I was mostly raised around guys... so I've had the opportunity to be more or less a demonstration of the truly 'innate' aspects of the female psyche...
Usually I'm pretty straightforward about my feelings... I admit when I'm wrong and even to the possibility that I may be wrong (pending evidence). I try very, very hard to separate a real problem from me just being angry and grabbing the closest available excuse... and I'm always willing to apologize when I fail at this task (after I calm down).
I have noticed other women being exceptionally moody... how they sit and stew about something that happened days or even months ago, and suddenly for no apparent reason they have an outburst at that very moment without any direct and obvious trigger. Even I am often confounded by how I seemingly jump to conclusions without any direct line of thought. Funny how I have to back-track just to see if and how it makes sense.
And yes, some woman are just manipulative and receive pleasure from 'picking' on men... though usually it's because they feel angry about something completely unrelated or even worse, something involving the guy that happened a long time ago.
As for the remedy to this problem... I have no idea... when my female friends do something similar to me... I normally just nod, get up and leave... after they calm down, I just tell them I felt it was best if I didn't add to it. Normally by then they either realize it was nothing... or they want to talk in a more civilized fashion about why they suddenly felt that way.