[INFJ] Why are INFJs so Manipulative?

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Oh, I've seen this before... Don't get in [MENTION=28147]Trash Panda[/MENTION]! Phobik is going to close the door behind you and trap you inside. I would know, it's happened to me... In my mind hahaha

who paid u to slander me? was it the infj? was it?

 

[Dreamer]

who paid u to slander me? was it the infj? was it?

I'm uhh... Not sure. Perhaps the INFJ manipulated me

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I found an interesting article on the broader topic of manipulation, since I agree with others about it not being type-related. Something interesting I've noticed is that you can find people of each MBTI type who are nearly incapable of manipulation and others who are skilled at it. It is a personality dimension that transforms each type. The straight-forward and manipulative version of each type are profoundly different from each other.

The Manipulation Trap by By Anita Anand
I especially liked this quote from the following article.

“When you get enough inner peace and feel really positive about yourself, it is almost impossible for you to be controlled or manipulated by anyone else.”

Why manipulate?

According to clinical psychologist Dr George Simon, manipulators in many ways are dysfunctional people who conceal aggressive intentions and behaviours; know the psychological vulnerabilities of the victim to determine what tactics are likely to be the most effective, and have a sufficient level of ruthlessness to have no qualms about causing harm to the victim if necessary.

Manipulators also need to advance their own purposes and their own gain, even at virtually any cost to others. They need to attain feelings of power, and superiority in relationships with others and need to feel in control.

Manipulative methods

• Positive reinforcement: Includes praise, superficial charm, superficial sympathy (crocodile tears), excessive apologising, money, approval, gifts, attention, facial expressions such as a forced laugh or smile, public recognition.

• Negative reinforcement: Includes nagging, yelling, the silent treatment, intimidation, threats, swearing, emotional blackmail, the guilt trap, sulking, crying, and playing the victim.

• Intermittent or partial reinforcement (both negative and positive): This can create an effective climate of fear and doubt, for example in terrorist attacks. Partial or intermittent positive reinforcement can encourage the victim to persist. For example, in most forms of gambling, the gambler is likely to win repeatedly but still lose money overall.

• Punishment: Withdrawing love and support.

• Traumatic one-trial learning: Using verbal abuse, explosive anger, or other intimidating behaviour, to establish dominance or superiority.

Manipulative techniques

• Lying: It is hard to tell if somebody is lying at the time, although often the truth may be apparent later when it is too late. One way to minimise the chances of being lied to, is to understand that some personality types (particularly psychopaths) are experts at the art of lying and cheating, doing it frequently, and often in subtle ways.

• Lying by omission: This is a very subtle form of lying by withholding a significant amount of the truth. This technique is also used in propaganda.

• Denial: The manipulator refuses to admit that he or she has done something wrong.

• Rationalisation: An excuse made by the manipulator for inappropriate behaviour.

• Minimisation: This is a type of denial coupled with rationalisation. The manipulator asserts that his or her behaviour is not as harmful or irresponsible as someone else was suggesting – for example saying that a taunt or insult was only a joke.

• Selective inattention or selective attention: The manipulator refuses to pay attention to anything that may distract from his or her agenda, saying things like “I don’t want to hear it.”

• Diversion: The manipulator not giving a straight answer to a straight question and instead being diversionary, steering the conversation onto another topic.

• Evasion: Similar to diversion but giving irrelevant, rambling, vague, and weak responses.

• Covert intimidation: The manipulator throwing the victim onto the defensive by using veiled (subtle, indirect, or implied) threats.

• Guilt tripping: A special kind of intimidation tactic. A manipulator suggests to the conscientious victim that he or she does not care enough, is too selfish or has it easy. This usually results in the victim feeling bad, keeping them in a self-doubting, anxious and submissive position.

• Shaming: The manipulator uses sarcasm and put-downs to increase fear and self-doubt in the victim. Manipulators use this tactic to make others feel unworthy and therefore defer to them. Shaming tactics can be very subtle such as a fierce look or glance, unpleasant tone of voice, rhetorical comments, and subtle sarcasm.

Manipulators can make one feel ashamed for even daring to challenge them. It is an effective way to foster a sense of inadequacy in the victim.

• Playing the victim role (“poor me”): The manipulator portrays himself or herself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else’s behaviour in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another. Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering and the manipulator often finds it easy to play on sympathy to get cooperation.

• Blaming the victim: More than any other, this tactic is a powerful means of putting the victim on the defensive while simultaneously masking the aggressive intent of the manipulator.

• Playing the servant role: Cloaking a self-serving agenda in guise of a service to a more noble cause. For example saying, he is acting in a certain way for ‘obedience’ and ‘service’ to God or a similar authority figure.

• Seduction: The manipulator uses charm, praise, flattery or overtly supports others, in order to get them to lower their defences, and give their trust and loyalty to him or her.

• Projecting the blame (blaming others): The manipulator often finds scapegoats, in subtle, hard-to-detect ways.

• Pretending innocence: The manipulator tries to suggest that any harm done was unintentional or did not do something that they were accused of. The manipulator may put on a look of surprise or indignation. This tactic makes the victim question his or her own judgment, and possibly his own sanity.

• Pretending confusion: The manipulator tries to play dumb by pretending he or she does not know what you are talking about, or is confused about an important issue brought to his attention.

• Brandishing anger: The manipulator uses anger to brandish sufficient emotional intensity and rage to shock the victim into submission. The manipulator is not actually angry, he or she just puts on an act. He just wants what he wants and gets angry when denied.

I've also noticed that manipulative people will often tend to go from one extreme to the next, so that people are kept off-balance. Rapid changes from flattery to shaming is one example. Changing from playing the dominant role to victim is another.

I agree that a lot of it is likely not conscious, although the desire to protect the self and dominate others is generally a conscious goal.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I've been wondering about the question of unconscious manipulation because it does seem plausible that people are innocently causing harm because of good motives. I certainly think that is the case with many people, but I'm not certain if those behaviors are hard-core manipulation, or something else. When researching the question of whether or not actual manipulators know what they are doing, this is what some of the research says,

Dr. George Simon

During my many years working with victims in abusive relationships, I heard the same types of questions asked over and over again: “Why can’t they see what they’re doing?”; “Do you think they really meant to hurt me?”; “Don’t they probably have ‘issues’ they’re unaware of and that they’ve never really faced before?”; and, “How do I get them to recognize the harm they do?” And because I had broad-based training as a therapist, including training in all the traditional approaches, at first even I believed that my role in helping disturbed characters change would be to assist them in getting in touch with the unconscious underpinnings of their behavior (e.g., early childhood trauma, mistrust of others, fear of intimacy, etc.). What a surprise it was to learn how very different in every respect the disturbed characters were from their victims in relationships, especially with respect to their levels of awareness.

I grew up in a family that was nearly incapable of manipulation, but instead had a direct, kind style of interaction. It has helped me as an adult to first experience a very aggressive, competitive career, and then to have various relationships during adulthood with people skilled in manipulation. I think what often disguises the idea of conscious intent are the feelings of entitlement that motivate the individual. People who feel entitled to be in a dominant role will consciously use manipulation to achieve what is 'rightfully' theirs, so I think that even in the cases where it is conscious, it feels justified. Perhaps that is what can be confused with the idea of it being unconscious? I'd be curious what others think.

 

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I don't always create threads accusing an entire personality type of a behavior based off of the actions of an individual, but when I do it's about INFJs! Stay ignorant my friends.