Hello, today we will cover the following manipulation tactics:
- Flattery and Charm
- Cognitive Dissonance
- Foot-in-the-Door Technique
- Social Proof
- Bait and Switch
Flattery and Charm – ”Manipulators often employ flattery and charm to disarm their victims and win their trust. They achieve this by appealing to the victim’s ego and inundating them with excessive compliments, establishing a positive connection that can obscure rational thinking and enable manipulative behavior”.
This one is quite straightforward, if someone keeps flattering you with compliments, making you feel admired or loved, that can affect your perspective about the person. I personally love giving compliments; however, I usually try do to it when I get to know people. Because it is a bit different to compliment someone you know, rather that someone you just met. Compliments regarding visual appearance in my opinion or okay even if you don’t know someone. Like, I genuinely just love how people dress up and the number of times I wanted to say – you look beautiful – to a stranger – loads. But I always restrain myself as I feel it will be awkward. 😀
I think if someone is giving you compliments regarding your personality, where they don’t really know you – pay attention. Also, constant compliments aren’t really healthy, if someone is putting so much effort to say something positive about you, what’s their intention? None of us are perfect and if someone just keeps complementing our personality without pointing out some negatives, then I would be suspicious.
Cognitive Dissonance – ”The manipulation of cognitive dissonance entails deliberately creating conflicting beliefs or emotions within the victim’s mind. This is achieved by introducing contradictory information or experiences, which sow confusion and amplify the manipulator’s control over the victim’s thoughts and actions”.
I had this my whole life with both abusers. Example could be, they share what they like, I don’t know, could be that they like bowling. 1 year later when you buy them a gift – to go to bowling, they suddenly say they never liked bowling and why did you buy that gift?
These kinds of examples are usually hard to pinpoint because it mostly happens with everything at some point and you get so lost that you don’t know anything. I was the same, with my abusers I was so lost with my own thoughts and what they want and never could be sure. So, it made me be an easier victim of manipulation because I was just lost all the time. When someone keeps giving you a contradicting information or behaviour – it is inconsistency and that messes up with your mind.
Or they tell you that let’s say they decided to do something else and they didn’t inform you of that, but when you talk to them they say that – yes, they did tell you they changed their plans – manipulation and making you question the reality and then you think maybe you just forgot.
Very strange to explain because I said that manipulators don’t change and their behaviour is consistent, but then they act inconsistently to throw you off. However, their inconsistently behaviour is consistent if that makes sense? You can be sure about 1 thing – you’ll never know. You’ll question EVERYTHING. Because they want you to be out of your mind and confuse you. Manipulators confuse you.
So, if someone persistently is making you confused with their actions and speech – that is manipulation. There is a very good reminder – if person says one thing but does another – manipulation. Words and actions should always match. Yes, I know, you will say – but what if, person just changed their mind? Which obviously, can happen right? Well, this can only be checked while being with person longer, also, if they change their mind – they should communicate that they did and give a reason for that. You see, manipulators usually won’t have a reason to saying one thing and then do another because they just want control. If someone let’s say, tells you they will go to the event, but then they change their mind because they feel tired or something else happens – you know it is okay. Manipulators also may do this to make you feel guilty. So, if you both agree to go somewhere, but then they suddenly don’t want to anymore and they say – go by yourself, well, most of us, just wouldn’t go right? Like, if your partner is not going, you want to stay with them. That’s a controlling part of it.
Or they say that they will go somewhere by themselves, then you ask – oh did you go there, how was it? And they say they never said that they were going somewhere and why did you think they were?
I hope you can see how it is easy then to make you start doubting yourself and be unsure of everything. There is a greeeeat movie that was recently done and apparently there is a book – The Housemaid – I really loved how they picked up this manipulation tactic where you literally can see how it makes you question yourself and submit to manipulator.
They can even deny that you said something, they can say that you never mentioned it, although you did. It can literally go to every part of life.
I want to make a note, that they won’t say that maybe you forgot or they forgot about it. They will just deny everything.
