Robert Greene claims that negative people often seek drama for attention, and the best way to handle them is to maintain emotional distance and recognize their behavior patterns early.

“The power that you have is to recognize people like that before you get involved with them and to not get involved with them, right? And so, they have signs, things that you can pick up in advance.”

Behavior in others perceived as passive-aggressive or volatile is often an attempt to communicate deeper, unmet needs.

“anger is often signposting a need for Equity or fairness or that some values are being traversed so if we move away from this idea that emotions are good or bad or that I'm only allowed some of them actually what we do is we move into the space where we start saying for me as well as for the friend ”