Assertiveness Myths: 6 Lies That Keep You Quiet
Six myths that keep people from learning assertiveness — from 'I am just shy' to 'assertiveness is for extroverts.' What the research actually says.
11:14 PM. The apartment is quiet. The phone is face-down on the bed. You have been sitting on the edge of the mattress for an hour, not tired, not awake. Tomorrow there is a meeting. You know what you want to say. You have known for a week. You can feel the sentence in your throat. You will not say it.
That is the gap the six myths below were designed to keep you inside. Not because anyone sat down and decided to keep you quiet — but because the myths are comfortable, and the alternative is to admit the gap is a skill that has not been learned, and skills can be learned, and you have not yet learned this one. The myths make the gap feel permanent. It is not.
This piece is about the six most common myths that keep people from learning assertiveness — the ones that hide inside the joke “I am just shy,” the ones that sound like wisdom, the ones that protect the passive style from being examined. None of this is a verdict. It is a mirror — and a mirror is the first thing you need before any change can land.
1. The clinical frame: what the research means by “myth” here
A myth, in clinical psychology, is not a deliberate lie. It is a story that explains a pattern in a way that makes the pattern feel fixed. The six myths below all do that work for assertiveness. Each one takes a learnable skill and reframes it as a personality trait, a temperament, a moral position, or a sign of wisdom. The reframing is comforting. It is also the thing that prevents the learning.
Liu (2018) reviewed the social skills training literature and treated assertiveness as a skill — a sequence of what to notice in your body, what to say in your head, what to do with your voice, what to say with your words. Bishop (1979) developed one of the earliest instruments to measure the skill, separating it from aggression on one side and passivity on the other. The research treats assertiveness as a skill. The myths treat it as a trait. The disagreement is what this piece is about.
A quiet evening is a quiet evening. A sustained pattern of swallowing sentences you have a right to say — across months, across relationships, across contexts — is a pattern that responds to training. The six myths below describe the stories that keep the pattern in place.
2. “I am just shy” and “assertiveness is for extroverts” — the first two myths
“I am just shy” — and therefore nothing can change. Shyness is discomfort with attention. Assertiveness is the capacity to express your needs, opinions, and limits — even with people you trust, even in private. The two are different constructs. Liu (2018) reviewed the social skills training literature and showed that people who do not see themselves as shy still score high on patterns of avoidance, rehearsal, and post-hoc resentment. Bishop (1979) noted in the original measurement work: the shy personality and the low-assertiveness pattern can coexist, can be independent, and can move in different directions under training. The “I am just shy” myth collapses the two into one fixed trait. The truth is that you can be shy about attention and still learn to say the sentence you have been rehearsing for twenty minutes. The sentence does not require confidence. It requires rehearsal. DOI: 10.1111/cpsp.12216. The detail that breaks the myth: most people who describe themselves as “just shy” can name three people with whom they say what they think. The shyness is not global. The pattern is.
“Assertiveness is for extroverts.” It is not. Assertiveness is independent of introversion and extroversion. Introverts can be highly assertive — clear sentences, steady body, relationship goal held — and extroverts can be highly passive, filling the room with words without ever saying the sentence that mattered. Liu (2018) confirmed in the social skills training literature: the gains from assertiveness training are consistent across introversion–extroversion dimensions. The training is skill acquisition, not personality change. Bishop (1979) noted that the introvert who is assertive looks different from the extrovert who is assertive — quieter voice, fewer words, more pauses — but the underlying skill is the same. The “assertiveness is for extroverts” myth protects the introvert from believing the skill is available to them. It is. The skill is available to anyone who can rehearse a sentence and say it calmly. DOI: 10.2466/pr0.1979.44.3.767.
3. “Assertiveness means being aggressive” and “nice people do not assert themselves” — the middle two myths
“Assertiveness means being aggressive.” It does not. The two are distinct constructs with different internal monologues, different body signatures, and different outcomes for the relationship. The assertive internal monologue sounds like “I have a right to say this.” The aggressive internal monologue sounds like “I have to fight for this.” The assertive body is open — hands visible, volume steady. The aggressive body is forward — pointing, raised volume. Liu (2018) reviewed the evidence and concluded that assertiveness training reliably teaches the distinction. People trained in assertiveness report fewer conflicts, not more — because the small frictions get named early, before they accumulate into the kind of resentment that explodes. Bishop (1979) confirmed: the Self-Statement Test separates the two by what the person says to themselves in the moment of friction. The myth is what keeps people who are afraid of aggression from learning assertiveness. The two are not the same. The training does not turn you into someone you do not want to be. DOI: 10.1111/cpsp.12216.
