A technique used by people who are flirting or trying to get to know someone. Pushing is when you compliment or give a nice comment on someone, pulling is when you are cold and maybe a little mean. The ideal strategy is to push a little and pull a little. This avoids you from being too cold and scaring people off and avoids you from being too weird and passionate.
This technique is good as people will want to get to know you more if you aren't pestering/being a dick to them.
A long term relationship dynamic in which one member "pushes" the other other away if intimacy becomes too great or the relationship threatens to become "too serious", yet also "pulls" the pursuer back with signs of interest if the target begins to give up on pursuing the relationship. Typically this habit is the result of some one with a fear of commitment who craves the relationship yet is unwilling to give up the option of keeping all of their options open. Often a form of subtle indecisiveness, in this manner they can effectively stake a claim on the other member with their scent and keep them in relationship purgatory while still being able to jump on a better opportunity if one happens to come along.
I finally had to just break it off with her for good, she had been playingpush-pull with me forever.
The fundamental dichotomy when designing any web application: The business goals/requirements of the enterprise (the "push") vs. the needs/requirements of the end-user/customer (the "pull"). Best visualized with a simple, two-circle Venn diagram. The intersection being the "sweet" spot (no-brainer stuff to do). Some designers/researchers will add a third circle for technological constraints (context), but many effective designers prefer to make that a secondary consideration during early concepting.
This corporate mandate to increase self-service options and reduce traffic to your call centers ignores the push-pull trade-off between cost and customer satisfaction; there are certain cases where the customer really feels the need to talk to someone.