Quotes & Sayings About Aggressive Behavior

By denying feelings of anger, withdrawing from direct communication, casting themselves in the role of victim, and sabotaging others' success, passive aggressive persons create feelings in others of being on an emotional roller coaster.

...exacting hidden revenge, the passive aggressive individual gets others to act out their hidden anger for them. This ability to control someone else's emotional response makes the passive aggressive person feel powerful. He/she becomes the puppeteer - the master of someone else's universe and the controller of their behavior. — Signe Whitson

Americans, in foreign policy, are torn to the point of schizophrenia. They are reluctant, than aggressive; asleep at the switch, then quick on the trigger; indifferent, then obsessed, then indifferent again. They act out of a sense of responsibility and then resent and fear the burden of responsibility they have taken on themselves. Their effect on the world, not surprisingly, is often the opposite of what they intend. Americans say they want stability in the international system, but they are often the greates disrupters of stability. They extol the virtues of international laws and institutions but then violate and ignore them with barley a second thought. They are recolutionary power but think they are a status quo power. They want to be left alone but can't seem to leave anyone else alone. They are continually surprising the world with their behavior, but not nearly as much as they are continually surprising themselves. — Robert Kagan

Lella York, the self-proclaimed queen of passive-aggressive behavior. [Lella's perceptive view of herself] — Maria Grazia Swan

Catharsis THE MISCONCEPTION: Venting your anger is an effective way to reduce stress and prevent lashing out at friends and family. THE TRUTH: Venting increases aggressive behavior over time. — David McRaney

The basic difference between being assertive and being aggressive is how our words and behavior affect the rights and well being of others. — Sharon Anthony Bower

This book explains how it became fashionable to pathologize the behavior of millions of healthy male children. We have turned against boys and forgotten a simple truth: the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal males are responsible for much of what is right in the world. No one denies that boys' aggressive tendencies must be mitigated and channeled toward constructive ends. Boys need (and crave) discipline, respect, and moral guidance. Boys need love and tolerant understanding. But being a boy is not a social disease. — Christina Hoff Sommers

winning or losing an agonist encounter has a dramatic impact on future aggressive behavior. Winners are more likely to initiate attacks against unknown opponents, whereas losers are more circumspect and likely to retreat from unfamiliar conspecifics, adopting an opportunistic strategy, picking and choosing their fights. In the worst case scenario, animals socially subjugated by constant threat and attack from dominant conspecifics develop a submissive phenotype, showing little or no aggressive behavior, essentially eliminating themselves from the gene pool. — Randy J. Nelson

You do realize that passive-aggressive behavior is aggressive behavior for cowards, right? — Carolyn McCray

Once randomly aggressive behavior gets started in an organization, it tends to be contagious, rapidly spreading itself because of a built-in mammalian device for relieving stress, called redirected aggression. Stanford physiologist Robert Sapolsky describes it this way:"Numerous psychoendocrine studies show that in a stressful or frustrating circumstance, the magnitude of the subsequent stress-response is decreased if the organism is provided with an outlet for frustration. For example, the [glucocorticoid] secretion triggered by electric shock in a rat is diminished if the rat is provided with a bar of wood to gnaw on, a running wheel, or, as one of the most effective outlets, access to another rat to bite. — Richard Conniff

Perhaps one of my biggest lessons was learning the healthy difference between passive, aggressive, and assertive characteristics of behavior. I think this is one of the great balances necessary for healthy individuals and cultures, and I have considered it carefully. To be passive means you don't stand up for your own rights. To be aggressive means that you stand up for your rights while not honoring the rights of others. Both of these patterns of unhealthy behavior were dominant in our society, with men and women in substantial measure and in all of their relationships. What was missing was assertiveness, as it was predominantly programmed right out of us. Assertiveness means that you stand up for your rights while honoring the rights of others. It is difficult to be manipulated or to manipulate others when you are genuinely assertive, so that was why it was a danger in a culture built on manipulation. — Rebecca Musser

These data suggest very strongly that participating in the playing of violent video games by children and youth increase aggressive thought and behavior; increase antisocial behavior and delinquency; engender poor school performance; desensitize the game player to violence. — Leland Yee

There is nothing passive about passive-aggressive behavior. — Charles F. Glassman

ALCOHOL HAS NO BIOLOGICAL CONNECTION TO ABUSE OR VIOLENCE
Alcohol does not directly make people belligerent, aggressive, or violent. There is evidence that certain chemicals can cause violent behavior - anabolic steroids, for example, or crack cocaine - but alcohol is not among them. In the human body, alcohol is actually a depressant, a substance that rarely causes aggression. Marijuana similarly has no biological action connected to abusiveness. — Lundy Bancroft

The trouble is that, for women, being "nice" often translates into putting up with things we should never put up with. How many times has some creep sat uncomfortably close to me on the bus and stared me down, yet I'm too afraid to just get up and move, lest I offend him?
We smile when we're harassed on the street or hit on by jerks. We laugh at sexist jokes. We learn that when we have strong opinions, we'll be called bitches and that if we get angry, we'll be called hysterical. When we say what we want, we're called pushy or aggressive.
Part of learning "ladylike" behavior is about learning to smile politely when someone is being crude. Femininity has long been attached to passivity and to being docile. Men fight, women giggle and fume silently. — Unknown

Boys' aggressiveness is increasingly being treated as a medical problem, particularly in schools, a trend that has led to the diagnosing and medicating of boys whose problem may really be that they have been traumatized and influenced by exposure to violence and abuse at home. Treating these boys as though they have a chemical problem not only overlooks the distress they are in but also reinforces their belief that they are "out of control" or "sick," rather than helping them to recognize that they are making bad choices based on destructive values. I have sometimes heard adults telling girls that they should be flattered by boys' invasive or aggressive behavior "because it means they really like you," an approach that prepares both boys and girls to confuse love with abuse and socializes girls to feel helpless. — Lundy Bancroft

