Assertiveness - An Introduction

See also: Building Confidence

Assertiveness is a skill regularly referred to in social and communication skills training.

Being assertive means being able to stand up for your own or other people’s rights in a calm and
positive way, without being either aggressive, or passively accepting ‘wrong’.

Assertive individuals are able to get their point across without upsetting others, or becoming
upset themselves.

Although everyone acts in passive and aggressive ways from time to time, such ways of
responding often result from a lack of self-confidence and are, therefore, inappropriate
ways of interacting with others.

This page examines the rights and responsibilities of assertive behaviour and aims to show
how assertiveness can benefit you. You may also be interested in our pages on Self-
Esteem and Negotiation.

What is Assertiveness?

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines assertiveness as:

“Forthright, positive, insistence on the recognition of one's rights”

In other words:

Assertiveness means standing up for your personal rights - expressing thoughts, feelings and
beliefs in direct, honest and appropriate ways.

It is important to note also that:

By being assertive we should always respect the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of other people.
Those who behave assertively always respect the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of other people as
well as their own.

Assertiveness concerns being able to express feelings, wishes, wants and desires appropriately
and is an important personal and interpersonal skill.  In all your interactions with other people,
whether at home or at work, with employers, customers or colleagues, assertiveness can help you
to express yourself in a clear, open and reasonable way, without undermining your own or
others’ rights.

Assertiveness enables individuals to act in their own best interests, to stand up for themselves
without undue anxiety, to express honest feelings comfortably and to express personal rights
without denying the rights of others.

Passive, Aggressive and Assertive

Assertiveness is often seen as the balance point between passive and aggressive behaviour,
but it’s probably easier to think of the three as points of a triangle.

Being Assertive

Being assertive involves taking into consideration your own and other people’s rights,
wishes, wants, needs and desires.

Assertiveness means encouraging others to be open and honest about their views, wishes and
feelings, so that both parties act appropriately.

Assertive behaviour includes:

 Being open in expressing wishes, thoughts and feelings and encouraging others to do
likewise. See our page on Managing Emotions.
  Listening to the views of others and responding appropriately, whether in agreement with
those views or not. See our page on Active Listening.
 Accepting responsibilities and being able to delegate to others. See our page
on Delegation Skills for more.
 Regularly expressing appreciation of others for what they have done or are doing. See our
page on Gratitude and Being Grateful.
 Being able to admit to mistakes and apologise.
 Maintaining self-control. See our page on Self-Control for more.
 Behaving as an equal to others. See our page on Justice and Fairness to explore further.

Some people may struggle to behave assertively for a number of reasons, and find that they
behave either aggressively or passively instead.

Read more at: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ps/assertiveness.html

Assertiveness

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Assertiveness is the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive. In the
field of psychology and psychotherapy, it is a skill that can be learned and a mode of
communication. Dorland's Medical Dictionary defines assertiveness as:

a form of behavior characterized by a confident declaration or affirmation of a statement

without need of proof; this affirms the person's rights or point of view without either
aggressively threatening the rights of another (assuming a position of dominance) or
submissively permitting another to ignore or deny one's rights or point of view.[1]
 It is considered a critical life skill and recommended for children to develop. Assertiveness is
a communication skill that can be taught and the skills of assertive communication
effectively learned.

Assertiveness is a method of critical thinking where an individual speaks up in defense of

their views or in light of erroneous information. Assertive people are able to be outspoken
and analyse information and point out areas of information lacking substance, details or
evidence. Assertiveness supports creative thinking and effective communication.

The level of assertiveness demonstrated in any human community is a factor of social and
cultural practices at the time of inquiry. For example, in 2019 there are global public
discussions about controversial topics such as drug addiction, rape and sexual abuse of
women and children, which were not openly discussed in 1940.

Within families, children are not always encouraged to develop assertiveness skills and must
usually accept and obey rulings by their parents. Today, however, outspoken children can
legally input to decisions about their lives from the age of sixteen.

During the second half of the 20th century, assertiveness was increasingly singled out as a
behavioral skill taught by many personal development experts, behavior therapists,
and cognitive behavioral therapists. Assertiveness is often linked to self-esteem. The term
and concept was popularized to the general public by books such as Your Perfect Right: A
Guide to Assertive Behavior (1970) by Robert E. Alberti and Michael L. Emmons and When
I Say No, I Feel Guilty: How To Cope Using the Skills of Systematic Assertiveness
Therapy (1975) by Manuel J. Smith.

Contents

 1Training
 2Communication
 3Characteristics
 4Techniques
o 4.1Broken record
 o 4.2Fogging
o 4.3Negative inquiry
o 4.4Negative assertion
o 4.5I-statements
 5Applications
 6Criticism
 7References
 8Further reading
 9External links

Training[edit]

Joseph Wolpe originally explored the use of assertiveness as a means of "reciprocal

inhibition" of anxiety, in his 1958 book on treating neurosis; and it has since been commonly
employed as an intervention in behavior therapy.[2] Assertiveness Training ("AT") was
introduced by Andrew Salter (1961) and popularized by Joseph Wolpe.[3] Wolpe's belief was
that a person could not be both assertive and anxious at the same time, and thus being
assertive would inhibit anxiety. The goals of assertiveness training include:[4]

 increased awareness of personal rights

 differentiation between non-assertiveness and assertiveness
 differentiation between passive–aggressiveness and aggressiveness
 learning both verbal and non-verbal assertiveness skills.

