Psychology Today features a short, quick piece on negative psychology, which “is often used to make a request seem less infringing,” through apologetic language and other types of hedging. If you’ve ever said “Sorry to bother you, but…”, you’ve used negative psychology.

It can be a good way to sweeten your request when you’re asking the boss, or maybe a difficult coworker, for a favor.

On the other hand, some people will interpret negative politeness as a signal that it’s okay to ignore you; for those people, a more assertive approach is needed. It’s important to adapt your communication style to fit the communicatee (that is a word, isn’t it?).

I sometimes use negative psychology on my lawyers, but I probably use it most often on my firm’s administrative personnel — the people in accounting, IT, the mail room, supplies, etc. Those folks are in a separate world from us legal types — a world where deadlines can be missed without risk of a malpractice suit — and I’ve found most of them don’t have a handle on what we’re up against. If we ask for something at the last minute, they don’t see the urgency and don’t understand that these things usually can’t be helped. They assume we’re just disorganized, and they get all “failure-to-plan-on-your-part-doesn’t-constitute-an-emergency-on-my-part.”

I sometimes find that a little “sorry to bother you, but…” goes a long way toward overcoming passive-aggressive behavior.