Microaggressions are not just about racism or political debates.
They are everyday covert power moves—little jabs, disguised “jokes,” or subtle undermining behaviors—that chip away at respect and influence.

In this guide, I’ll break down what microaggressions really mean, how they differ from passive aggression and covert aggression, and give you clear examples and strategies to handle them.

We’ve coached thousands of men on spotting and neutralizing these status-lowering tactics. By the end, you’ll be able to see microaggressions for what they are—and respond without losing power.

A Microaggression Is…

Any disempowering words or behavior that is of low or moderate intensity of directness or aggression

In “microaggression” we include:

• Covert power moves / Covert aggressions / disempowering covert frames
• Passive-aggressiveness / frenemies
• Social climbing / power scalping
• Undermining / Status scalping 
• Micro revenge
• Teasing / mean jokes / ballbusting / micro one-uppings
• Smaller shit tests / loyalty tests 

For simplicity think of these as “little everyday games”, “frenemy”, and general turkey behavior.

Albeit not overly aggressive or super obvious, they are still red flags of character 🚩.
And they’re still damaging. Harmful to relationships, and disempowering -including to self-esteem-.

Especially when part of a pattern:

⚠️🎗️ Remember the “death by a thousand cut” law.
Many unchecked microaggressions add up to decrease status, respect, and attraction by a lot.

Example of Microaggression

A more prototypical example of microaggression as used in common parlance:

Him: I love how Italian you sound <— microaggression. Frames an individual with his ethnic background, rather than respectfully treating him as an individual. But it’s covert behind the word “love” and “sometimes”
That’s why we have Porsche and you have Fiat <— this “joke” suggests that the “love” he mentioned before doesn’t include much respect

In this example of microaggression, the more typical microaggression is actually the first part.
The one that says “I love how… “.
It’s also a covert aggression because of the (fake) frame of “loving”.

The second part instead is more openly aggressive, and thus doesn’t qualify as microaggression.

Skills to Handle Microaggressions

The skills to deal with microaggressions are:

1. Power awareness, to see microaggression. You can’t handle what you can’t see
2. Social calibration to meet microaggressions at the appropriate level
3. Competence with the right strategies and techniques

This website takes care of #1 (and PU even better).
And this article helps you with #2 and #3.

Let’s start with the theoretical foundations to understand calibration:

1. Learn to assess the level of aggression

Indirect and covert tend to be low. Direct and open tend to be higher

Negative level: Builds you up / empowers you / submits…
Level 0. Neutral: Does not disempower you
Levels 1./2. Nano-aggression: Non-value taking joke / light teasing…
Levels 3./4./5. Microaggression: Criticism / “polite” or professional attack / one-upping / value-taking jokes / rubbing it in / mocking body language…
Level 6./7./8. Hostility: Direct attacks / “pathologizing” / insulting “jokes”…
Level 9. Aggression: Threats / threatening body language / shouting / offensive remarks / anger-fueled rants…
Level 10. Physical aggression: See Power University 🎓

Importantly:

⚠️ Lower levels don’t mean “OK”

We discourage from considering lower-levels “kind of OK” 🙅🏼‍♂️.

Yes, all else being equal, a lower level power move can be less damaging.
But it’s an unhelpful generalization:

• Context matters more. Ie.: insults from angry homeless are aggressive, but cost you little to ignore. A girl you like publicly one-upping you is low aggression, but costs you a lot
• Patterns of low-level power moves add up, and you die by a thousand cuts
• Checking power moves is a great opportunity to display value, skills, and intellect. Especially when they’re less obvious

2. Learn to spot nonverbal microaggressions

Nonverbal microaggressions include:

• “😆” Exaggerated laughing sub-communicates “you are laughable”
  • “LOL” is similar
• “😉” Winks are smart-alecky ways of sub-communicating “you silly, I know better”.
• Body language
  • Eye rolls
  • Looking away
  • “WTF” expressions

Example of sneering:

👉🏼 Sneering while looking at others forms a silent alliance to ostracize you as a “laughing stock”

3. Learn to spot and handle the sub-communication

Microaggressions and covert power moves are about the sub-communication.

Everything above the sub-communication is just decoy.

