Requirements for Successful Pyschological Manipulation

Requirements for successful manipulation

According to psychology author George K. Simon; successful psychological manipulation primarily involves the manipulator:

1. concealing aggressive intentions and behaviors.

2. knowing the psychological vulnerabilities of the victim to determine what tactics are likely to be the most effective.

3. having a sufficient level of ruthlessness to have no qualms about causing harm to the victim if necessary.

Consequently, the manipulation is likely to be accomplished through covert aggressive (relational aggressive or passive aggressive) means., Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation [2]

1. n other words, the perfect ad campaign. Jib Fowles in his article defines the “Fifteen Basic Appeals” that motivate most humans. Advertisers tend to target one or more of these needs in order to sell a product. Because you can’t escape ads in the 21st century the stakes are high to make your ad stand out above the noise. We (humans) tend to block out a lot of what is thrown at us; this intentional blindness makes getting through the daily morass possible. So how do you reach that person who has learned how to tune you out? Manipulation, in one form or another. With the science behind it, advertisers can have a laser focus on the exact demographic they want to reach and thanks to the science they have a really good idea how to make our buying decisions for us, without us even being aware. In fact, the more unaware the better, we buy the product yet we aren’t entirely sure why, or we feel loyalty to a company and when we stop to consider that fact we realize we don’t how that loyalty was developed.

Odell’s unbottled beer ad targets the need for affiliation, one...

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...t have been thirsty, or hungry or whatever else the product is supposed to be used for. Advertisers use humor, drama, art and information to reach us, if the means by which they use those tools is a little manipulative who is it hurting? Maybe no one, on the other hand, maybe someone, maybe someone without the tools to discriminate between truth and fantasy, maybe constant images of the perfect lives of the perfect people do have an effect. Perhaps it is increasing our alienation even as it tries to convince us it is actually the solution to lessening it. It is like someone putting something in your food that compels you to eat, yet it never allows you to feel satiated, its an endless cycle, buy to feel whole, feel whole because you bought, except you never feel whole.

Works Cited

Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation [