DEFINITION:
The term “assertiveness” refers to a personality trait characterized by a high level of comfort with presenting oneself in public and defending ideas that one feels strongly about.
ETYMOLOGY:
The English noun “assertiveness” and the related adjective “assertive” are attested from the sixteenth century.
Those words are connected to the verb “to assert,” which derives from the past participle adsertus/assertus of the Classical Latin verb adsero, adserere/assero, asserere, meaning “to join to oneself.”
Adserere/asserere, in turn, is compounded of the Latin preposition ad, meaning “towards,” and the verb sero, serere, meaning “to join together” or “to connect.”
DISCUSSION:
Being “assertive” does not mean being rude or overbearing. In the true sense of the term, “assertiveness” means presenting oneself and one’s ideas with insistence and firmness, but in a polite, calm, and confident manner.
To communicate assertively presupposes an interest in accomplishing a task through cooperation with others. Thus, the concept of “assertiveness” entails paying equal respect to one’s own needs, desires, and interests and those of others.
Note that, as a means of self-presentation and communication, “assertiveness” should be distinguished from aggressivity, on the one hand, and passivity, on the other. In other words, “assertiveness” is a virtue in the classical Aristotelian sense, meaning that it constitutes a “golden mean” between an extreme of excess and an extreme of deficiency.