of trying to purchase the approval of others. People who behave submissively are often praised for being selfless, for being a good sport, for going the second mile, and so on.
The submissive person carries a much smaller load of responsibility than does the assertive or aggressive person. If things go wrong, people rarely blame the person who merely followed someone else’s leadership. If the movie we attend turns out to be one of the poorest we’ve ever seen, the submissive person cannot be criticized for the selection. After all, he said, “Anything’s OK with me—you choose.”
Again, some submissive people seem so helpless that other people take it upon themselves to look after and protect them. They do not have to stand on their own two feet; they entice others to help them in a world that sometimes seems too overwhelming to them.
Finally, people often control others by means of their submissive behavior. Fritz Perls notes that when the top dog (aggressive person) and the underdog (submissive person) strive for control, ironically, the underdog usually wins.17 You can probably think of persons whose wheedling, crybaby, or martyrdom methods ultimately proved stronger than the power methods of the aggressor. I’ve heard many men say, “I can stand anything but a woman’s tears.”
What’s in it for the person who behaves submissively? Lots. She can control others while avoiding conflict and responsibility. And at the same time, because of her weakness, she can be protected by those she controls. She relies on familiar behavior patterns and is praised for her selflessness. No wonder it is hard for people to give up their submissive behaviors!
“The Price of ‘Nice’”
In our culture, people who behave submissively are often termed
“nice” guys. Nice children sit quietly and obediently for six hours a day in the classroom. Nice adults are people who “go along” with the wishes of others. The “price of ‘nice,’” however, is extremely high. And as we shall see, “nice” seldom is nice at all—it is usually only a façade covering a sordid interior.
The first price of “nice” submissive behavior is that the person lives an unlived life. The submissive person does not call her own plays. She goes along. Her course is chosen by others. Created to enjoy a unique and fulfilling destiny, she squanders her years by kowtowing to the desires and commands of others.
Another price paid by the submissive person is that her relationships tend to be less satisfying and intimate than she desires. Any worthwhile relationship involves two real people. But the submissive person forfeits herself, crowding herself into what she thinks is another person’s picture of what is lovable. She has very little real self left to love with or to be loved. Though she may have many acquaintances, the submissive person lacks deep and enduring friendships.
The affection others have for the submissive person soon grows cold. Psychologists have discovered that when a person is repeatedly submissive in her interactions with another person, the other tends to feel guilty about getting her own way so much. This feeling generates pity, irritation, and finally disgust toward the submissive person.
The submissive person’s affection for others also tends to wane over time. This is partly because she represses much of her anger, and when that happens, much affection is automatically repressed with it. Also, excessive sacrifice for or giving in to other people breeds resentment. George Bernard Shaw says, “If you begin by sacrificing yourself to those you love, you will end by hating those to whom you have sacrificed yourself.
Perhaps the most frequently enacted tragedy of all times is that in which people give up being themselves and living their own lives so that they will be loved, only to find the ultimate consequence of their sacrifice is an inability to have the fulfilling relationships they sought.
A third consequence of submissive behavior is the inability to control one’s own emotions. This, too, is ironic because one of the main reasons people choose to be submissive is to be able to “handle” their emotions. Submissive people tend to repress their “negative” emotions.*** As we have already noted, pent-up emotions often cause relationships to wither because affection seems to be automatically repressed with the repression of anger. Or emotions that are held in may suddenly pour forth in a big explosion. Another likelihood is that when people try to hold back their emotions, they get expressed indirectly. When this happens, submissive people become masters of the put-down. In the guise of being “helpful,” they may become occupied in extensive fault finding. Or withhold sex. They can subtly and perhaps unconsciously try to ruin the good times others are having. They become saboteurs, undermining the efforts of others. They make cutting remarks. Or they may avoid others or silently terminate a relationship. These approaches are indirectly hostile, alienating, and destructive. When anger is expressed through these disguises, it adds to the interpersonal problem rather than contributing to its solution.
If the repressed emotion does not escape in one of the above ways (or is only partially vented by those means), it remains to wreak destruction on the mind and/or body of the “nice” person. Diseases sometimes caused or aggravated by submissive behavior include migraine headaches, asthma attacks, many skin diseases, ulcers, arthritis, chronic fatigue, hypertension, and high blood pressure. In one study, victims of cancer were described as “inhibited individuals with repressed anger, hatred and jealousy.” Psychological problems associated with submission include low self-esteem, high anxiety, depression, and inhibition, with their attendant results. Extremely inhibited people may become compulsive, paranoid, impotent or frigid, and even suicidal. In its extreme manifestations, the wages of submission can be literally neurosis, psychosis, or death. Of course, the typical reader of this book will not be nearly so submissive as to experience the worst effects described above. All submissive people do well to note, however, that in general the more submissive the behavior and the more covert the communication, the less healthy the person.
