I SEE YOU BIG BROTHER…
3 Common Types of Psychological Manipulators
The ones you’re very likely to encounter in your daily lives.
- The type that really likes to use silent treatment for everything you do that they dislike.
Did something they didn’t like, ignores you for a week. Said something they didn’t like, extended silent treatment. Doesn’t like your behavior — blames you and then threatens to leave you (or to ruin your life/reputation).
These people often revolve around tactics that take advantage of a person’s loneliness, fear of rejection, or those that seek acceptance. By utilizing silence as a weapon, these individuals get their way when a person with low self esteem, insecurity, etc. begin to blame themselves for the cause of the manipulator leaving.
Examples such as, “I didn’t do ___ enough, maybe that’s why they left me”, can be a prime reason why a victim may stay and attempt to do “more” of what the manipulator claims to be missing in the relationship.
*Specialized tactics: Ghosting, silent treatment, blame game, psychological punishments, etc.
2. The one that likes to weaponize people against you.
Often the king/queen of spreading gossip, these manipulators like to gain advantage by causing the victim to negatively act out impulsively and then tagging a negative label to them via drawingthe attention of the people to the victim. By creating negative impressions and calculated schemes against the victim, they gain a type of “social power” to control how people think of them victim; knows that people hold social impressions that determine how they interact with other people.
Socially, these people specialize in tricking the victim and may feign friendliness in order to understand the nature of their victim before setting traps.
Will take advantage of a person’s need to feel belonged, to want to make new friends, trust, etc.
*Specialized tactics: Harassment, being the social butterfly, drama, utilizing the power of popularity, etc.; sometimes can have high EQ (that has turned to the dark side).
3. The one that is extremely persuasive (good with words) and uses that ability to hurt and deceive others.
Can be extremely persuasive as to being so convincing that these types of manipulators don’t ever get caught until someone exposes them. Often good at talking the talk, these individuals know how to woo their audience — utilizing their words to work emotions or lead logic to their audience the way they want them to believe.
Additionally, they can be very calculating in their approach, knowing how to quickly create verbal counterarguments, debates, etc.; these people are more difficult to corner with evidence. An example would be Elizabeth Holmes founder of Theranos who managed to deceive medical professionals about how effective her device was at detecting a myriad of health problems from a single drop of blood (when it wasn’t).
Will take advantage of credentials and trust to manipulate and deceive.
*Specialized tactics: Smooth talking, negotiation, debates, discussion, persuasion, counterarguments, planning very far ahead as to set traps, luring people, etc.