Remember the iceberg:

Important articles at the juncture of sub-communication, prejudice, and self-esteem:

• Virtue signaling harms “minorities”
• Guilt-tripping harms “whites”

4. Calibrate & keep your eyes on your goal

For example, imagine this:

Her: (sneers) <—- damaging, but it’s indirect, low level aggression
Miscalibrated: What are you laughing at! (Do you think I’m a laughing stock?) <—- direct, higher level of aggression
Her: It’s not about you, I was just smiling <—- goes under cover

OR:

High-status person: Would be great if we could all think before talking <—- this is a strong attack. But it’s impersonal, “philosopher-sounding”. It’s damaging, but low in terms of aggression
Miscalibrated: Hey! Who you think you talking to like that, I’m not stupid you know <—- make it personal too fast, escalates right away, and too hot-headed for most environments
High-status person: I never said anyting of the like to you <— now you look in the wrong for starting a miscalibrated escalation with a high-status member

It’s good that he takes action.
But it feels too much, and he draws negative attention to him.

The issues are calibration, and strategy.

It’s miscalibrated because it’s too aggressive and direct compared to the attack.
Remember: the attack is covert, so the aggressive intent is hidden.

As for goals, your goal is to make out of it in the best light possible.
In this case, our reactive man expanded on the negatives -the laugh, and the implication of low IQ-.
If few noticed the original attack, now everyone takes note.
And you made it so noteworthy they will remember it.

If this is clear, you can skip the next paragraph.
If not, we explain further.

📝 Quiz

Think about how you would handle these.
Solution in Power University 🎓.

(Mis-)Calibrating Against Microaggressions

3 ways of mis-calibrating microaggressions:

#1. Aggression VS Microaggression

In chart:

In words:

• Level 4 is the attack
• Level 7 is the answer
• Result: +3

That net difference is what makes it uncalibrated.
👉🏼 Remember that anger and other strong emotions are also high effort. And you generally want to avoid investing too much compared to others.

The lose-lose escalation trap

Be careful of escalating micro-aggressions, even if you do it without anger.

Arguments borne out of smaller stuff are lose-lose.
Two grown-ups arguing over small stuff feels like lower-value time-wasting. At worst, it looks like “two morons bickering over nothing”.
And even while defending yourself, people see you as “difficult”.

⚠️ Watch out for “provoke/react patterns” (even in families)
It’s a turkey game of “poke the bear, enjoy the angry bear” (common with parent/child).
Even if you “beat them” with high dominance, you’re still playing their game. They get their sick payoff, and you waste energy.
Solutions 🔜

“Civil society” tends to punish the aggressor

“Civil society” tends to reject aggression, even if it follows provocation.

To most PU alumni, that means your social circle will support the provocateur.

Example:

⛏️ Defender becomes the aggressor and spoils the mood

#2. Aggression VS Covert-aggression

The key here is this:

The covert-attacker can retreat and deny.

For example:

I was just joking

Maaan, relax (with a body language of “you’re so freaking tense”)

Don’t take it so personally dude

I’m just saying man, chill

We joke all the times like that, nobody ever takes it so seriously (= you’re the overly-touchy exception)

In our aggression scale the covert aggressor retreats to a lower level.
And that leaves you even more uncalibrated.

In chart:

🔎 Example:

Micro-aggressor: LOL, good to see Max tonight, all it took was a free dinner (<— frames you as stingy)
Over-reactor: Excuse me?? That’s inacceptable dude!  What are you implying. I spend as much as anyone else at this table. Take that back and apologize.

And you know what comes next:

Micro-aggressor: Dude, relax, it was just a joke, what are you getting so hot about, we’re just having fun

He may also keep provoking, or add reasons why you come across as “money sensitive”.

If you retreat then, you submit to his frame and attack.
If you defend, you reinforce that frame.
And if you escalate without skills, you ruin everyone’s dinner -and may lose access to the group-.

#3. Manipulative Microaggression VS Aggression

The key of manipulative aggression is this:

The attacker pretends he wants to help and has good intentions.

For example:

Covert aggressor: I’m not criticizing you, I only want to reach the best possible decisions (📣 Sub-communication = you’re about “team you”, I’m about the team)

Or in toxic/abusive relationships:

Covert aggressor: I’m saying this because I care about you. And instead of appreciating it, you get angry? This is unbelievable!

At the highest level, the sub-communication in both cases is “I’m good, you’re bad”.

In chart:

⚠️ Beware the gaslighting
The manipulator provokes your overreaction, accuses you of being overreactive and “crazy”, and professes “best intentions”.
And, implied, you’re “not good enough” for them.

Sometimes perpetrators aren’t even terrible people.
But they’re still playing a toxic game (see “Berne, 1964“). And you don’t want to play those toxic, turkey games (see combative relationships dynamics, for example)-.

Solutions?
Yes, please.
See:

• Techniques against microaggressions

Or all at once: Power University 🎓