1Demanding respect quietly puts you below the person you are demanding it from. You are asking for something only they can hand over, which makes you the one in need.
That is an odd position for a stance meant to prove you will not be pushed around. To anyone watching it usually reads as need rather than strength. The way out is not to demand harder but to stop making the request, and that only becomes possible once some of the regard is coming from somewhere you control.
Islamic evidence
The Home in the Hereafter goes to those who do not seek superiority on earth (Quran 28:83). Letting the ranking go is described as gain, which is not at all how it feels in the moment.
“We grant the Home in the Hereafter to those who do not seek superiority on earth or spread corruption: the happy ending is awarded to those who are mindful of God”
Qur'an 28:83
Psychological evidence
In a study of patients with borderline personality disorder, attachment style predicted which forms of hostility showed up, tying aggression to what a person felt was at stake in the relationship. Anger takes its shape from the standing you believe you have with someone, which is the same machinery as the demand for respect. It was a cross-sectional clinical sample, so it maps a pattern in one group rather than a rule for everybody.
Critchfield KL, Levy KN, Clarkin JF, Kernberg OF. (2008). Journal of clinical psychology · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Asking somebody to grant you standing hands them the power to withhold it.
When not to. Collective calls for respect, where a whole group is being treated as less, are a different matter from asking one person to think well of you.
Feedback
none yet2Say what you would prefer and what you will do, not what they have to feel. I do not like being spoken to this way, and if it carries on I am going to step out of the conversation.
The difference is small and it changes everything. A demand needs their cooperation to succeed, so it can be refused, and being refused is where the rage comes from. A preference with a consequence attached needs only you. You are not asking them to respect you, you are telling them what you will do.
Islamic evidence
There is no cause to act against anyone who defends himself after being wronged (Quran 42:41). Protecting yourself is allowed, and stepping out of a conversation is about the mildest form of it.
“There is no cause to act against anyone who defends himself after being wronged”
Qur'an 42:41
Psychological evidence
Across four experiments, provocation reliably came before aggression, and it did so partly by draining self-control and feeding the going over of what happened. Standing in it longer costs you the very thing you need in order to handle it well. Those were laboratory provocations rather than family arguments, so the size of the drain in real life is unknown.
Denson TF, Pedersen WC, Friese M, Hahm A, Roberts L. (2011). Personality & social psychology bulletin · doi
Review detail
Why it works. A boundary you can keep on your own cannot be refused by anybody else.