Narcissistic & Psychopathic Emotional Manipulation | Can it be avoided?
This video answers the question: How can people that are narcissistic and psychopathic use emotions to manipulate people? What I’m really talking about here is a specific type of manipulation, where people try to elicit a specific emotion to achieve objective. We know this tends to be more associated, as a behavior anyway, with narcissism and psychopathy. Somebody doesn’t have to be narcissistic or psychopathic to be manipulative. When we talk about emotions what we see is that emotions are thought of as helpful.
If we look at emotions, we see there are only six basic emotions and they are present across all cultures. The emotions are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.
Emotions are simple, immediate, and they’re constricted to really just six types, although the amount of expression would be different depending on the situation.11:46
typically without the personality traits
of narcissism and psychopathy another
reason that narcissists encyc could pass
they’re so successful manipulation is
they lack empathy and this is a real key
even at the subclinical level here even
if somebody has narcissism and
psychopathy but doesn’t rise to the
level of any type of disorder any type
of mental disorder they’re still gonna
have some lack of empathy and that’s
going to be enough to facilitate
emotional manipulation in some cases now
we talked about specifically grandiose
narcissism and psychopathy so leaving
out vulnerable narcissism for a moment
we see the individuals with grandiose
narcissism and individuals who are
psychopathic are not vulnerable to
emotions right they’re exempt from the
rules they’re not invested and this gets
into what I call the trail of
destruction so imagine like an
individual who’s in a totally fireproof
suit it’s not only fireproof but it’s
resistant to heat they can pour gasoline
everywhere and play with matches if
something burns they’re ok with that if
something doesn’t burn they’re ok with
that too another expression here is
they’re playing with the houses money so
if they go into a casino and the people
the casinos say look here’s $10,000 but
you have to gamble it it’s not a big
deal you’re playing with the houses
money it’s not your money you’re not
losing anything you’re not risking
anything and that’s kind of how we look
at this grandiose narcissist and
Psychopaths don’t have anything to lose
because they’re not again they’re not
vulnerable to emotions
they don’t have to play by the same
rules they don’t have a way to get hurt
with the emotions the same as somebody
who does not have those personality
traits now the last reason that
narcissist in Psychopaths can be
successful with emotional manipulation
is they tend to be attracted to the
suffering of other people sometimes we
call this schadenfreude oh right the joy
and the suffering of others except with
narcissism and psychopathy it’s a little
more intense and if somebody lacks
empathy and they’re not vulnerable to
emotions and they like what other people
suffer it makes sense more or less why
they would use emotional manipulation
from their point of view that’s logical
it helps them to meet their goals so
what do all these strategies have in
common I find this pretty interesting we
look at all the emotional manipulation
strategies including examples I used
before what they have in common well
they’re all immature right that’s what
they really have in common they indicate
immaturity not sophistication so we know
that school-age children know these
tricks they use these tricks of
emotional manipulation so why do they
work on adults why they continue to work
as people grow older that’s because
people believe that emotions and
feelings necessitate a response again
they tell us something important we
should listen to them follow your heart
go with your gut trust your intuition
all those phrases are based on
separating yourself from logic and
following emotions even though there’s
not strong evidence that they always
point in the right direction now another
reason these strategies work is
impulsivity it’s hard to discount the
power of impulsivity so this is when
somebody has a negative emotion or
positive motion and they fail to
restrain themselves they feel compelled
to act on that emotion so impulsivity
again is a big part and believing that
emotions tell us something important is
a big part of it so when somebody
realizes that emotional manipulation is
occurring how can it be stopped how can
we stop emotional manipulation from half
well I talked about this in videos
before boundaries boundaries are a real
key follow the rules that you set all
the boundaries that you set before
experiencing an emotion so don’t wait
until a time when the emotions are
strong make those rules make those rules
when the emotions are expressed at a
relatively low level or there’s no
emotion now when people fail to react to
efforts to manipulate that will
eventually extinguish the behavior right
so another tactic here would be to cut
off the reward so if somebody’s trying
to manipulate you and you react to that
that’s only rewarding them for that
