It’s well known that effective communication is key to healthy and productive relationships. Effective communication is a two way street. It’s about communicating our thoughts, feelings, needs and wants while also hearing and respecting the other person as well. This can sound easy on paper, but communicating well can be harder than it sounds. So much so that sometimes people come to therapy just to get help with communicating better.
In order to get better though, it helps to first understand how you communicate – which is something we very rarely get taught to think about. The good news is that there’s help at hand.
How we communicate with others can essentially be broken down into three different styles:
- Passive
- Aggressive
- Assertive
Passive
Behaving passively means you’re prioritising the needs and wants of other people while supressing your own. The most common reasons for this is to avoid guilt from feeling selfish or causing perceived pain to others. People who are passive as their default communication style may feel like they are burdening others if they express their needs and wants.
Some signs of acting passively include:
- Seeing your own needs as unimportant
- Avoiding expressing yourself – what you think or feel
- Giving in easily
- Focusing on keeping the peace
- Avoiding uncomfortable topics, disagreement or potential conflict
The benefit of acting passively is that we get to avoid conflict and feared scenarios – at least initially. In terms of costs, an obvious one is that our needs can go unmet because they are not being communicated to others. If this happens too often it leads to a gradual build up of an unwanted emotion – resentment.
Aggressive
Acting aggressively is simply the opposite of passive. It’s about prioritising your own needs and wants over others. The purpose can be to ensure your own needs are met, to protect yourself or others from perceived threats.
Some signs of acting aggressively include:
- Thinking only your needs matter
- Taking rather than giving
- Talking over others
- Disregarding what others are saying or feeling
The benefits of aggressiveness can mean our needs and wants are met quickly – providing a sense of control. The costs are often that the needs of others go unmet. Sometimes this leads to the person who was aggressive feeling guilty as well.
Assertiveness
The best way to explain Assertiveness is to break it down into its three components. All three must be present to be truly assertive. The first step is to acknowledge and express your needs and wants. The second is to respect and acknowledge the needs of others. Third is to find a compromise between yourself and the other person.
Some signs of acting assertively include:
- Recognising your needs matter as much as others
- Expressing yourself
- Actively listening
- Focusing on fairness
- Compromising
- Setting boundaries
The benefit of assertiveness is that everyone’s needs are heard, which fosters better connections. The main cost is the effort it takes to be assertive is greater than simply acting passively or aggressively.
The flip
The flip is when we suddenly act opposite to our default communication style. If I’m typically passive I might flip to aggressive in certain situations and vice versa. This happens when our default styles aren’t solving the problem at hand. Our brain will subconsciously decide to flip to the opposite style in the hopes of solving the problem with a change in tactic. For example, if someone has been passive for a long time, their resentment will become too much to contain and they’ll suddenly act aggressively to have their needs met.
Flips don’t often end well, they’ll either make you feel guilty for losing control or will throw off the other person who was the target of the flip.
Putting it all together
It’s true that we tend to use all three communication styles at least to some degree, however the passive and aggressive styles are far more common than assertiveness. A main theory why is that being passive or aggressive is instinctual, they are natural forms of self preservation – a survival instinct.
While to be assertive is not instinctual, it is a learnt behaviour, which means it doesn’t come naturally. If we’re not taught how to be assertive, we can’t do it.
Luckily, assertiveness can be learnt like any other skill. If you’re needing help in becoming more assertive, therapy can be a place to do it.
For now though, see if you can reflect on what your default communication style might be? Try to catch it and observe it when it happens.
