List of Manipulation Techniques


Kyle Jacob Biodrowski

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Identifying and Resisting Social Manipulation

(I didn't know where to put this, so I decided to list it as an article).

I’ve taken an interest in social manipulators. That is, people who manipulate others by using various, illegitimate techniques. The creation of this list is my attempt to help the victims of manipulation recognize the fraud being perpetrated by conmen.

Please note: Conmen are usually very charismatic and “likeable”. People of low self-esteem are especially vulnerable to manipulation. Another way to fight these manipulation attempts is to build one’s self-esteem. Another way is to “do your own thinking”. Never let another person do your thinking for you. You’ll likely encounter a conman who will abuse those who refuse to think.

The best way to resist all manipulation techniques is to realize they are being used. How to discover they are being used may be difficult, but I list ways certain techniques may be recognized and resisted.

Another note: manipulation techniques may be used by conmen who don’t know they are being manipulative. This is a bit confusing. Some people manipulate others on a daily basis, so the manipulators may not immediately realize they are being manipulative. They’ve grown accustomed to manipulation and find it natural.

I’m entering dangerous territory here. Namely, I may confuse manipulation with persuasion and vice versa.

So, for clarity, I will define manipulation and persuasion as follows:

Manipulation: to influence by means of using illegitimate (read: immoral) influencing techniques.

Persuasion: to influence by means of using legitimate techniques.

Illegitimate (immoral) techniques are as follows: lying, blackmail, fear raising, browbeating/harassment, and confusion.

(The above section is subject to amendment whenever I feel like it.)

(Please note: I’m likely not the first person to identify and label these techniques, so they are likely categorized somewhere under different names.)

Manipulation technique 1: Playing the narrative

This technique helps the user gain something from another by assuming the target’s worldview. That is, the target’s narrative. Usually, what is sought after is the victim’s trust.

For example:

Bob just met Travis today. Bob decides to use this technique on Travis. Bob asks Travis about himself and learns that Travis holds certain views on abortion. Bob makes it appear that he holds the same views on abortion as Travis in order to manipulate Travis into becoming a close “friend”.

How to resist this technique:

The victim may “test” the person who they suspect is using the technique on them. This test is performed by taking outrageous positions on various subjects. If the suspect agrees with you on all your positions, you can be fairly certain that he is “playing the narrative”.

Manipulation technique 2: Special insight

My current girlfriend just loves to use this technique on me.

This technique involves the user claiming special knowledge about something while the victim is oblivious, especially if the victim “can’t know” (or doesn’t want to know) of the knowledge due to some inherent blindness (explained below).

For example:

Bob pretends to possess special knowledge about Jen. He claims that Jen secretly wants to sleep with him. Jen claims she doesn’t, but Bob insists that she really does and that she can’t see that she does due to her involvement with another man.

I mentioned that my girlfriend loves to use this technique on me, so I’ll give her use as an example.

She often claims that I’m both a racist and a sexist. I just can’t see it, or I don’t want to see it (she jumps back and forth between these two rationales).

I resist this technique by claiming I just started a trust fund for disaffected Negroes. I demand that she donate. When she refuses, I use her refusal as proof that she hates Black people. Quite fun. If I ever get any money out of her, I’m not giving it back. If she claims that I’m just scamming her, well, that’s even more proof of her refusal to see how racist she is. ;)

How to resist this technique:

The victim may notice that any argument that he gives is met with “you just can’t see it because…” or “you don’t want to see it because…”. This is a sure sign that the conman is using the “special insight” manipulation technique. I advise the victim to disassociate himself with the user.

Manipulation technique 3: Guilt inducement

The user discovers a person’s values and then uses the values against the person in such a way as to induce guilt.

For example:

Bob discovers that Jim is a fervently against racism. Bob mentions instances where Jim was “secretly racist” and that he (Jim) can’t see it because he is a racist (special insight). Bob then uses Jim’s “guilt” against him in anyway Bob likes.

How to resist this technique:

The victim may easily recognize that this technique is being used against him, but he might not be able to resist it. This is an instance in which high self-esteem is invaluable. If Jim has high self-esteem, he’ll likely just brush off Bob’s remarks.

(I can’t emphasize enough the importance of having high self-esteem).

Feel free to add to this list of manipulation techniques. I likely will in the future.

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Kyle,

You're off to a good start, but believe me, you haven't even scratched the surface. (Some suggestions a little below.)

