7 Ways People Can Manipulate You Without You Realizing It
We all want to influence other people’s behavior in one way or another. But some people take it to extreme levels. They not only want to exert influence over you, but control and manipulate you. This is often done with tactics you do not even notice.
Most of them are used in everyday contexts, and that is precisely why they go unnoticed. This makes them very problematic to handle. They are there, but you do not realize what is going on.
Most of these techniques benefit from basic emotions, such as fear, anger and sympathy. Manipulators find a way to evoke these feelings in you for no good reason. That is why it is so important to learn to recognize and identify them.
Here are seven ways people can manipulate you without you realizing it.
Guilt is a feeling that can be very intense. It can make people act very irrationally. It does not feel good because it basically takes a person’s code of ethics, one he accepts and values, and twists it.
People can manipulate you with guilt by judging your behavior. They decide whether what you do is good or bad. If you do not have your own criteria for assessment, it is easy to fall into this trap.
Manipulators make you do or say something entirely for the benefit of others, while you see it as an advantage for yourself because it frees you from feeling guilt and shame.
Insecurity is another of the emotions that people take advantage of when they want to manipulate you. They do this by identifying situations where you have weak beliefs or a little self-love. They use this for their own benefit.
If you are unsure, negative criticism about what you do or say, make fun of you or belittle you can be forms of manipulation. Manipulators also try to confuse you and make small mistakes big. They may make you think they know more about you than they actually do.
Some people are very good at using the role of victim to manipulate others. They pretended (sometimes without realizing it themselves) to be fragile or in need. They hope to arouse the other person’s compassion and make them feel guilty.
When someone pretends to be permanently needy and dependent, it is a form of manipulation. You act in certain ways because you feel sorry for the person. What you do not realize is that you have fallen into the trap and are being controlled.
You should not always believe in flattery. Sometimes the purpose is just to make you lower your guard and make it easier to manipulate. When someone flatters you, you think well of him. But these individuals do not always have good intentions.
The best cure for flattery is to know yourself well. No one knows your strengths and weaknesses like yourself. If you love knowing yourself, surging admiration and flattery will not surprise you. Other people will not be able to “lubricate” you.
Threatening does not necessarily require shouting or direct threats. Manipulators are experts at sowing fear in people, often imperceptibly. They only subtly suggest that a specific behavior is dangerous.
They manipulate you when, for example, they say that you “should” act in a certain way. Failure to do so will result in an unpleasant situation. It seems like they are just calling for reason, but in reality they are trying to manipulate you with fear.
People who create discord over everything almost always try to manipulate you. We are talking about the type of person who starts big conflicts over the smallest. She makes people think that they have to treat her especially if they want to avoid constant conflict.
She manipulates to avoid consequences or punishment. She acts in this way so that people do not point out her shortcomings. Other people begin to believe that it is they, not the manipulator, who are responsible for the conflict. The person who manipulates always gets through his agenda.
The person who plays stupid pretends that he does not know something that he knows or can not do something that he can actually do. He delegates difficult tasks to others because “they are better”. In other words, he relegates all work to others so that he does not have to do anything.
All under the smokescreen that he’s worse at it.
People who pretend not to understand what you are saying are also manipulative. They can pretend not to be involved in a problem for which they are responsible, which is another way of exploiting others.
These forms of manipulation lead to dishonest, harmful relationships. Under no circumstances should you tolerate them, because they do not lead to anything positive.