attempt to manipulate so we can think
about it from the point of view of like
operant conditioning right goes back to
the roots of behaviorism if there’s an
animal being used in an experiment and
they have to press a button to get a
pellet of food and every time they press
that button the power of food comes down
they’re gonna continue to press that
button if the reinforcement schedule has
changed so they have to press the button
twice they’re still gonna do it they’re
gonna press it twice and get the palette
of food and this number can be increased
quite a bit they can have to press the
button ten times or twenty times and
they’ll still do it because they know
that eventually they’re gonna get that
food so the only way to really
extinguish the behavior is to never
reinforce it it’s really surprising how
many times people will engage in
behaviors without the reward because
they know it’s still possible now I’ve
heard another argument in this area that
another tactic here would be to have the
opposite reaction that the manipulator
expects but in my experience this is
still a reward this is still a response
and it may not be the response the
person wants but it still may bring some
sort of pleasure or be satisfactory so I
would say that’s not always a good
strategy no reaction I think in terms of
behaviorism is a more effective strategy
most of the time now these ideas about
how to avoid emotional manipulation
they’re not the same thing as not having
emotions rather not engaging in a
behavior
or at least not engaging in it when the
person who’s narcissistic or
psychopathic or whoever they are can see
you if you have to react if there’s no
way to kind of suppress that reaction
have that reaction in a place where you
could not be observed by the person who
is attempting the manipulation again
whether their narcissistic psychopathic
or not that’s still a way to avoid
rewarding them so I know whenever I talk
about narcissism psychopathy
manipulation whether it’s emotional or
not there are always going to be
different thoughts people are going to
agree or disagree or have other opinions
please put those opinions in the
comments section they always generate a
really interesting dialogue as always I
hope you found this description of
emotional manipulation to be interesting
thanks for watching
The Passive-Aggressive Covert Narcissist (Interview with Debbie Mirza)
Today I interviewed Debbie Mirza, author of a new book called The Covert Passive-Aggressive Narcissist, available on Amazon. In this video we are talking about the traits of covert narcissists, how they differ from overt narcissists and what’s the best defense against covert narcs.
A covert narcissist cares about what others thing of them.
A covert narcissist is very subtle in their manipulation.
They are not broadcasting their grandiosity.
Are often pillars of the community. Often have good jobs. Money is very important. Image is very important.
A covert narcissist can turn overt during the discard phase. And some people can be a mix of covert and overt. At some phase the mask slips and they reveal themself.
Overt narcissists are more impulsive. The covert is more premeditated.
Going to therapy with a covert is the worst idea because that is their training ground. Often the therapists is impressed with a covert narcissist and not see through them. Therapy tells them where all the cracks in their mask is so they can fill it in.
A covert narcissist can appear vulnerable and in-touch with their feelings.
They can bring up past girlfriends to triangulate.
#1 Defense: you can trust yourself. You are your most accurate barometer. Pay attention to your body.
Consumers Are Becoming Wise to Your Nudge
“Only 2 rooms left? They don’t expect me to believe that do they? You see that everywhere.”
I leave with a wry smile. The client won’t be happy, but at least the project findings are becoming clear. Companies in certain sectors use the same behavioral interventions repeatedly. Hotel booking websites are one example. Their sustained, repetitive use of scarcity (e.g., “Only two rooms left!”) and social proof (“16 other people viewed this room”) messaging is apparent even to a casual browser.
For Chris the implication was clear: this “scarcity” was just a sales ploy, not to be taken seriously.
My colleagues and I at Trinity McQueen, an insight consultancy, wondered, was Chris’s reaction exceptional, or would the general public spot a pattern in the way that marketers are using behavioral interventions to influence their behavior? Are scarcity and social proof messages so overused in travel websites that the average person does not believe them? Do they undermine brand trust?
The broader question, one essential to both academics and practitioners, is how a world saturated with behavioral interventions might no longer resemble the one in which those interventions were first studied. Are we aiming at a moving target?
.. We started by asking participants to consider a hypothetical scenario: using a hotel booking website to find a room to stay in the following week. We then showed a series of nine real-world scarcity and social proof claims made by an unnamed hotel booking website.
