PhronesisChronic passive-aggression constitutes a stable wrong attractor in the phase space of interpersonal conflict regulation. Rather than a simple deficit in communication skill, it represents a self-reinforcing architecture: indirect hostility accumulates regulatory pressure, produces partial discharge through deniable expression, and thereby forecloses the authentic confrontation that would permit genuine resolution.
We formalize this dynamics using a displacement framework in which the ground state S^0 denotes calibrated assertive expression, a displacement field D() tracks divergence from direct conflict engagement, and accumulated displacement = D()\,dt marks entrenchment depth. We identify passive-aggression as a wrong attractor W stabilized by four reinforcing loops: deniability maintenance, escalation anxiety, social approval seeking, and confrontation shame.
Nine formal propositions characterize the attractor geometry, the foreclosure basin, and the exit dynamics. We analyze the indirect-hostility architecture mechanistically—the deniability loop, the plausible-denial calculus, and the self-sealing quality of indirection—and examine how this architecture forecloses authentic confrontation by raising the perceived cost of directness to a prohibitive threshold.
Return paths are identified: calibrated assertive expression, graduated directness exposure, and deniability relinquishment. Links to suppressed anger, childhood conditioning, power differentials, and workplace dynamics are examined. The paper concludes that exit from the wrong attractor requires not the elimination of anger but its rerouting through direct channels.