Manipulation: Use The Weaknesses Of Others To Gain Power

We walk through a train station. We come home tired from a tiring day at work with the desire to lie on our couch and devour the entire refrigerator. Suddenly we start to smell pancakes and the memory brings us the feeling of their taste that we love. It can lead to some form of manipulation.

In the background, a musician is playing one of your favorite songs on his guitar. Do you want to give him a coin?

Psychologist Robert Baron of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, studied this phenomenon with his team. According to their results , it seems that we are three times more likely to give a coin if we are surrounded by pleasant scents.

This is how nature affects people. But it is not always best for the emotional part of our brain to take over before the logical part. How do we detect the manipulation? How do we know what is manipulating us? Let’s dig deeper.

Small, daily acts of manipulation

It is normal for us to give in to something that spoils our ego and promises us happiness. Without getting too much into the subject, we can say that success in general is about using persuasion both implicitly and explicitly.

Manipulation has a strong effect on us as we are social and emotional creatures. In fact, we are sometimes convinced by the most trivial attitudes and actions. For example, we undermine that our cat meows to get something, for the simple reason that it meows for it.

Maybe we give in to our kids’ requests to play video games for longer, even though we don’t think they should. Our children are experts at playing with our emotions, and they test us on an ongoing basis. Children are good evidence that humans master manipulation very early.

Evil manipulation

Manipulation is a natural tendency that is present in all of us. We must not feel guilty about trying to use all our available resources to get what we want. We all manipulate to a greater or lesser degree. But the true manipulators know their limits when it comes to using it.

These true specialists in deception and simulation are fed by the little secrets or signs as you show them. We can act in a generous or sincere way, only so that the master manipulator can use this action as a big ace up his sleeve to use against you later.

A high degree of manipulation towards others can even be a sign of psychopathy. In short, the manipulator uses your weaknesses to their advantage. The manipulator uses your weaknesses towards you and convinces you to act as they please.

Manipulators have a need to control others and do not feel guilty about it. That said, there are certain characteristics that are shared by those who easily fall for this. If you give in to manipulation once, you are more likely to give in to manipulation again in the future. This is because vulnerability is a learned behavior.

If you reveal your weaknesses, you fall into the hands of other people

The manipulator tries to promise you what you want most. Therefore, the more you know about their needs and desires, the more weapons you can use against the manipulator.

In addition, manipulators are experts in exploiting your uncertainties. For example, if you feel awkward or have doubts about your abilities, people will try to help you, but always for a high price. On many occasions, the products you buy in times like these are nothing but smoke and steam.

We also have “the eternal sacrifice”. This type of manipulation is more complex because it is not about any material element. The eternal victim constantly complains and apologizes for their distress to you. Often they tell things that are tempting to tell other people, but you start to feel guilty if you tell their secrets to others.

The eternal victims always turn out to be worse than everyone else. The eternal victim is always more affected than the other party in their dramas, and they always deal with the most painful circumstances. You have no reason to complain or make your turn lighten your heart. In this case, the manipulator manipulates you for your attention.

There are many types of manipulators, but they are all based on the same idea. At first, they appeal to your emotions to get something from you that you will not give them. To avoid falling into this trap, it is necessary to pay special attention.

How do we protect ourselves from manipulation?

The best solution to protect us from manipulation is to have good self-esteem. By being confident, it is much harder to persuade us with pure emotional arguments. Self-confidence allows us to distinguish when something makes sense and when something does not.

In addition, it is important to consider whether our relationship is beneficial. If someone does us more harm than good, then why should we keep talking to them? The best thing we can do is get rid of the people who use us without worrying about our emotions at all.

You should not feel uncomfortable if you have to cut someone out of your life. If you find that someone is trying to manipulate you, do not hesitate to get away from that person right away.