Recognizing Emotional Manipulation and How to Manage Manipulative Behaviors

The term manipulation is often used in relationships and forensic psychology. But most people engage in manipulative behaviors to influence people or a situation for their own benefit.

This could be praising loved ones when they take out the bins as positive reinforcement to make them do the behavior more often. But sometimes, it could be somewhat malignant and toxic, like threatening to end a relationship if the partner does not accede to the manipulator's requests.

So how do you spot a manipulator or manipulative behavior and what do you do about it?

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Recognizing Emotional Manipulation and How To Manage Manipulative Behaviors

Recognizing Manipulative Behaviors

Learning to recognize the manipulative behaviors of manipulators will help in stopping it and protecting oneself. Here are some examples and signs of manipulative behaviors according to Healthline:

Maintaining A Homecourt Advantage

May it be their home or favorite coffee shop, the manipulator's favorite place could be empowered to them that is why they almost always insist on meeting in their realm to create an imbalance of power.

For example, they would say: "Walk over to my office when you can. I'm far too busy to trek over to you," or "You know how far of a drive that is for me. Come over here tonight."

They Skip Few Steps In Getting to Know You

Emotional manipulators may easily "share" their darkest secrets to get your trust. But they are actually after your secrets, hoping that you would also let your guard down so they could use your sensitiveness against you later on.

They might say" "I feel like we're just connecting on a really deep level. I've never had this happen before," or "I've never had someone share their vision with me as you have. We're really meant to be in this together."

Twisting Facts

Emotional manipulation could also involve altering the reality with lies, fibs, or misstatements to confuse their victims. Manipulators may exaggerate events to make themselves look vulnerable and understate their role in a conflict to gain other people's sympathy.

An example of that will be: "I asked a question about the project and she came at me, yelling about how I never did anything to help her, but you know I do, right?" or "I cried all night and didn't sleep a wink."

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Engage in Intellectual and Bureaucratic Bullying

Intellectual bullying is another form of emotional manipulation wherein a person imposes their knowledge or "intellect" on a person to presume the role of an expert.

They commonly say: "You're new to this, so I wouldn't expect you to understand," or "I know these are a lot of numbers for you, so I'll go through this again slowly."

On the other hand, bureaucratic bullying refers to emotional bullying in the workplace that involves a person in a higher position weighing down another person in a lower position by giving them more paperwork or targeting them through procedures.

They do not like that someone is expressing scrutiny or ask questions that draw their flaws and weaknesses into question. Ultimately, they make people sorry for voicing out.

Commonly they would say: "This will be way too difficult for you. I'd just stop now and save yourself the effort," or "You don't have any idea the headache you're creating for yourself."

Steps to Manage Emotional Manipulation

Psychology Today identified four steps to manage emotional manipulation. These are:

Identify and name the manipulative behavior- It is always advisable to be specific and identifying what particular manipulative behavior you want someone to change is the first step. Then name that behavior to that person because chances are, they might not be aware of it.
Only take responsibilities you can handle- Manipulators always want something from other people and make them feel responsible for them. But be reminded that you have other responsibilities and engaging with manipulators is unhealthy.
Set boundaries- List down your boundaries when around that manipulative person and remember how much you can only give and not how much can the other person be asking.
Understand the function of manipulative behavior- Understanding a manipulative behavior's function is essential although it is not enough for the behavior to stop. But it can give you an insight about it. After all, knowledge is power.