Assertiveness Bill of Rights: Basic Rights That Give You Permission to Speak Up

About this tool

Behind every assertiveness skill sits a quieter question: do I even have the right to speak up. For many people the honest answer, learned early, is no, or only if it does not bother anyone. The Assertiveness Bill of Rights, popularized in assertiveness training by Manuel Smith and built on by Alberti and Emmons, makes those rights explicit. It is not a license to be selfish. It is a correction to the mistaken beliefs that keep people silent, over-apologetic, and resentful.

Each right has a flip side: a common assumption that quietly overrides it. The right to say no without guilt corrects the belief that saying no makes you selfish or unkind. The right to change your mind corrects the belief that you must always be consistent to be taken seriously. Seeing the right and the mistaken belief side by side is what makes this more than a feel-good list. It targets the exact thoughts that block assertive behavior.

Reading these rights is not the same as believing them, and that is fine. The ones that feel uncomfortable or even wrong are the most useful, because they show you where your own permission is missing. Returning to the list, and acting on one right at a time, is how the belief gradually shifts from theory into something you actually live by.

Assertiveness training itself predates Smith's book. Behavior therapists including Joseph Wolpe described techniques for reducing social inhibition and expressing feelings and opinions directly as early as the 1950s, and Smith's contribution was translating that clinical work into a plain-language set of personal rights that people could use without a therapist. That history matters: these rights are grounded in decades of behavior therapy, not a one-off self-help idea.

These rights tend to help most if you recognize yourself as someone who over-apologizes, avoids conflict, or feels guilty setting limits, a pattern often described as people-pleasing. They are not a fix for relationships involving control, intimidation, or abuse, where asserting a right can raise real safety concerns rather than resolve a misunderstanding. If asserting yourself consistently brings conflict, punishment, or fear, or if the guilt does not ease with practice, a licensed therapist can help you work through it; Psychology.com's therapist directory (/therapist/) is a place to start.

Reviewed by Michael Callans, MSW
Reviewed the rights for fidelity to established assertiveness training.

References

1. Smith MJ. When I Say No, I Feel Guilty. Bantam Books; 1975.
2. Alberti R, Emmons M. Your Perfect Right: Assertiveness and Equality in Your Life and Relationships. 10th ed. Impact Publishers; 2017.
3. Wolpe J. Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition. Stanford University Press; 1958.

Assertiveness Bill of Rights FAQ