how do you recognize a manipulative person?

“There are those whose primary ability is to spin wheels of manipulation. It is their second skin and without these wheels spinning, they simply do not know how to function”- C. Joybell C.

What is Psychological manipulation? It can be defined as the exercising of undue influence through various means such as mental distortion and exploitation of a persons emotion, with the sole intention of usurping power, control, privileges and benefits from the victim- Jesse Vincent

Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the behavior or perception of others through abusive, deceptive, or underhanded tactics.[1] By advancing the interests of the Manipulator, often at another’s expense, such methods could be considered exploitative, abusive, devious, and deceptive. Social influence is not necessarily negative. For example, doctors can try to convince patients to change unhealthy habits. The process of manipulation involves bringing an unknowing victim under the domination of the manipulator, often using deception, and using the victim to serve their own purposes.

It is very important to Recognize a manipulative person and a healthy social influence.
In a healthy constructive relationship, healthy social influence occurs between most people as a give and take relationship. In other words it is symbiotic. In psychological manipulation, one person is used for the benefit of the other i.e parasitic. The manipulator deliberately exploits and causes an imbalance in power so as to serve his or her personal vendetta.

Four characteristics to recognize a manipulative person

1. They are experts in detecting your weaknesses,

2. Once they recognize your weakness, they use it against you.

3. Through their clouded mechanization, they convince you to give up something or a par of yourself in order to serve their selfish desires.

4. Wherever a manipulator finds themselves, whether it be work, social or family and succeeds in taking advantage of you, he or she would likely continue to repeat this exploitation until you put a stop to this.

The following are tricks manipulative persons use and makes it easy to recognize a manipulative person

1. They have a home court advantage
A manipulator would always want to meet in places where he or she is most comfortable with and have an advantage over you. These familiar surroundings can include anywhere from their car, office desk, home or other places where you lack familiarity.

2. They allow you to speak first to establish your weakness
This tactic is an age-long strategy used popularly by sales person. They allow you do the talking first so as to access your thinking and behavior. This way, the can decipher your weaknesses and baseline so as to use it against you.

3. Facts manipulation
Experts manipulators are also expert liars. They misconstrue facts, always make excuses, deform the truth. They also enjoy blaming the victim for their victimization. They exaggerate the simplest things and withhold vital information when telling a story.

4.They BOMBARD you with facts and statistics
With all their exaggeration, they can also be called “intellectual bullies”. They claim expertise in areas where they know you have little or no knowledge of. This can be done in professional and business (financial) dealings, social and relationships, it is also seen markedly in sales person. The manipulator does this to push you to succumb to their reason through the facade of their “expertise”. Some individuals just do this also to feel intellectually superior.

5. They are highly bureaucratic
Some people use red tapes such as laws and by laws, procedures, paperwork, to maintain their power and position while making your life extremely difficult. This tactic used to delay finding the truth,
hide weakness and evade scrutiny.

6. Loud talkers and Display Negative Emotions
Most manipulative individuals believe that they raise their voice loudly and talk aggressively, they scare the other person into submission. They also exhibit negative emotions such as standing while screaming, raising their hands or excited gestures all to increase their impact.

7. Giving you little or no time to decide
This tactic is very common in negotiations and sale transactions where the manipulator puts pressure on you to make a decision before you are ready. They do this to “crack” you and make you bend to their wheel.

8. The Silent Treatment
By not picking your calls, texts, emails or other reasonable inquires, the manipulator makes you wait and presumes power so as to put doubt and uncertainty in your mind. This is a very popular game with silence being the leverage.

9. victimhood
Examples: Exaggerated or imagined personal issues. Exaggerated or imagined health issues. Dependency. Co-dependency. Deliberate frailty to elicit sympathy and favor. Playing weak, powerless, or martyr.