“Nice people do not assert themselves.” Bishop (1979) framed the distinction explicitly: niceness is the absence of friction; assertiveness is the capacity to hold friction without escalating or withdrawing. The two are not the same. Niceness often collapses into passive — the agreement that avoids the friction, the apology that prevents the conversation, the smile that hides the cost. Liu (2018) reviewed the evidence: niceness is correlated with lower relationship satisfaction and higher resentment, not higher. Assertiveness is correlated with higher relationship satisfaction and lower resentment. The “nice people do not assert themselves” myth protects the passive style by framing it as a virtue. The research frames it as a cost. The cost is real, and it falls on the person who is being nice, not on the people around them. The skill that produces relationship satisfaction — for both sides — is assertiveness, not niceness. DOI: 10.2466/pr0.1979.44.3.767.
4. “Assertiveness is selfish” and “you cannot teach it” — the last two myths
“Assertiveness is selfish.” No. Bishop (1979) framed the distinction explicitly: assertiveness is the capacity to express your needs while respecting the other person’s right to express theirs. Aggression overrides the other person. Passivity overrides yourself. Assertiveness holds both. Liu (2018) confirmed that assertiveness training is associated with higher relationship satisfaction, not lower — because relationships work better when both people can name what they need. The “selfish” label is what the passive style has been telling you for years to keep you passive. It is not the truth. It is the cost of the pattern speaking through you. The honest test: when you swallow the sentence and say yes when you mean no, who pays the cost? You do. The cost is on your side, in your resentment, in your sleep, in your self-respect. The “selfish” label is what keeps the cost invisible. Assertiveness is what makes the cost visible, nameable, and addressable. DOI: 10.1111/cpsp.12216.
“You cannot teach assertiveness — it is a personality trait.” Liu (2018) reviewed the research and concluded: assertiveness is a teachable skill. The training reliably produces measurable gains — lower social anxiety, higher relationship satisfaction, more consistent boundary-keeping. Bishop (1979) developed the original measurement instrument partly to show that the skill was independent of age, of personality, of life experience. The “you cannot teach it” myth is what the passive style tells itself to avoid the training. The training exists. The training works. The training is shorter than you think. Most people can move one or two points on the eight-marker map in six to twelve weeks of practice. The “you cannot teach it” myth is the most expensive of the six — because it is the one that prevents people from looking for the training in the first place. The training is out there. It is in books, in courses, in short structured protocols with a therapist. It works. DOI: 10.1111/cpsp.12216.
5. Table: how the six myths interact with the evidence
| # | Myth | What it costs you | What the evidence says | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ”I am just shy” | Collapses two different patterns into one fixed trait | Shyness and low assertiveness are independent dimensions; the sentence does not require confidence | Liu 2018 |
| 2 | ”Assertiveness is for extroverts” | Protects introverts from seeking the training | The skill is independent of introversion–extroversion; introverts can be highly assertive | Bishop 1979 |
| 3 | ”Assertiveness means being aggressive” | Keeps people who fear aggression from learning assertiveness | The two are distinct constructs with different internal monologues, bodies, and outcomes | Liu 2018 / Bishop 1979 |
| 4 | ”Nice people do not assert themselves” | Frames the passive style as a virtue | Niceness correlates with lower relationship satisfaction; assertiveness correlates with higher | Liu 2018 / Bishop 1979 |
| 5 | ”Assertiveness is selfish” | Keeps the cost of the passive style invisible | Assertiveness holds both your needs and the other person’s; the cost of passivity falls on you | Liu 2018 |
| 6 | ”You cannot teach it — it is a personality trait” | Prevents people from seeking the training | The training is short (8–12 sessions), structured, and produces measurable gains | Liu 2018 |
A single myth is not a verdict. The clinical literature is consistent: it is the combination of myths you believe, sustained across years, that defines the gap. One or two myths in a hard year is normal. Three or more myths across a decade is a pattern worth examining.
