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Background factors. Often aggressiveness comes from feeling a great deal of confidence in one's own knowledge, goals, decision, or mind-set. Often the aggressive person may honestly believe that he/she is "right" and the others are "wrong." Often the aggressive person thinks that if others don't like what they do, then they will fight for what they want. They may interpret more passive responses as the other not really caring (when in fact they do, but fear confronting them). Usually the aggressive/dominating person either doesn't know how to be assertive or thinks that aggressive/dominating means are more effective, easier, more acceptable, or preferable to other approaches. Often aggressive people have come from families and/or other environments where aggression and domination were modeled and/or rewarded. People who are more aggressive and dominating may be independent, ambitious, unable to accept blame well (always projecting it upon others), suspicious of others, and very "righteous" about following their rules (but not about following others' rules), Many aggressive people put on a show of confidence and may be confident in many situations. They may fight back and attack when they feel criticized or put down. But deep down they may have low self-esteem and fear that the criticisms are right in some frightful way. Their greatest fears may be of failure, lack of respect and being loved, and ultimate rejection.

Many aggressive people lack trust and/or intimacy skills. Rejection increases their own feelings of loneliness and inadequacy in the area of intimacy, and makes them feel hurt, suspicious, and angry toward others. Understanding their previous hurt and feelings of isolation, being trustworthy, and demonstrating intimacy can often be very helpful in relating to aggressive people.

From one extreme to the other. Often someone who generally is too nonassertive will become too aggressive at times. This may happen because time-after-time you they felt small amounts of resentment when someone dominated or hurts them and the didn't respond assertively. Finally, they have "the last straw," blow their stack, and behave aggressively. If you have this problem, the best solution is to learn to think and act more assertively in the previous situations, though you may also need to learn more about anger management (see below).

Sometimes a person who has been too nonassertive for years becomes determined to change and then becomes generally too aggressive instead of assertive. The reason they become so aggressive may go back to their childhood. In the same setting (usually their family) where they learned to be too nonassertive, they may have learned the scripts of both the nonassertive and aggressive roles. When they wanted to make a change, all they knew to do was flip from the nonassertive/submissive role to the aggressive/dominant role. They never learned the script for the assertive role. If this has happened to you, you need assertion training