There are many manipulation techniques, from guilt to fearmongering and gaslighting.
Unfortunately, many of us don’t realize we’re being manipulated until later, and by that point, we’ve already fallen into the trap.
Best course of action?
Find out as much information as you can about the psychology of manipulation beforehand. This way, you won’t be surprised if someone tries to use psychological tricks on you.
Are you ready to be a manipulator’s worst nightmare?
If someone uses these nine psychological tricks, they are trying to manipulate you.
1) Gas lighting
I’d say the most well-known manipulation tactic on this list is probably gaslighting – this term has become very popular in recent years – so let’s start there.
If someone gaslights you, it means they are trying to make you doubt your perception of reality. Although this sounds like something you would notice clearly, the truth is that gaslighting can be incredibly subtle.
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For example, a car driver might tell you that he simply doesn’t remember bothering you the day before and that you must have gotten it wrong. Because memory is by nature so malleable, you may begin to doubt whether you’ve really mixed things up, whether you’re really remembering them wrong, and whether you’ve gone crazy.
Another common gaslighting strategy is to invalidate your feelings.
“Come on, it’s no big deal, just move already.”
“I said I’m sorry, what more do you want?! God, you’re so hard.”
These may not seem like psychological tricks at first glance, but that’s what makes them even more powerful.
Remember that your feelings and fears are always valid, and that someone who truly cares about you will do their best to reassure you rather than belittle your feelings.
2) Stumbling with guilt
Guilt is another well-known manipulation trick – and it’s perhaps even nastier than gaslighting because it relies on your kindness and love for the person in question.
“It’s your fault that I feel so down. I need you, but no, you have to be busy all day. Busy doing what? What’s more important than me?”
“If you don’t come, I might not get out of bed. There’s no need.”
“You’ve been through all the hard times, and you can’t even answer the phone?”
When someone makes you feel guilty, they are essentially blaming you for their feelings or actions. If they do something bad, it’s because of you. If they feel sad, you are the culprit. If you’re not available 24/7, it means you don’t like them.
The problem is that most of us are full of love for the people closest to us, and we would never want to intentionally hurt them. If we feel guilty and don’t realize it, we may easily give up.
But guess what? Now you know how guilt works, so you can be more resilient in the face of it!
3) Intimidation
If your friend, partner, or family member tries to blame you and it doesn’t quite work, they may resort to fearmongering. This is an escalation of their need for emotional validation and attention, and may lead to some scary or uncomfortable situations.
Fear mongering works on exaggeration.
Your partner may threaten that he will hurt himself if you leave him. Your parent may continue to overestimate the risks of upcoming surgery to get more love and reassurance. Your friend may tell you that if you don’t come to his party, he won’t be able to count on you again in the future.
Fear mongering is essentially pushing a sense of doom and danger into a situation where nothing is necessary. This can be a very scary manipulation tactic and is undeniably difficult to deal with.
4) Love bombing
Moving on to the challenges of romance, love bombing is a trick that can seem incredibly alluring at first, which is what makes it so difficult to recognize.
Let’s say you just started dating someone new. His name is Dave. Dave is incredibly sweet and charming, and seems to be falling deeply in love with you.
You’ve only known each other for two weeks, but Dave has already decided that he wants to have a family with you. He thinks you are the most beautiful person to walk the earth. He showers you with lavish gifts, takes you on amazing dates, and keeps bombarding your phone with messages about his undying love for you.
After one month, Dave realized he wasn’t quite ready for a relationship. In fact, he’s not even sure what this dating thing is. He may need to be alone for a while. I’ll see you later.
Yes, this is a classic case of love bombing. Love bombers use flattery, gifts, and big confessions of love to get the other person into a relationship as quickly as possible.
Typically, they will either start exhibiting controlling behavior in the relationship itself, or they will quickly move on and break up with you.
5) Mobility
Detail navigation can be described as the opposite of love bombing. This happens when a person you have feelings for keeps clinging to you, disappears for days, then comes out of nowhere and gets your hopes up again.
In other words, they are completely inconsistent in their affection for you. Where a love bomber sends twenty letters a day and gets a bouquet of flowers delivered to your door every week, Breadcrumbs tells you how great you are and then lets you read for five days.
Since their affection is something so special, you’re on cloud nine every time they reach out to you, only to suffer crushing disappointment once they withdraw again.
The little bits of attention they keep throwing your way are bread crumbs, and you’re the one picking them up off the floor.
No more. You deserve more than bread crumbs. You deserve a whole other exotic bakery.
6) Triangulation
One time I was arguing with my friend about something that happened between us. Then she said: “Look, even Tasha agrees with me. Don’t you, Tasha?”
I didn’t realize it at the time, but by bringing Tasha into the conflict, my friend was using a psychological trick called triangulation. This happens when a third person is involved in an argument that should remain between two people.
Triangulation effectively stacks the odds against you because you are now arguing against more than one person. It becomes more difficult to maintain your position when you are outnumbered, and you may easily give in to peer pressure.
7) The silent treatment
Another common way to deal with arguments is to give someone the silent treatment.
Unfortunately, the silent treatment — also known as sulking and displaying passive-aggressive behavior while refusing to address the issue at hand and leaving your partner to figure it out on their own — has become so normalized that most people don’t think of it as a manipulation strategy. .
But this is very much the case. The goal of the silent treatment is to make you feel confused, unsure of yourself, anxious, guilty, and stressed.
Furthermore, it turns the dynamic of the relationship in favor of the grouchy person because you now feel like you need to work hard in order to make up for something, even though you don’t even know what that “something” is.
8) Projection
I find the projection very interesting. This technique – often subliminal – is about taking one’s feelings and projecting them onto another person.
For example, your partner may be angry with you about something you did, but instead of confronting you about it in a respectful way, they will make false assumptions about your behavior and keep asking you why you act so upset.
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They will then begin to show their annoyance and anger in response to your supposed negative feelings, even though you didn’t have any to begin with.
One person I know keeps telling others to stop raising their voices when he screams. Likewise, someone may tell you to “calm down” when you speak in a perfectly normal tone of voice and become increasingly agitated.
9) Fake kindness
As you can probably tell, fake kindness is all about flattery, playing favorites, and pretending to be best friends.
Your coworker may keep giving you nice compliments, but what he really wants is for you to keep covering his shifts.
Your friend may make a fuss over you when you’re a little sick, buying you groceries and asking how you’re doing ten times a day, but his real goal is to show up for you so he can use that nice act against you. for you in the future if necessary.
Just like the other psychological tricks mentioned above, fake kindness is an attempt to manipulate you. And while some people don’t realize they’re doing it, that doesn’t make these manipulation techniques any less harmful.
But now that you know these nine psychological tricks, you can catch manipulators by surprise and not let them play with you.