A practical self-check: pick a quiet ten minutes. Take a piece of paper. Write down which of the six myths you have used to explain the gap. Notice the ones that come up most often. Those are the ones the training has somewhere to start.
6. Table: what each myth protects — the cost of keeping it
| Myth | The cost of keeping it |
|---|---|
| ”I am just shy” | The sentence never gets rehearsed; the gap stays in the head, not the mouth |
| ”Assertiveness is for extroverts” | The training never gets sought; the skill is treated as unavailable |
| ”Assertiveness means being aggressive” | The fear of aggression keeps the assertive sentence unsayable |
| ”Nice people do not assert themselves” | The passive style stays protected; the cost stays invisible |
| ”Assertiveness is selfish” | The resentment accumulates; the relationship carries a cost no one can name |
| ”You cannot teach it — it is a personality trait” | The training never gets started; the gap is treated as fixed |
If the pattern is mild, the work is small: one myth examined, one sentence this week. If the pattern is heavy — affecting relationships, sleep, or self-respect — that is the moment to talk to a professional about a structured assertiveness training course.
7. The piece people don’t usually read
"But what if I have believed all six myths for years?"
The beliefs are common. Liu (2018) reviewed the social skills training literature and noted that the six myths appear, in some form, in the majority of adults who seek assertiveness training. The belief is not a sign that the training will not work. The belief is a sign that the training is the next move. Bishop (1979) framed this explicitly: the myths are learned, the myths can be unlearned, and the unlearning is what the training does. The cost of believing the myths for years is the cost of the patterns the myths were protecting. The training addresses the patterns. The myths dissolve as the patterns shift.
"What if I really am shy — does that change anything?"
It changes the way the training lands, not whether it lands. Liu (2018) reviewed the evidence: assertiveness training works for people who are shy, with the only adjustment being that the rehearsal is done in private and the first real-life situations are low-stakes. The training does not require comfort with attention. It requires the capacity to rehearse a sentence in private and say it calmly in a moment that matters. Shy people can do both. Many shy people, in fact, do both for years — at work, in small groups, with people they trust — and then attribute the assertiveness to a moment of bravery rather than to a skill they have been practicing. The skill is what is doing the work. The training makes the skill visible. DOI: 10.1111/cpsp.12216
"Isn't it rude to assert yourself with someone who is older, or in authority?"
The assertion is the sentence, not the volume. Liu (2018) reviewed the evidence: assertiveness training explicitly teaches the assertive register, which is calm, brief, and respectful. The sentence can be addressed to anyone. The skill is independent of the other person’s status. Bishop (1979) noted that the assumption that assertiveness is “rude” with authority figures is one of the myths most resistant to training — often because the cost of being assertive with authority was high in childhood, and the cost has generalized to all authority. The cost can be unlearned. The training addresses the generalization, not the original cost. DOI: 10.2466/pr0.1979.44.3.767
"What if the other person does not respond well to my assertiveness?"
Some people will not. Liu (2018) reviewed the evidence: assertiveness training works in most relationships, and does not work in some. The relationships where it does not work are the ones where the other person’s behavior depends on you staying passive. The training is not designed to fix those relationships. It is designed to make the cost of those relationships visible. Bishop (1979) framed this as the “diagnostic value of assertiveness”: when you say the sentence calmly and the other person escalates, you have learned something important about the relationship. The learning is the gain. The training is what makes the learning possible.
"I have tried assertiveness before and it did not work."
Most people have. The most common reason it does not work is that the attempt is a single sentence, in a single moment, without rehearsal, without the structure that the research points at. Liu (2018) reviewed the evidence: the gains come from structured practice — short sentences, rehearsed aloud, said in low-stakes situations first, then graduated. A single attempt is not the training. The training is a sequence of attempts over weeks. Bishop (1979) confirmed: the original measurement work showed that people who attempted assertiveness without rehearsal reported less change than people who rehearsed. The rehearsal is the lever. The attempt is not. DOI: 10.2466/pr0.1979.44.3.767
8. Exercise: your two-week myth examination
This is not therapy. It is a starting point you can begin today, in less than 20 minutes.
Step 1 · Pick the most expensive myth
Pick the myth that has been doing the most work in your life. The one you have used to explain the gap most often. Write down the sentences you have used — to yourself, to others — that kept the myth in place. Notice the sentences. They are the training ground.