I think you should reexamine your premise of legitimate and illegitimate manipulation techniques. You are starting with a value judgment on the technique itself and not on the person using it. Progressives make this same epistemological mistake all the time in other areas, like gun control, nuclear power and so on. The gun is not evil (or illegitimate). The person who uses it is, especially his intentions. Nuclear power can light up a city or blow it up, depending on what the person who uses it does. Yet the Progressives try to make good/evil distinction on the material itself.

Likewise, covert persuasion techniques are not bad or good, legitimate or illegitimate. (As Rand would ask, "By what standard?") In fact, we can't help but use them. You would be surprised at how much you, yourself covertly persuade people. Just a simple smile in a certain manner you know will please when you ask for something is covert persuasion. This comes from being a primate. The way primates learn (for the basic stuff) is not by words, but by imitation. And the gross of this happens below the level of conscious awareness.

So the people who train covert persuasion techniques and use them are either scumbags who are predators, or people interested in protecting themselves and letting others know what is going on (like you are doing). There's a gray area where you do this with marketing, political persuasion, and so on. There are no hard and fast moral rules here (and believe me, I've looked), but there are some really good guidelines.

Let's take marketing. Is it illegitimate to stack on covert persuasion techniques until the customer can't stand it and can't wait to pull out his wallet? After a lot of study and mulling it over, I say it's OK because all of the competition from the big guys are doing it. So it's simple survival. But here's the caveat. When you do this, you have to have a genuine preoccupation with getting the customer's wants and needs right, and serving him with a top-quality product. Value for value. And you have to have a reasonable and rational guarantee and refund policy. Within that scenario, I say go for it. So long as there is an undo button and you're providing the good stuff, I believe nudging a person to acquire it is fine.

One warning. This stuff is a form of power and power does tend to corrupt. So a person who embarks on this path has a moral duty to himself to keep his soul under constant observation and make periodic checks if he wants to stay a good guy.

There's a block we humans have on this process, though--the best way to undermine covert persuasion is to become aware of it. Reason is situated in what Daniel Kahneman calls the slow thinking part of our brain, which is small, only used on purpose, limited to a small scope of consideration, and lazy (to conserve energy--and this is literal--the prefrontal cortex consumes an enormous amount of calories). That fast thinking part (basically, the subconscious) uses the greater part of the brain, and comes with a lot of automated behavior and biases.

When we talk about manipulation or covert persuasion, we are talking about bypassing the slow thinking part (conscious awareness, which is logical) and communicating directly with the fast thinking part (the subconscious, which is emotional, HUGE and biased) until we get the state and behavior we wish in the persuaded person. Once that is achieved, we follow-up with rationales and reason-based arguments (no matter how convoluted or reasonable they may be) for the slow-thinking part to not undo the persuasion.

As I became aware of this bypass process, I started telling people to use the cognitive before normative approach when dealing with new information or complicated subjects. In simple terms, in marketing, they say sell with emotion and justify with logic. That's how it's done and it works like a charm. To combat this when you believe you should, I say first observe and identify with logic (the colder the better), then after you are reasonably sure you know what the thing is, allow the emotions to run. You can't do this with everything, but it does keep you safe and unmanipulatable when you do. But doing this is not automatic. It's on you to learn it and do it.

Here are some resources for you to check out. Start with a thread right here on OL: Secret Objectivist cult.

Learn the Cialdini six: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. (This is foundational.)

Here's a rabbit hole for you to get up to speed on a lot of covert persuasion techniques quickly: Social Engineer. You might want to get the guy's book, too (Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking by Christopher Hadnagy).

I have a gazillion more, but that should give you a pretty good start.

Now about your three.

1. This worldview technique is called "bonding." An effective one-on-one persuasion sequence (the one most used) is:

a. Attract

b. Bond (or create rapport)

c. Interest and/or enchant

d. Stick it to 'em

e. Give slanted or relevant information so the target can come up with logical reasons to justify the modified behavior and ideas to himself.

Notice that the first four are designed to bypass the rational part of the mind and the last, after the damage has been done, addresses it.

Your primary concern is to detect whether a person is sincere or lying when he models a worldview. But you don't need to go that far because covert bonding, when it runs, works just as well whether it's real or faked. Just be aware. "Ah, this is the bonding part," (you say to yourself when it arises in an interaction). From that statement alone, you you are automatically using your rational part of the mind and your BS meter turns on. From that point you can decide if the person is sincere or not. But, frankly, it's not worth the effort to catch people with gotcha and expose them. There's too much BS out there. Just be aware and move on. Your life is precious.

2. The special insight the way you describe it seems more like a competition to humiliate the other than covert manipulation. It's one-upmanship and that goes outside of manipulation.

The special insight you mention is a ruse. Or it's just a person so involved with his own worldview and core narratives that he cannot see those of the other. True persuasion would try to get the other to see reality from that angle (and narrative), not try to shame him.

In other words, the idea in your senario is not to persuade the other, it's to judge the other and make him feel bad, and as gravy, to be able to bare your chest, thump on it and declare yourself as the victor.

3. In manipulating guilt, Ayn Rand of all people came up with the awareness cure for this. It's called sanction of the victim. How it works is that you become aware not only of what the other is doing, but what you are telling yourself about right and wrong. If you allow others to frame fundamental values, they can manipulate the words around those values to befuddle you inside and make you feel guilty. Once you change the frame and no longer grant your sanction to that way of thinking, the guilt does not arise when the other starts with accusations.

The common phrase for the process of manipulating with guilt is emotional blackmail.

I normally don't consider Rand to be a master covert persuader (although she was schooled in propaganda techniques by the Russians and shed some good light on a few), but here she did a marvelous job of detecting and neutralizing this particularly vicious technique.

And, when she did her fiction, she actually did move up into the covert master persuader category. Notice that her fiction does the heavy lifting in keeping her ideas in the mainstream, not her nonfiction. In fiction, Rand was really good at manipulating emotions. (Sell with emotions and justify with logic. :smile: ) Not so much in her nonfiction.

That's enough for a Saturday morning. Go through the stuff I linked to (you will not be able to go through it all for a long, long time, so just go through what interests you as you go along). After a while, you will have the foundation for going on to more. At that time, depending on your interest and so forth, I will point you in other directions.

This is an extremely important field and not developed in O-Land. But there are reasons a wonderful country like Germany made a huge mess in the world--twice. Or what the communists did. Or any long-lasting dictatorship for that matter. It's not just philosophy (as Rand contended). That is certainly part of the mix, but it's a critical error to ignore this other stuff.

I'm glad to see you messing with this.

Michael

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If you've been following my other threads, then you know that we share an interest in this topic (and feel free to jump in yourself). But I have to agree with Michael: manipulation isn't the fundamental issue here - power is. Specifically, what types of power do people hold, and how do they choose to use it? If power is used for mutual benefit, or even for the benefit of the powerful without harming the powerless, then I consider this to be a good (legitimate) use of power. You list lying as an illegitimate form of manipulation, and it certainly can be, but it is not necessarily so. If you really self-examine on the issue, you must realize that you lie to yourself and others all the time in the course of everyday life, either outright or through selective omissions. Don't feel guilty or resent others for it - human beings are complex social animals that have evolved to interact precisely this way, in fact, it's necessary for a polite and functioning society. Can you imagine if we always told others exactly what we thought of them?

One suggestion I have is not viewing everyone in a "con-man" framework, but instead as a player in a game they did not create, just like you are a player trying to survive and succeed yourself. As you mentioned, some players use their power at your expense and can be very dangerous, which is why it's important to develop your own skills and take precautionary measures. I agree with you and Michael on the prescription - the key to being an effective player is learning about different types of power and practicing defending yourself when necessary. What snapped me out of the self-defeating Holden Caulfield mindset from my highschool period (everyone is "phony") was reading Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. If you're having difficulty seeing the positive sides of social manipulation, I would highly recommend reading this book. It's also a great how-to guide for avoiding conflicts and achieving positive outcomes, especially in the professional and friendship contexts.

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I do like the idea of listing potentially harmful social manipulations and evaluating resolution techniques because I think illustrative examples are the best way to learn.

I don't have anywhere near enough knowledge about your relationship, but false accusations of "racism" are extremely common when interacting with progressives. Asserted moral superiority, especially when it comes to "social justice" issues like disadvantaged social interest groups, is one of the keys to progressive power. They use these assertions as a club to discredit and browbeat their political opponents when it suits them. Although I don't think he's really a progressive, Michael Marotta falsely accused me of racism in one of my early threads.

The way I've been handling such false accusations, as I did in that thread, is by demanding evidence to support their claims. This can be even more powerful if you get them to agree from the outset with the principle that people should be able to support their claims with evidence. When they can't support their "racism" accusation with anything you've actually said or done, call them on their bullshit. If they repeat the accusation, demand evidence and call them on their bullshit again. Repeat until they stop the behavior.

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I do like the idea of listing potentially harmful social manipulations and evaluating resolution techniques because I think illustrative examples are the best way to learn.

I don't have anywhere near enough knowledge about your relationship, but false accusations of "racism" are extremely common when interacting with progressives. Asserted moral superiority, especially when it comes to "social justice" issues like disadvantaged social interest groups, is one of the keys to progressive power.