As a communication style and strategy, assertiveness is thus distinguished from both

aggression and passivity. How people deal with personal boundaries, their own and those of
other people, helps to distinguish between these three concepts. Passive communicators do
not defend their own personal boundaries and thus allow aggressive people
to abuse or manipulate them through fear. Passive communicators are also typically not
likely to risk trying to influence anyone else. Aggressive people do not respect the personal
boundaries of others and thus are liable to harm others while trying to influence them. A
person communicates assertively by overcoming fear of speaking his or her mind or trying to
influence others, but doing so in a way that respects the personal boundaries of others.
Assertive people are also willing to defend themselves against aggressive people.

Communication[edit]

Assertive communication involves respect for the boundaries of oneself and others. It also
presumes an interest in the fulfillment of needs and wants through cooperation.[5]

According to the textbook Cognitive Behavior Therapy (2008), "Assertive communication of

personal opinions, needs, and boundaries has been ... conceptualized as the behavioral
middle ground, lying between ineffective passive and aggressive responses".[6] Such
communication "emphasizes expressing feelings forthrightly, but in a way that will not spiral
into aggression".[7]

If others' actions threaten one's boundaries, one communicates this to prevent escalation.[8]

In contrast, "aggressive communication" judges, threatens, lies, breaks confidences,

stonewalls, and violates others' boundaries.

At the opposite end of the dialectic is "passive communication". Victims may passively
permit others to violate their boundaries. At a later time, they may come back and attack with
a sense of impunity or righteous indignation.

Assertive communication attempts to transcend these extremes by appealing to the shared

interest of all parties; it "focuses on the issue, not the person".[9] Aggressive and/or passive
communication, on the other hand, may mark a relationship's end,[10] and reduce self-respect.

Characteristics[edit]

Assertive people tend to have the following characteristics:[citation needed]

 They feel free to express their feelings, thoughts, and desires.

 They are "also able to initiate and maintain comfortable relationships with [other]
people"[11]
 They know their rights.
 They have control over their anger. This does not mean that they repress this feeling; it
means that they control anger and talk about it in a reasoning manner.
 "Assertive people ... are willing to compromise with others, rather than always wanting
their own way ... and tend to have good self-esteem".[12]
 "Assertive people enter friendships from an 'I count my needs. I count your needs'
position".[13]

Techniques[edit]

Techniques of assertiveness can vary widely. Manuel Smith, in his 1975 book When I Say
No, I Feel Guilty, offered some of the following behaviors:

Broken record[edit]

The "broken record" technique[14] consists of simply repeating your requests or your refusals
every time you are met with resistance. The term comes from vinyl records, the surface of
which when scratched would lead the needle of a record player to loop over the same few
seconds of the recording indefinitely. "As with a broken record, the key to this approach is
repetition ... where your partner will not take no for an answer."[15]

A disadvantage with this technique is that when resistance continues, your requests may lose
power every time you have to repeat them. If the requests are repeated too often, it can
backfire on the authority of your words. In these cases, it is necessary to have some sanctions
on hand.

Fogging[edit]

Fogging[14] consists of finding some limited truth to agree with in what an antagonist is

saying. More specifically, one can agree in part or agree in principle.

Negative inquiry[edit]

Negative inquiry[14] consists of requesting further, more specific criticism.

Negative assertion[edit]

Negative assertion[14] is agreement with criticism without letting up demand.

I-statements[edit]

I-statements can be used to voice one's feelings and wishes from a personal position without
expressing a judgment about the other person or blaming one's feelings on them.
Applications[edit]

Several research studies have identified assertiveness training as a useful tool in the
prevention of alcohol-use disorders.[16] Psychological skills in general including assertiveness
and social skills have been posed as intervention for a variety of disorders with some
empirical support.[17]

In connection with gender theory, "Tannen argues that men and women would both benefit
from learning to use the others' style. ... So, women would benefit from assertiveness training
just as men might benefit from sensitivity training".[18][19]

Criticism[edit]

Assertiveness may be practiced in an unbalanced way, especially by those new to the

process: "[One] problem with the concept of assertiveness is that it is both complex and
situation-specific. ... Behaviors that are assertive in one circumstance may not be so in
another".[20] More particularly, while "unassertiveness courts one set of problems, over-
assertiveness creates another."[21] Assertiveness manuals recognize that "many people, when
trying out assertive behavior for the first time, find that they go too far and become
aggressive."[22]

In the late 1970's and early 1980's, in the heyday of assertiveness training, some so-called
assertiveness training techniques were distorted and "people were told to do some pretty
obnoxious things in the name of assertiveness. Like blankly repeating some request over and
over until you got your way".[23] Divorced from respect for the rights of others, so-called
assertiveness techniques could be psychological tools that might be readily abused: The line
between repeatedly demanding with sanctions ("broken record") versus
coercive nagging, emotional blackmail, or bullying, could be a fine one, and the caricature of
assertiveness training as "training in how to get your own way ... or how to become as
aggressive as the next person"[24] was perpetuated.