Okay, one of my examples, so my ex-partner would tell me that when he came home, he wouldn’t want to talk with me at least 30 min because he would need to rest. So, I would not ask him anything, but then sometimes he would come home and talk with me himself non-stop. That would make me confused because I never understood, there he would ask me to not to talk with him when he comes home, but then he would come to me and talk without pauses. Sometimes I would forget that he asked me not to talk with him and when he would come – I would start with simple question – how are you? Sometimes he would be ok and talk normally, sometimes get mad. Once he answered to me – Bad because you asked me how I am (he was referring to the fact that he asked me not to talk with him and how do I dare now not to comply).
Once he went to very extreme behaviour. I came home and he wasn’t doing anything but he didn’t say hello to me, I don’t remember exactly, but he kind of was ignoring me and when I asked – what is it, why you’re not saying hi, he was saying something like – what do I need to run to you every single time to say hi or hello and etc? I don’t exactly remember, but me pointing out that he just ignores me when I come home made him angry. Interesting, that I was not angry at him for not saying hello or acknowledging that I’m home, I was just disappointed and I thought he was angry at me. After this experience, I don’t remember how many months passed after this, but once he came home and I was cooking in the kitchen. I didn’t greet him by the door (which most of the times I did as I was working from home) but that one time I literally couldn’t as I was cooking and couldn’t leave pots, he then came in to the kitchen being angry and said – why you didn’t come to say hello? I explained I was waiting for him to come to the kitchen but apparently that wasn’t acceptable and whole night went downhill because I didn’t come to greet him..
The thing is I wasn’t ignoring him, when he came to the kitchen, I greeted him, however, when I would come home – he wouldn’t care at all. Like I didn’t exist. Kind of leads to the double standards as well. However, it really messes your mind. The best way I can explain cognitive dissonance is like an American rollercoaster. You think you’re fine because you agreed on something but suddenly agreement disappears and nothing is fine anymore.
Especially it comes down to information because manipulative people love saying one thing and then denying it or changing and making you doubt what you remember or what you heard. Consequence for me is that I question everything and everyone and mostly I question my intuition as I was taught to doubt myself so much that trust in myself just went to a thin air.
Foot-in-the-Door Technique – ”The foot-in-the-door technique is a strategy that involves getting someone to agree to a small request before presenting a larger one. This method is based on the idea that once a person has agreed to something small, they are more likely to agree to something larger later”.
I don’t really have examples of something, but I guess if someone asks you to idk – buy a gift for someone and then they ask you to organise the whole celebration because you’ve bought a gift – that’s what I would imagine it looks like.
Social Proof – ”Manipulators leverage the concept of social proof to take advantage of people’s inclination to adhere to perceived social norms. They achieve this by providing evidence of others’ compliance or endorsement, which creates a sense of social pressure that sways the victim’s behavior”.
So, this could be regarding clothes you’re wearing or makeup. At least I remember in my case I would be told I cannot dress certain way as it would look weird or too much revealing or that’s not how other people dress up. Or with makeup it could be perceived that’s too unnatural or too bright. That in society it is too weird to wear it. I personally loved bright makeup, and I still have bright colours palette but unfortunately, I use it very rarely because I still have that negative perception of my ex when he said that it looks weird. (I am though trying to overcome it).
Basically, they use societal norms to make victim act or look in certain way, however, as we know, societal norms are just another way of controlling people. We should embrace authenticity.
Bait and Switch – ”Bait-and-switch manipulation is a deceptive tactic that initially attracts the victim with an appealing offer or promise, only to change the conditions later or provide something entirely different. This technique preys on the victim’s initial interest or investment, ultimately leaving them feeling misled and exploited”.
So this tactic is self-explanatory, like if someone does it once and you can see they did it on purpose – you can move away from this person. This tactic will be most likely used in business.
One of my examples, I remember when me and my ex-partner went to his home country, we agreed we will go visit a capital city and other locations. However, when we came there, he changed it and everything went entirely different as from what we talked about before the trip. I also had no say in it as he blamed his family for us not being able to go where we agreed.
Thanks for reading!
Egle Ku 