The purpose of manipulative victimhood is often to exploit the recipient’s good will, guilty conscience, sense of duty and obligation, or protective and nurturing instinct, in order to extract unreasonable benefits and concessions.
signs to recognize a manipulative person

What is the cause of chronic manipulation and what to do
The root causes of chronic manipulation is complex, diverse and deep-seated. Whatever the reason for someone to be psychologically manipulative, it is neither easy or funny when you are on the receiving end of such aggression. How can one successfully manage such a situation?

1. Know Your Fundamental Human Rights
This can be said to be most important aspect when dealing with a psychologically manipulative person. You have to know your rights and recognize when they are being violated. You have the right to stand up and defend yourself as long as you do not harm others. Know that when you bring harm to others, you shall forfeit these rights.

The following are some fundamental human rights:
* You have the right to be treated with respect.
* You have the right to set your own priorities
* You have the right to express your opinions and feelings
* You ” ” ” ” say “NO” without feeling guilty
* You ” ” ” ” get what you pay for.
* You ” ” ” ” fight take care of yourself when you attacked both physically, mentally and emotionally.

These right respect your boundaries, and should not allow them to be crossed.

A lot of people do not want to respect these rights. Psychologically manipulators especially want to derive you of these rights so as to take advantage of you and control you. But the law has given you every authority to defend these rights and declare that it is you, and not the manipulator who is in charge of your of life.

2. Keep boundaries(keep Your Distance)
A sure way to recognize a manipulative person is to see if the person acts with different faces in front of different people in different situations. It is normal for any normal person to have differences in social behaviors, but psychological manipulators tend to take things to the extreme- they can be highly polite to one person and extremely rude to another- or totally he helpless one moment and extremely aggressive the next. When you have noticed these extreme moods in an individual, it is highly advised to create boundaries and keep a healthy distance and avoid engaging that person unless it is absolutely necessary to.
One thing to recognize is that it is not your job to save them.

3. Put The Focus On Them
Manipulators would sooner or later make requests or demands from you. These “demands” would often make you go out of your own way to meet their needs. When someone makes and unreasonable solicitation, a useful tip is to put the focus on the manipulator by asking probing questions to see the manipulator has enough self awareness to recognize the unjust nature of their scheme. For example:

* “Does this your request sound fair?”
* “Does this seem reasonable to you?”
* “Do i have any say in this?”
* “Is this a request or a command?”
* “So what do I have to gain from this?”
* “Are you really expecting me to {restate the unjust request}?”

When you ask such a question, you are putting up a mirror so that the manipulator can see the true nature of their unjust request. If the manipulator has any degree of self awareness or respect, they would immediately back down.

Some people can be called”True Pathological Narcissist”. These individuals would resist your ideas,and if theses occurs use the following tips to halt their manipulation.

4. Use Time To Your Advantage
Like stated in tips to recognize a manipulative person, they would make unreasonable requests and expect you to give an answer immediately to maximize pressure and have total control over you in the situation. During this kind of situations, instead of giving an answer right away, consider leveraging time to your advantage and distance yourself from his or her immediate influence.
You can exercise authority over the situation by simply saying “I’ll think about it”.

These words are extremely powerful in every aspect of life. It helps you access the pros and cons of the situation before coming to a definite conclusion and giving your answer.

5. Confront Bullies Safely

*”When people don’t like themselves very much, they have to make up for it. The classic bully was actually a victim first.”—Tom Hiddleston

*“Some people try to be tall by cutting off the heads of others.”—Paramhansa Yogananda

*“I realized that bullying never has to do with you. It’s the bully who’s insecure.” —Shay Mitchell

When confronting a bully, it is important to put yourself in a position where you are easily protected, whether it is having people witness the event, standing tall on your own or keeping a paper trail of the bully’s inappropriate behavior.

In cases of physical, verbal, or emotional abuse, consult with counseling, legal, law enforcement, or administrative professionals. It is very important to stand up to a bully, but remember that you don’t have to do it on your own.

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