Step 2 · Find the counter-evidence
For the myth you picked, find one piece of evidence that contradicts it. A moment when you said the sentence. A relationship where assertiveness worked. A book, a video, a person. The counter-evidence is what the myth has been protecting you from seeing. Liu (2018) reviewed the evidence: the myths dissolve when the counter-evidence becomes reachable. The counter-evidence is the lever.
Step 3 · Write the assertive sentence
Write down the assertive sentence you have been rehearsing in your head. Fifteen words or fewer. No justification, no apology. The sentence you have not said out loud. Write it down.
Step 4 · Rehearse it aloud, three times
Say the sentence aloud, in private, three times. The first time will sound strange. The second time will sound better. The third time will sound like something you could say. The muscle is in the mouth, not the head. Bishop (1979) called this the rehearsal step and it is the part that the myths have been protecting you from doing. The myths dissolve when the rehearsal happens.
Step 5 · Say it in the next moment
When the moment arrives, say the sentence. If the answer is not what you need, say the same sentence again, word for word. The skill is the repetition. Most people find that the world does not end, that the other person adjusts, and that they want to use the sentence again. Liu (2018) reviewed the evidence: the gains from assertiveness training come from the rehearsal, the saying, and the noticing. The myths dissolve when the sequence is completed.
Two weeks does not fix a pattern. It tells you whether the pattern is responsive to myth-examination. Most patterns are. Liu (2018) reviewed the evidence: assertiveness responds to structured practice, not to willpower. The mechanism is myth examination, then rehearsal, then saying.
9. ARIA progressbars — two self-checks
Reading the six myths is one thing. Holding them against yourself is another. These are visual references for what the clinical literature points at as severity bands, and for the size of the first move that matches the pattern. Treat them as a self-check, not a diagnosis.
The last thing the six myths ask of you is honesty without theater. You can still be warm and still believe the myths. You can still love the people in your life and still swallow the sentence. You can know the research and still not say the thing at the meeting. The point of naming the myths is not to collect a label. It is to make the next small moment measurable, so the myths stop hiding inside a vague story about being shy.
10. When to talk to someone (and what to expect)
If any of these is happening to you, do not wait for it to pass on its own: more than three of the six myths active across years; people close to you have commented more than once that you “always agree” or “never say what you want”; sleep or self-respect consistently worse than a year ago with no other obvious cause; you have read the books and watched the videos and the in-the-moment sentence still does not come; the relationships that matter are carrying a cost you can feel but cannot name.
Talking is not giving up. It is the first move with intention. The first session is usually lighter than you expect — most clinicians who work with assertiveness use a structured protocol (social skills training, eight to twelve sessions, often combined with cognitive work on the myths and the rehearsal). The first session is mostly listening: history, current patterns, what you have already tried, what you want. You do not have to have the right words. You can say “I think I have been believing the myths about assertiveness for years and the cost is catching up” and that is enough to start.
In the first three or four sessions, you and the professional will usually agree on a working plan: which myth to examine first (often the one doing the most work), how to find the counter-evidence, how to rehearse. If after four sessions you feel the fit is wrong, you can say so. A good clinician hears that and adjusts, or refers you. The first clinician is not always the right one — and that is a normal thing, not a failure on your part.
11. Crisis box — if you are in crisis NOW
If right now you are overwhelmed or you are having thoughts of harming yourself:
| Country | Phone | Type |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 988 | Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (free, 24h) |
| United Kingdom | 116 123 | Samaritans (free, 24h) |
| Canada | 1-833-456-4566 | Suicide Crisis Helpline (free, 24h) |
| Australia | 13 11 14 | Lifeline (free, 24h) |
| International | findahelpline.com | Global directory |
If you are in immediate danger, call your country’s emergency number (911, 112, 999, etc.)
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One myth examined, one sentence rehearsed this week. If this piece did anything, let it be this: pick the myth that has been doing the most work in your life, find one piece of counter-evidence, write down the assertive sentence you have been rehearsing in your head, say it aloud three times, and say it in the next moment. The bars above are not a promise — they are what the evidence points at when myth examination is repeated. The pattern is responsive. The work starts with one myth.
Caja de crisis
If you are in crisis now: USA 988; UK Samaritans 116 123; Canada 1-833-456-4566; Australia 13 11 14.