Robert:

Good to see you back.

Define racism as you believe it should be defined and how the "progressive" elites define it.

Thanks.

A...

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Define racism as you believe it should be defined and how the "progressive" elites define it.

I view actual racism as treating individuals according to racial generalizations rather than according to their unique merits, especially when it comes from a perspective of superiority. It can mean anything to a progressive depending on the situation, because it's not really about "racism" - it's about using a social issue and all the stigmas associated with it as a bludgeon to preserve their gatekeeper status and hold people and ideas that threaten them at bay. It could just as well be gay rights, religion, income inequality, or whatever else serves them in the moment.

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Define racism as you believe it should be defined and how the "progressive" elites define it.

I view actual racism as treating individuals according to racial generalizations rather than according to their unique merits, especially when it comes from a perspective of superiority.

I agree with your statement on the progressives who will semantically shift as needed to intimidate, persuade or humiliate their opposition.

As to racism, my knowledge of the term and it's etymology is specific. "Racism" shall [must] have the state's sanction, generally through statute [de jure] as well as through action [de facto].

Black's defines it as:

A set of policies that is exhibited bt a person or persons toward a group of people of a different race. Often antagonistic and confronting. The assumption of lower intelligence and importance given to a person because of their racial characteristics.

As I understand "racism," there has to be policies set in statute to constitute a racist society, e.g., the Jim Crow South post reconstruction state laws. Separate but equal accomodations appeared to be racist and were eradicated by Brown in 1954, in terms of education.

Aparthied is clearly racism.

A person cannot be a "racist" in a country with no racist laws. They can be a bigot.

Disagree?

A...

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I don't want to delve too far into the topic of "racism" because, as we both agreed, the accusation itself is incidental to how it is being used by the accuser. Kyle's anecdote illustrates this perfectly because the accusation can involve him being called either a racist or a sexist (takeaway: a bad and unenlightened person). Something else worth considering is that progressives would like nothing more for us to spend our time obsessing over who is racist, what racism means in the 21st century, what racism is and isn't, and so on, which is why I'm loath to even have such discussions on their turf. That's where progressives are strongest, and I prefer to hit back at my opponents where they are weak. Art of War and all that shit.

You did raise an important related issue for consideration, which is state-sanctioned manipulation, and how to act in such situations. The most obvious example is in cop-"civilian" interactions. If you've ever been pulled over on the highway, you know that police do not speak to you as a human being speaks to another human being within a social context. They are speaking to you in "cop mode," from a position of nearly absolute power. I get pulled over a decent amount (less now that I moved from Massachusetts to Virginia), but I don't get the traffic tickets I used to receive in my youth (dozens of "warnings" instead) because I've learned there is only one way to handle a cop in cop mode, and that is total submission to them. I make myself as small as I can in the car seat, I apologize to them robotically in response to their questions and mind games, I avoid all eye contact, and I keep my hands palms-down on my thighs until they tire of their prey and drive off looking for another victim. At that point, I drive home, throw their warning in the trash, and curse them out to anyone who will listen. It's foolish to fight back from a position of true powerlessness. However, anytime somebody tries to pull rank on me by slipping into "military mode" or "cop mode" outside their professional context, I don't tolerate that kind of abuse for a second.

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Understood.

I taught defensive driving for the National Safety Council when we had our insurance agency.

First, to save our clients ten percent [10%] on their liability and collision premiums for three (3) years.

Second, as a way of attracting new clients to our agency and persuade them into being clients for all their insurance needs.

Thirdly, because I believed in the concepts and it reduced accidents which kept our loss ratios to a record low and that gave us higher bonuses at the end of the year from the companies that we were general agents for; and

Finally, because I love to teach.

Due to the contacts that I had with police and fire in NY City, we had quite a few police officers and their families take the course.

I would ask any police officer(s) in the audience what they wanted from the driver when they pulled them over. They were extremely clear, "crystal:"

1) an admission, e.g., "gee officer, I believe I rolled through that stop sign, I had an argument with my girlfriend, and, frankly, I wasn't concentrating;"

2) paperwork in order, insurance card, registration and license;

3) courtesy; and

4) because this was the downstate area of NY State, your hands visible and on the top of the steering wheel.

The officers explained that if they got those four (4), they would not write a ticket 90-95% of the time, or, write an equipment ticket which could be taken care of by the purchase of a tail light bulb and submitted with the ticket and it would be dismissed with no penalties.

We agree, especially about folks who try that power crap in their non job capacities.

A...

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