Two thirds of the British public (65 percent) interpreted examples of scarcity and social proof claims used by hotel booking websites as sales pressure. Half said they were likely to distrust the company as a result of seeing them (49 percent). Just one in six (16 percent) said they believed the claims.
The results surprised us. We had expected there to be cynicism among a subgroup—perhaps people who booked hotels regularly, for example. The verbatim commentary from participants showed people see scarcity and social proof claims frequently online, most commonly in the travel, retail, and fashion sectors. They questioned truth of these ads, but were resigned to their use:
“It’s what I’ve seen often on hotel websites—it’s what they do to tempt you.”
“Have seen many websites do this kind of thing so don’t really feel differently when I do see it.”
In a follow up question, a third (34 percent) expressed a negative emotional reaction to these messages, choosing words like contempt and disgust from a precoded list. Crucially, this was because they ascribed bad intentions to the website. The messages were, in their view, designed to induce anxiety:
“… almost certainly fake to try and panic you into buying without thinking.”
“I think this type of thing is to pressure you into booking for fear of losing out and not necessarily true.”
For these people, not only are these behavioral interventions not working but they’re having the reverse effect. We hypothesize psychological reactance is at play: people kick back when they feel they are being coerced. Several measures in our study support this. A large minority (40 percent) of the British public agreed that that“when someone forces me to do something, I feel like doing the opposite.” This is even more pronounced in the commercial domain: seven in ten agreed that “when I see a big company dominating a market I want to use a competitor.” Perhaps we Brits are a cynical bunch, but any behavioral intervention can backfire if people think it is a cynical ploy.
Heuristics are dynamic, not static
Stepping back from hotel booking websites, this is a reminder that heuristics are not fixed, unchanging. The context for any behavioral intervention is dynamic, operating in “a coadapting loop between mind and world.” Repeated exposure to any tactic over time educates you about its likely veracity in that context. Certain tactics (e.g., scarcity claims) in certain situations (e.g., in hotel booking websites) have been overused. Our evidence suggests their power is now diminished in these contexts.
Two questions for the future
In our study, we focused on a narrow commercial domain. It would be unwise to make blanket generalizations about the efficacy of all behavioral interventions based on this evidence alone. And yet nagging doubts remain.
#1: Like antibiotic resistance, could overuse in one domain undermine the effectiveness of interventions for everyone?
If so, the toolkit of interventions could conceivably shrink over time as commercial practitioners overuse interventions to meet their short-term goals. Most would agree that interventions used to boost prosocial behavior in sectors such as healthcare have much more consequential outcomes. In time, prosocial practitioners may be less able to rely on the most heavily used tactics from the commercial domains such as social proof and scarcity messaging.
#2 : How will the growing backlash against big tech and “surveillance capitalism” affect behavioral science?
Much of the feedback from the public relates to behavioral interventions they have seen online, not offline. Many of the strategies for which big tech companies are critiqued center on the undermining of a user’s self-determination. The public may conflate the activities of these seemingly ubiquitous companies (gathering customer data in order to predict and control behavior) with those of the behavioral science community. If so, practitioners might find themselves under much greater scrutiny.
Feedback loops matter
There probably was never an era when simple behavioral interventions gave easy rewards. Human behavior—context-dependent, and driven by a multitude of interacting influences—will remain gloriously unpredictable.
Marketers should design nudges with more than the transaction in mind, not only because it is ethical or because they will be more effective over time but also because they bear responsibility toward the practitioner community as a whole.
The lesson I take from our study? Feedback loops affect the efficacy of behavioral interventions more than we realize. Just because an intervention was successful five years ago does not mean it will be successful today. Practitioners should pay as much attention to the ecosystem their interventions operate in as their customers do. There’s no better place to start than spending time with them—talking, observing, and empathizing.
We should also consider our responsibilities as we use behavioral interventions. Marketers should design nudges with more than the transaction in mind, not only because it is ethical or because they will be more effective over time but also because they bear responsibility toward the practitioner community as a whole. We owe an allegiance to the public, but also to each other.