Do not provoke me anymore.

 What is the psychology behind provocative behavior? Why are some people provocative and how did they get like this?

I will provoke you until you cant resist me anymore.

Behaviors such as overly provocative and often inappropriate dress, language, and sexual behavior can stem from a number of personality disorders, such as Borderline Personality Disorder, their causes I highly recommend your reading about and researching further.

Along with individuals with personality disorders, we sometimes see this behavior in people who have been sexually molested or exposed to sexual activity or media at a young/inappropriate age. They may begin to act out sexually later in life, from how they dress to engaging in risky sexual behaviors. This stems from a warped view of sex and sexuality as a result of being exposed to sex in the wrong way and at too young an age.

There are also those women who dress and act this way as a means of garnering attention or affection from men. We sometimes refer to these women as having “daddy issues.” Call it a self-esteem issue or a lack of self-worth. These women are often missing either a crucial father figure role in their lives or perhaps have other emotional deficiencies that they are trying to make up for by soliciting the attention of men through overtly sexual dress.

There is no one simple answer to this question. But, this is a little insight into more common psychological causes, and will perhaps give you a good start to research more on the topic.

From personal experience(pseudo-psychology) every person with such behavior has at least one tale that confirmed for them why that was the way they should behave. Once someone has been provoked, they can hardly unlearn what they have learned without assistance.

Why would someone constantly try to provoke others? Get a rise out of people? Pushing their buttons and looking to create unnecessary dramas?

Most of the time it's a form of attention seeking. When people rise to their drama, stupid comments or actions it gives them a sense of satisfaction and power, and the attention that they so strongly crave. They crave attention because they are either bored, it's a coping mechanism, they get rewarded for their behavior or they have very low self esteem and if they can get a rise out of someone, it makes them feel better about themselves. The trouble is ,this kind of behavior is self destructive and it can also hurt others around them. In the end, people start to ignore that person so the person ups the ante ,hurting themselves and other people even more. These sort of people need structure and routine. They also need boundaries because they are used to getting what they want.

How should one be dealing with those people who are trying to provoke you to get into quarrel?

I consider people who are deliberately trying to provoke an emotional response from someone for ANY reason to be severely lacking any real Emotional Maturity. They are behaving with the mentality of the “playground bully” when you were 10 years old.

Our bodies will mature, and even our education will grow, but our emotions need to mature as well.

Before I retired, I worked alongside many “brilliant minds” who had earned their degrees, only to discover that when their emotions came to the surface I was dealing with a child. Not as often as the “blue collar” and “white collar” environments. Mostly because we all knew we worked with highly educated and trained People, who would be observing and analyzing the behavior. Containing your emotions is a form of self-defense in that case.

You’ve gotten some good opinions, well worth considering. It sounds as if you are looking at two choices.

My approach was to first not allow anyone to have any control over my emotions but myself. If someone in your life can manage to evoke anger from you anytime they choose to, you have given that person actual control of that emotion in you. I prefer to keep that power to myself.

I created what I called my “answering machine recording” as my response once I knew they were just being provocative. I suppose it’s better called a “voice mail “ recording anymore.

The idea being to give the EXACT SAME RESPONSE every time. Using the same exact words and tones of voice each time. You could even phrase it as if it IS a voicemail. Basically letting them know if they have something important to say to please leave a detailed message and you’ll get back to them when you are available.

If your phone has a recording devise, just prerecord your message , and without even looking up, play it for them every time they try to provoke you, while not uttering a single word, or even acknowledging their physical presence.

It’s sure to just suck the fun right out of verbally poking you.

Either way, simply staying in control of yourself will usually make a bully give up fairly soon and find another bear to poke.

If they do this to others a united effort performed in concert with each other will have a very solid impact. Perhaps even the same recording on the phones of any other targets of their “fun” will let them know quickly they no longer have individual targets and back off completely. It would at least be interesting and entertaining, and worded politely can avoid being said to be offensive.

If you can’t beat it, have fun with it. Making a person the butt of their own “joke” is sometimes worth the extra effort.

Good luck my friends in all you do. Stay focused on your path.

I'm done argue with you.

Final thoughts

People who provoke you to get into quarrel, first of all, aren’t normal. The root of this disease may be that something may be wrong in their family itself. Their parents might be very dominating or these type of people might be very submissive in their childhood, and consequently, must have been exploited by others in their formative years. As they grow up, they drive relief from provoking others which is a very sick and flawed behavior. This is their way of taking revenge.

They sort of take revenge in this unreasonable way because they are afraid of provoking stronger people fearing retaliation from them. They love to victimize mild people. The best way to handle them is to ask them straight, “Why do you provoke me?” This way, they would immediately realize that you know them inside out and you have rightly diagnosed their ‘malady.’ You would also experience that such type of people rarely take liberties with stronger, powerful and dominating people.

                                       she knows that  you can't help noticing  her butt  posing 

The term for these people is called 'passive aggressive'. It is tricky to deal with them because if you call them out directly they may shift the blame on you and play innocent, in which case you may come across as obnoxious or paranoid. So, initially give them a benefit of doubt and answer their questions straight, but if they still continue to try to provoke you call them out subtly and leave the place without any anger or aggression. See the deal with passive aggressors is that they are afraid to call you out openly and that's why they try to do it in a very subtle way. Their main aim is to see you get worked up. So, how to deal with these type of people? Simple, tap into their fears and don't lose your cool.