How to Deal With Aggressive People: Key Strategies

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Laws Of Human Nature" by Robert Greene. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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Do you want to learn how to deal with aggressive people? How can you cope when people around you are aggressive?

Figuring out how to deal with aggressive people can be challenging and scary. But you may have to face aggressive people, and it’s important that you know what to do.

Read more about how to deal with aggressive people.

How to Deal With Aggressive People

Because everyone has aggressive tendencies, you’ll occasionally encounter low-level aggression. Simply ignore it and move on. However, highly aggressive people can be dangerous because they’re willing to break rules and cross lines that you probably aren’t. For example, when you get frustrated with someone, run out of patience for their resistance, and snap at them, you feel uncomfortable and quickly stop. An aggressor, on the other hand, may have no problem yelling or swearing at someone.

Before you learn how to deal with aggressive people you should learn about the two types of aggressors:

Type #1: Chronic Aggressors

Chronic aggressors have such strong feelings of helplessness that they regularly act on their aggression and cross social lines. Chronic aggressors likely become that way because of the influence of:

  • Genetics. Psychoanalyst Melanie Klein found that some babies were more greedy than others—they had huge tantrums and demanded their mothers’ milk. 
  • Development. If a child’s parents don’t give her independence, she may dominate others as an adult, or if her parents beat her, she might do the same to others. This is a way of getting control she never had as a child.

There are two types of chronic aggressors:

  • Primitive. These aggressors don’t have any self-control and become aggressive whenever they’re provoked. They tend to be criminals or bullies.
  • Sophisticated. These aggressors hide their aggression because they know most people don’t like dealing with it. 

You can identify chronic aggressors by:

  • Their “enemies.” Chronic aggressors have a lot of enemies that they claim are evil. These enemies may not be objectively bad.
  • Their self-image. They present themselves as geniuses and victims. The more they push these presentations, the more likely they’re chronic.
  • Their social position. More aggressive people tend to be at the top of hierarchies.
  • Their obsessive tendencies. Aggressors want to control their circumstances, even small ones.
  • Their use of people. Aggressors tend to use rather than empathize with people. It takes time to influence people using social skills, and aggressors are usually impatient, so they force people to do what they want, and this deadens their empathy. If they ever do anything that seems empathetic, it’s probably false—they’re not really listening, they’re sizing us up.
  • Their addiction to aggression. Acts of aggression induce adrenaline rushes, and other ways of stimulating these rushes pale in comparison. (This addiction is less self-destructive than you might think—even though aggression creates enemies and ill will, the more aggressively someone acts, the more likely they are to scare off challengers. However, the more enemies an aggressor has, the more anxiety she has, so she becomes even more aggressive. She can never stop being aggressive because she’d appear weak.)
  • Their temporary followers. Interestingly, even though aggressors display social qualities that we’re all scared of displaying ourselves, they do find followers. Their followers are usually aggressive as well and enjoy living vicariously through the aggressor, or being given positions in which they can be aggressive themselves. However, being around aggressors is bad for self-esteem, so most followers don’t last long.

Avoid dealing or working with chronic aggressors. If you have to, don’t let them control your emotions. One of their strategies is to make you think about how evil they are and how angry they make you, which takes your focus off what they’re actually doing and makes you think irrationally. Try to disengage. This is one way to learn how to deal with aggressive people.

If you have to fight with them, don’t do it overtly—aggressors are good at fighting because they have resources and they’re relentless, and you’ll probably lose. Instead, find out what insecurity is motivating their aggression. Then, you can threaten to or actually expose them. Aggressors fear losing control, so if your actions appear to be leading in that direction, they might back off and go after someone easier. Ideally, connect with their other victims for safety in numbers. 

Type #2: Chronic Passive Aggressors

Passive aggressors avoid confrontation, force, or active manipulation, but they still use aggression to get what they want. Passive aggression is also a way to release tension between the socially acceptable mask, real feelings, and self-image (we can pretend we’re innocent of aggression even though we’re still using it).

Chronic passive aggressors often learned this tactic in childhood as a way to respond to domineering parents whom they couldn’t actively challenge.

It can be hard to identify passive aggressors because their actions are contradictory and confusing. To recognize these types, look for fake vulnerability, childlike helplessness, and oversensitivity. The earlier you can identify passive aggressors, the earlier you can put up your guard.

Passive aggressors use the following techniques:

Technique #1: Being Late or Absent, Always With a Logical Excuse

Chronic passive aggressors show up late or miss commitments, but always have a reasonable excuse. This behavior is designed to make you feel superior or controlled. If you call them out on their behavior, they’ll accuse you of being unsympathetic or adding to the troubles or stress that make them late in the first place. This may not be the best way to learn how to deal with aggressive people.

Recognize this strategy by the nonverbal cues passive aggressors give off while making their excuses. Their tone is pouty and insincere.

To defend against this technique:

1. Stay calm, especially if the person is your boss. If you get angry, you’ll just encourage them.

2. Do the same behaviors back at them. Be purposefully late or absent and make reasonable excuses. This will make them realize you know their game.

  • For example, professor Milton Erickson used a version of this defense on a student who was notoriously late for class. The first day he taught her, when she was late, he and the rest of the class insincerely bowed to her superiority to call her on her lateness. She was embarrassed and was never late again.
How to Deal With Aggressive People: Key Strategies

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  • Why it's in your nature to self-sabotage
  • How you behave differently when you're in a group
  • Why you're wired to want the wrong things in life

Carrie Cabral

Carrie has been reading and writing for as long as she can remember, and has always been open to reading anything put in front of her. She wrote her first short story at the age of six, about a lost dog who meets animal friends on his journey home. Surprisingly, it was never picked up by any major publishers, but did spark her passion for books. Carrie worked in book publishing for several years before getting an MFA in Creative Writing. She especially loves literary fiction, historical fiction, and social, cultural, and historical nonfiction that gets into the weeds of daily life.

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