The Benefits
of Aggressive Behavior
An aggressor is one who tries to get her needs met, even at the expense of others. A sizeable proportion of the population is aggressive. Why? At least partly because their aggression pays off for them. Three primary payoffs for aggressiveness are somewhat related. Aggressors are likely to secure the material needs and objects they desire. They tend to be able to protect themselves and their own space. And they seem to retain considerable control over their own lives and the lives of others.
In our society, the aggressive person is apt to seek and secure what she wants. She often gains a larger store of worldly wealth than does the submissive person. She sees to it that her material needs get met. For those of us who are struggling to make ends meet, that benefit is certainly not without appeal.
The aggressive person seems to have greater capability for protecting herself than does the more docile person. Through the centuries, aggressiveness has been linked to physical survival. The aggressive are less vulnerable in a society characterized by struggle, hostility, and unbridled competition. Thomas Henry Huxley, a nineteenth-century English biologist who popularized (and somewhat distorted) Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, commented that destructive fighting is pervasive in the animal world and that “the strongest, the swiftest, and the cunningest live to fight another day.”
In our welfare state, people tend to survive until disease kills them off, often in old age. But in the competition between companies or among persons for leadership positions in industry, government, and even nonprofit organizations like the church, the aggressives tend to succeed and survive far better—at least in the short run. And aggression seems to be paid far more handsomely than does submission.
The aggressive person is usually very controlling. Through charisma or the naked use of power, she controls others. She gets others to do her bidding. Things tend to go her way. She is very active in shaping her own destiny. This control is usually highly valued by aggressive people.
The Penalties of Aggression
The potential negative consequences of aggression are numerous. They include fear, the provocation of counteraggression, loss of control, guilt, dehumanization, alienation from people, ill health, and the creation of a society that is too dangerous even for the aggressive to live in comfortably and safely.
One consequence of aggression is increased fear. Many people behave aggressively not because they are strong but because they feel weak. Their aggressive behavior tends to make enemies, and their aggression ultimately makes them more vulnerable and fearful.
Former President Richard Nixon and his closest advisors often acted aggressively. The roots of Watergate and the other “White House horrors,” as former Attorney-General John Mitchell characterized them, stemmed not so much from a confidence in power as from fear that ultimately things would get way out of hand. “The thing that is completely misunderstood about Watergate,” said former White House special counsel Charles Colson, “is that everybody thinks the people surrounding the President were drunk with power…. But it … was insecurity. That insecurity began to breed a form of paranoia. We overreacted to the attacks against us and to a lot of other things.”
A second negative consequence of aggression is related to the first. Aggression creates its own opposition and fosters its own destruction. “Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown” is a truth applicable to most aggressors. We often ask participants in our communications skills workshops how they have coped when people behaved in an authoritarian (aggressive) manner toward them. The methods that they (and other people) generally use to cope with aggressive behavior include resistance, blaming others, defiance, sabotaging, striking back, forming alliances, lying, and covering up.
For centuries, wise m
en have commented on the tendency of aggression to bring about the aggressor’s destruction. The ancient book of Esther tells the story of a very aggressive and powerful Persian courtier, Haman. At one point in Haman’s life, his chief goal was to kill Mordecai, whose only offense was that he did not grovel sufficiently before Haman. Haman commanded that a huge gallows be built for the execution of the object of his displeasure. In the end, however, “they hanged Haman on the gallows which he had erected for Mordecai.”
A third liability of aggressive behavior is that it often results in a loss of control. This, like many of the other drawbacks of aggressive and submissive behavior, is paradoxical since aggressive behavior provides a measure of control over one’s life and the lives of other people. We have already noted that the underdog often controls the top dog in subtle ways. In another way, however, control over other people’s lives limits one’s own freedom. If through my aggressiveness I control what you do, it takes my time and energy to supervise you. This creates a kind of self-imposed servitude. Too much control over others can be about as bad as falling into the clutches of people who attempt to run your life. In the sixteenth century, Francis Bacon commented on this paradox: “It is a strange desire to seek power and lose liberty.”
Guilt feelings which come from an aggressor’s abuse of power are another unpleasant outcome of aggression. Though her sensitivity to the plight of others may be more blunted than that of the typical person, the aggressive person is rarely so deficient in conscience and compassion that she does not suffer pangs of guilt from many of her overbearing acts.
Then, too, aggression tends to dehumanize the aggressor. Each of us was created to love people and use things. In aggressors, there is a strong tendency to love things and use people. When a person uses another person, she treats that person as a thing and is said to be “thinging” him. “When someone ‘things’ another,” say George Bach and Ronald Deutsch, “he also automatically things himself.” The aggressor’s personhood shrinks with every aggressive act. When she does violence to another’s selfhood, she diminishes herself.
People Skills_How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts Page 17
