A Book Review of:
The Angry Smile: The Psychology of Passive-Aggressive Behavior in Families, Schools, and Workplaces, 2nd edition
Authors: Jody E. Long, Nicholas J. Long and Signe Whitson.
Published by Pro-Ed, Austin, Texas, 2009.
Review written by Dr. Steve Van Bockern
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Here are two diagnostic questions shared by the authors if you are curious to know if you work with those who wear the angry smile or if you wear the smile yourself:
Diagnostic question 1: Is there a person in your life who irritates and frustrates you in insignificant and endless ways, so that over time you have a spontaneous urge to choke this person? If a name comes quickly to mind, the chances are you have identified a person with passive-aggressive behavior.
Diagnostic question 2: Do you get pleasure and satisfaction from consciously thwarting and quietly getting back at others? Do you find yourself habitually procrastinating, sulking, forgetting, being intentionally inefficient, plotting hidden revenge, or even spiting yourself just to hurt others? If so, you probably have identified yourself as a person with passive-aggressive behavior.
Hostile cooperation, sugarcoated hostility or compliant defiance work as alternative labels but the “angry smile” best captures the deliberate and masked way of expressing anger through passive aggression. All have experienced the hidden anger represented by the angry smile. Embarrassingly, after reading this strangely delightful book, I found that I can be one of those who can become “counter –passive aggressive”, mirroring the same inappropriate behavior I don’t like in others. But seriously, there is a side of passive aggression that is so destructive and insidious that nobody would willingly own the label.
Passive aggression was coined by then army psychiatrist William Menninger during the Second World War (p.5). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders says the essential feature is a “pervasive pattern of negativistic attitudes and passive resistance to demands for adequate performance in social and occupational situations. The resistance is expressed by procrastination, forgetfulness, stubbornness, and intentional inefficiency, especially in response to tasks assigned by authority figures.” (p. 7) Why so little has been written or researched on passive aggression isn’t clear. The authors’ suspect it hasn’t been scrutinized because of its covert nature. Passive aggression is not the in-your-face force that aggression is. (p.5) But the limited study, changes with this book. Years of clinical experience, listening to the stories of countless individuals and conducting numerous seminars to explore this personality gives the authors the insight to help the reader understand passive aggression.
The authors explore the psychology behind passive aggression. They suggest four developmental pathways leading to this personality type. One, for example, is “a reaction to early, prolonged, and excessive parental standards of goodness, social approval, and guilt.” (p. 15) They define words associated with passive aggression including anger, aggression, hate, hostility, rage, and assertiveness. But it is in the numerous stories of passive aggression that show up in the home, marriage, school and workplace that the sense of the angry smile is cemented.
“Up until the fifth grade, AI was a model student and many times the teacher’s pet, but when I entered fifth grade, I felt that my teacher did not like me, so I disliked her. She always wrote on my report card that I talked too much, was a social butterfly, and never finished my work. I couldn’t understand whey she didn’t like me. I remember clearly deciding that I would never talk to her again unless she initiated the conversation. I would also pretend not to hear her until she asked me twice. I know that my behavior upset her, but what she didn’t know was how much I enjoyed not talking to her.” (p. 65)
This vignette is considered “level 1” of five levels of passive –aggressive behavior. Called temporary compliance, it shows up as procrastination, postponement, stalling and forgetting. The other levels described by the authors include intentional inefficiency, letting a problem escalate, hidden but conscious revenge and self-depreciation. Here is an example of self-depreciation:
“… I was surprised by the appearance of Donna. She had a black biker’s jacket, tattered jeans, a dreadlock hairdo, and several body tattoos; her fingernails were black painted. … I was expecting Donna to be vocal and oppositional. Instead, she was quiet and conforming. … Later I heard her mother was coming to a school conference about Donna, and I asked to attend. ...She was the absolute opposite of Donna. She looked like she had stepped out of a fashion magazine, or perhaps like the stereotype of the wealthy society woman raising money for the Chicago Symphony. … The mother started to apologize for Donna’s appearance, saying, ‘Donna and I have real problems. She seems to do everything she can to upset me. I’ve asked her a hundred times not to wear these clothes, but she wears them anyway. No wonder she doesn’t have any friends or success in school.’” (pp. 73-74)
It isn’t easy to change passive-aggressive behavior. It is so difficult to change the angry smile personality that the authors spend more time on teaching us how not to get sucked into their world. In other words, when we get the angry smile we can easily angrily smile right back. We can stay out of this unproductive cycle with self-awareness and self-management tools. The book suggests eight such tools including recognizing the warning signs of passive aggression and how to avoid giving power to a passive aggressive person.
The final chapter of the book suggests a technique or strategy for changing passive-aggressive behavior. It is called benign confrontation. The authors describe it as “… not an in-your-face, anger-inspiring, make-them-admit-what-they-did kind of authoritarian tactic but rather a quiet and reflective verbal intervention skill in which the adult gently but openly shares his or her thoughts about a person’ behavior and unexpressed anger. It is based on the decision not to silently accept the person’s manipulative and controlling behavior any longer.” (p. 143)
The book is readable. It is light on jargon and full of concrete examples. It is one of those books that helps the open-minded reader examine life lived in relationships.
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