Psychology Essay: Assertiveness vs. Aggressiveness.

How will you apply the material on assertiveness vs. aggressiveness in your own life?

While it's important to stand up for one's self, an aggressive person does it in a way that violates the rights of others. An aggressive person is inclined towards threatening or intimidating others; malicious teasing; taunting or name-calling; gossiping and slandering; encouraging others to reject or exclude someone; acts of violence, from hitting and pushing to stabbing and rape; etc. In short, an aggressive person looks for some way to force his / her opinion onto someone else by bullying them.

Assertiveness, on the other hand, is based on a diplomatic communication style; it can be thought of as the sweet spot between being too passive and being too aggressive. It shows other people that you respect yourself [by standing up for your interests and you are expressing your thoughts and feelings], and it also shows that you respect other people [by being cognizant of the rights of others and willing to negotiate a mutually satisfying solution]. It creates a win-win situation.

While doing research on the benefits of assertiveness, I also came across this interesting point on mayoclinic.com:

"Some research suggests that being assertive also can help people cope better with many mental health problems, including depression, anorexia, bulimia, social anxiety disorder and schizophrenia."

Personally, there is a lot I am finding in my research of assertive communication that I would like to incorporate into my daily life. For instance, I'd like to revive my old habit of writing thoughts down, especially when they touch on a delicate subject of some sort, before voicing those thoughts out loud. This helped me to filter though my thoughts, so to speak, and to phrase what it was I wished to say in a much more tactful way.

I admit that, during disagreements, I do have a problem with using "you" statements, and I will be working on turning them more into "I" statements [for instance, saying "I disagree" instead of "you're wrong"]. All in all, what it boils down to, is focusing more on building mutual respect. Not only would communication be a lot smoother, but there would be a lot less of unnecessary stress, as well.