A year-long study by the University of Pennsylvania, ending in 2009 and published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science (Elsevier), showed that aggressive dogs who were trained with aggressive, confrontational, or aversive training techniques, such as being stared at, growled at, rolled onto their backs, or hit, continued their aggressive ways. Non-aversive training methods, such as exercise or rewards, were very successful in reducing or eliminating aggressive responses. — Edward Custo

A lot of extroverts become quiet when they are feeling sad, angry, or trying to send someone else a message. They think that if they stop talking, the other person will automatically realize that something is wrong, and we will ask them about it (i.e. passive-aggressive behavior). This is why when an extrovert runs into a quiet, introverted person, they assume that person is quiet because they are sad/angry/depressed, and they are waiting for someone to ask them about it. This may also be the reason why extroverts always seem to be telling introverts to "cheer up," or asking them if everything is okay? — Drew Kimble

Because of the lingering discrimination, many women still lack confidence. They live in fear of stepping beyond what they feel is acceptable 'female' behavior. I can remember feeling that I wasn't 'normal' because I was aggressive, had dreams and goals, and wanted do do great things ... I am glad now that I found courage to do something radical and chase my dreams. — Joyce Meyer

According to the first image of international relations, the locus of the important causes of war is found in the nature and behavior of man. Wars result from selfishness, from misdirected aggressive impulses, from stupidity. — Kenneth Waltz

MacLean has shown that the R-complex plays an important role in aggressive behavior, territoriality, ritual and the establishment of social hierarchies. Despite occasional welcome exceptions, this seems to me to characterize a great deal of modern human bureaucratic and political behavior. — Carl Sagan

Stress kills when you fuel the initial reaction with negative thoughts, aggressive behavior, belief and trust in the uncomfortable physical and emotional symptoms it causes. Don't fuel it, and watch how fast stress disappears. — Charles F. Glassman

While humans have the propensity to develop a suite of prosocial behaviors, they are also capable of developing antisocial behavior, engaging in substance abuse, experiencing depression, and bearing children at an early age...Young people who develop aggressive behavior tendencies are likely to develop problems with tobacco, alcohol, and other drug use; to fail academically; to have children at an early age;
and to raise children likely to have the same problems. — Anthony Biglan

The love object occupies the thoughts of the person diagnosed as 'in love' all the time despite the probability that very little is actually known about it. To it are ascribed all qualities considered by the obsessed as good, regardless of whether the object in question possesses those qualities in any degree. Expectations are set up which no human being could fulfill. Thus the object chosen plays a special role in relation to the go of the obsessed, who decided that he or she is the right or the only person for him. In the case of a male this notion may sanction a degree of directly aggressive behavior either in pursuing the object or driving off competition. — Germaine Greer

Under the constitution, there was never meant to be a federal police force. Even an FBI limited only to investigations was not accepted until this century. Yet today, fueled by the federal government's misdirected war on drugs, radical environmentalism, and the aggressive behavior of the nanny state, we have witnessed the massive buildup of a virtual army of armed regulators prowling the States where they have no legal authority. The sacrifice of individual responsibility and the concept of local government by the majority of American citizens has permitted the army of bureaucrats to thrive. — Ron Paul

The doormat version of idiot compassion always involves allowing ourselves to feel walked all over in the name of idealizing what it means to be patient with another person's aggressive behavior. It's an unwillingness to face the uncomfortable truth that it's okay to feel angry and irritated. — Ethan Nichtern

Certainly, if you look at human behavior around the world, you have to admit that we can be very aggressive. — Jane Goodall

Feeling threatened can easily lead to feelings of anger and hostility and from there to outright aggressive behavior, driven by deep instincts to protect your position and maintain your sense of things being under control. When things do feel "under control," we might feel content for a moment. But when they go out of control again, or even seem to be getting out of control, our deepest insecurities can erupt. At such times we might even act in ways that are self-destructive and hurtful to others. And we will feel anything but content and at peace within ourselves. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

You have to plan ahead so that rather then seek revenge for the horse's misbehavior, you see his aggressive behavior shaping up and can redirect it. You change his mind before he's acted and move on to something else. — Buck Brannaman

It starts from the premise that black connotes evil and death in all cultures and hopes to figure out if these associations influence people's behavior in important ways. For example, does wearing black clothing lead both the wearer and others to perceive him or her as more evil and aggressive? More importantly, does it lead the wearer to actually act more aggressive? — Chuck Klosterman

Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps — Karl Marx

Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior. — George McGovern

The most effective attitude to adopt is one of supreme acceptance. The world is full of people with different characters and temperaments. We all have a dark side, a tendency to manipulate, and aggressive desires. The most dangerous types are those who repress their desires or deny the existence of them, often acting them out in the most underhanded ways. Some people have dark qualities that are especially pronounced. You cannot change such people at their core, but must merely avoid becoming their victim. You are an observer of the human comedy, and by being as tolerant as possible, you gain a much greater ability to understand people and to influence their behavior when necessary — Robert Greene

Debunking the myth of the 'mean girl,' new research has found that boys use relational aggression - malicious rumors, social exclusion and rejection - to harm or manipulate others more often than girls. The longitudinal study followed a cohort of students from middle to high school and found that, at every grade level, boys engaged in relationally aggressive behavior more often than girls. — Anonymous

... the repression of primitive, violent impulses in favor of civilized behavior was a control mechanism for the more shrewdly aggressive dominators who successfully channeled *their* primitive, violent impulses into a socially acceptable form known as 'ruthlessness,' while monopolizing the right to use outright violence as a last resort for maintaining an otherwise indefensible accumulation of power and wealth. — R.U. Sirius