According to licensed marriage and family therapist Epstein, there are a number of reasons why people end up passive-aggressive. "Some adults learned from a young age that showing anger wouldn't be tolerated well. Their parents couldn't tolerate their emotional expression so they learned to subtly indicate their emotions. Or the child learns that anger is 'bad' but as it turns out, you can't turn anger off. So you express it in subtle ways," she explained to Bored Panda via email.

"In these scenarios, passive aggression is actually an adaptive response to a tough situation. But the coping skill outlives its usefulness in adulthood and now the passive aggressive adult is hard to be in a relationship with," she shared.

Others may become passive-aggressive because they weren't taught to communicate effectively. "They have no skills to express themselves in difficult situations. Some may even believe that expressing themselves passively is doing the right thing because then they aren't burdening others with outward expressions of anger. In reality, as we know, passive aggression creates more problems than it solves," Epstein said.

"Passive aggression works... kinda. A person who uses passive aggression can avoid confrontation and difficult feelings. Sometimes, they can manipulate a situation to their liking. Some may even take joy in others' discomfort."

Meanwhile, we were curious about what could help someone identify if they're being passive-aggressive. Marriage and family therapist Epstein was kind enough to walk us through a few things that people can ask themselves: 

• "Do I express my anger directly when I feel it?
• How do I handle being upset? Do I tell the person I feel upset with?
• Do I use gestures and noises to do the work of direct communication (like sulks, sighs, and pouts)?
• Do I keep score about my hurts without sharing that score keeping?
• Do I use backhanded compliments or the silent treatment?
• Do I feel chronically underappreciated but fail to bring it up and get to the root of the issue?
• Would I rather talk to a third party about my frustration than the person who hurt me?
• Do I act out resentment?"

As a whole, passive-aggressive behavior is something that you really want to avoid. It has the potential to damage people’s well-being on a phenomenal scale, whether it happens at the office or elsewhere.

At its core, this sort of behavior causes issues for everyone because it creates a deep dissonance between the front someone’s presenting (e.g. that everything’s all right and that everyone’s doing well) and the reality of the situation (e.g. that there are plenty of problems that need urgent attention). Folks might embrace passive aggression because they hate conflict, may not know how to have healthy arguments, or because they enjoy criticizing everyone around them. 

According to the Harvard Business Review, passive-aggressive bosses can find ways to shut down your ideas without explaining what’s wrong, or they might act dismissively toward you by rolling their eyes, ignoring you when you’re speaking, or (over) using sarcasm. Naturally, that causes a lot of frustration to build up in the workplace. After all, it’s an unpleasant feeling to know that your boss doesn’t respect or trust you enough to treat you like an equal.

HBR suggests building a strong support network to counteract passive-aggressive behavior in the workplace. If you have a network of professionals who can offer you advice and give you another perspective on what’s going on in the office, this can help prevent you from second-guessing your actions. This can also help you switch teams or even departments if things really get out of hand.

Meanwhile, keep a (digital) paper trail of your interactions with your boss. Keep a tab on all of (what you think was) passive-aggressive behavior. This way, you’ll be able to look at your professional relationship with them more objectively, later on. It’ll also serve as proof if you ever decide to speak to HR or your superiors about your manager’s actions.

Though gossip has its uses (hey, it helps spread important information!), it has the potential to wreak havoc in the workplace if the people spreading it are mean-spirited. Nobody enjoys being talked about behind their back. If your boss happens to be a huge fan of gossip, you shouldn’t stoop to their level and gossip in turn. Take the high road. And remember that it’s not gossip if someone’s actively looking for solutions to very real problems at work.

If talking to HR or your superiors doesn’t work, if you’ve tried switching teams and you’re still hounded by passive-aggressive behavior everywhere you turn, it might be time to consider looking for greener pastures. Evaluate your mental and emotional health as honestly as you can, and think about how workplace toxicity is affecting your work-life balance and mood. If you’re burned out, you don’t have to jump ship immediately, but it can help to begin the hunt for a better company with more open and honest colleagues and an overall healthier culture.

According to BBC Worklife, passive-aggressive behavior is mostly concentrated in the workplace. A May 2022 survey conducted by Preply found that a fifth of all respondents said that it was their coworkers who were most likely to exhibit such behavior in their lives. 73% of respondents said that they had to handle passive-aggressive comments at work while 52% notes that this happens on a weekly basis.

“Such behaviors reflect a way to display opposition, discontent, and aggression without defying social norms. Such behaviors leave the aggressor in relative safety as compared to acts of active aggression, as they can more easily deny that the aggression happened,” Wladislaw Rivkin, an associate professor in organizational behavior at Trinity Business School, Dublin, told the BBC.

Sankalp Chaturvedi, professor of organizational behavior and leadership at Imperial College Business School, London adds: “These behaviors often involve negative emotions, which may spill over from one employee to another, and create a negative environment for all. At a company level, these passive-aggressive behaviors have negative effects on the company productivity, co-workers' behavior and in cumulatively workplace culture.”

It’s exactly because passive-aggressive behavior is so subtle that it can be incredibly difficult for companies to address it. In short, someone who’s being passive-aggressive can simply deny that they’re behaving that way. The worst of the bunch will try to spin things in such a way that they present themselves as the victim instead of the bully.