There are four basic ways in which people respond to anger, click on each style to learn more: AGGRESSIVE - anger is externalized, “turned loose”. PASSIVE - anger is internalized, “locked up”. PASSIVE/AGGRESSIVE - outwardly agreeable, but showing the anger through indirect actions or sabotage. ASSERTIVE - anger is appropriately managed and communicated if necessary.

Aggressive Anger

Aggressive Anger can be expressed in the following ways:

• Threatening, such as frightening people by saying how you could harm them, their property or their prospects, finger pointing, fist shaking, wearing clothes associated with violent behavior, driving on someone’s tail, setting on a car horn, slamming doors.
  
  
• Hurtful, such as physical violence, verbal abuse, unfair jokes, breaking a confidence, playing loud music, using foul language, ignoring people’s feelings, willfully discriminating, blaming or punishing people for deeds they are known not to have committed, labeling others.
  
  
• Destructive, such as harming objects, deliberately wasting resources, wantonly polluting the environment, knowingly destroying a relationship between two people, driving recklessly, drinking too much.
  
  
• Bullying, such as threatening people, persecuting, pushing or shoving, using power to oppress, shouting, using a powerful car to force someone off the road, purposely glaring at people with full beam headlights, playing on people’s weaknesses.
  
  
• Unjustly blaming, such as accusing other people for your own mistakes, blaming people for your own feelings, making general accusations.
  
  
• Manic, such as speaking too fast, walking too fast, working too much and expecting others to fit in, driving too fast, reckless spending.
  
  
• Grandiose, such as showing off, expressing mistrust, not delegating, being a poor loser, wanting centre stage all the time, not listening, talking over people’s heads, expecting kiss and make-up sessions to solve problems.
  
  
• Selfish, such as ignoring other’s needs, not responding to requests for help, queue jumping, ‘cutting in’ when driving.
  
  
• Revengeful, such as being over-punitive, refusing to forgive and forget, bringing up hurtful memories from the past.
  
  
• Unpredictable, such as blowing hot and cold, explosive rages over minor frustrations, attacking indiscriminately, dispensing punishment out of the blue, inflicting harm on other just for the sake of it, using drink and drugs that are known to destabilize mood, using illogical arguments.

Passive Anger

Passive Anger can be expressed in the following ways:

• Secretive behavior, such as stockpiling resentments that are expressed behind people’s backs or through sly digs, giving the silent treatment or under the breath mutterings, avoiding eye contact, putting people down, gossip, anonymous complaints, poison pen letters, stealing, conning.
  
  
• Manipulation, such as provoking people to aggression and then patronizing forgiveness, provoking aggression but staying on the sidelines, emotional blackmail, tearfulness, feigning illness, sabotaging relationships, using sexual provocation, using a third party to convey negative feelings, withholding money or resources.
  
  
• Self-blame, such as apologizing too often, being overly critical, inviting criticism.
  
  
• Self-sacrifice, such as being overly helpful, pointedly making do with second best, quietly making long suffering signs but refusing help, or lapping up gratefulness and making friendly digs where it is not forthcoming.
  
  
• Ineffectual, such as setting yourself and others up for failure, choosing unreliable people to depend on, being accident prone, underachieving, sexual impotence, expressing frustration at insignificant things but ignoring serious ones.
  
  
• Dispassionate, such as giving the cold shoulder or phony smiles, looking cool, sitting on the fence while others sort things out, dampening feelings with substance abuse (to include overeating), oversleeping, not responding to other’s anger, frigidity, indulging in sexual practices that depress spontaneity and make objects of participants, giving inordinate amounts of time to machines, objects or intellectual pursuits, talking of frustrations but showing no feeling.
  
  
• Obsessive behavior, such as needing to be clean and tidy, making a habit of constantly checking, over-dieting or overeating, demanding that all jobs are done perfectly.
  
  
• Evasiveness, such as turning your back in a crisis, avoiding conflict, not arguing back, becoming phobic.

Passive Aggressive Anger

Passive Aggressive Anger can be expressed in the following ways:

• Fear of dependency - Unsure of autonomy and afraid of being alone. Fights dependency needs - usually by trying to control the other person.
  
  
• Fear of intimacy - Guarded and often mistrustful; reluctant to show emotional fragility; often out of touch with feelings, reflexively denying feelings that the person believes will "trap" or reveal, like love. Picks fights to create distance.
  
  
• Fear of competition - Feeling inadequate, unable to compete with others in work and love. May operate either as a self-sabotaging wimp with a pattern of failure, or will be the tyrant, setting up as unassailable and perfect, needing to eliminate any threat to their power.
  
  
• Obstructionism - If you tell a passive-aggressive what you want, they may promise to get it for you, but won't say when, and may do it deliberately slowly just to frustrate you. Maybe they won't comply at all. Blocks any real progress they see to your getting your way.
  
  
• Feeling victimized - Protests that others unfairly accuse them rather than owning up to their own misdeeds. To remain above reproach, they set themselves up as the apparently hapless, innocent victim of your excessive demands and tirades.
  
  
• Making excuses and lying - The p/a person reaches as far as they can to fabricate excuses for not fulfilling promises. As a way of withholding information, affirmation or love - to have power over you - the p/a person may choose to make up a story rather than give you a straight answer.
  
  
• Procrastination - The p/a person has an odd sense of time - they believe that deadlines don't exist for them.
  
  
• Chronic lateness and forgetfulness - One of the most infuriating & inconsiderate of all p/a traits is the inability to arrive on time. By keeping you waiting, they set the ground rules of the relationship. And selective memory may be used when wanting to avoid an obligation.
  
  
• Ambiguity - The master of mixed messages and sitting on fences. When they tell you something, you may still walk away wondering if they actually said yes or no.
  
  
• Sulking - Feeling put upon when they are unable to live up to promises or obligations, the p/a person retreats from pressures around him and sulks, pouts and withdraws.
  
  
• A passive-aggressive person won't have every single one of these traits, but will have many of them. May have other traits as well, which are not passive-aggressive.