The mental or psychological manipulation It can be defined as the mental control that one person exerts on another, or on others, through the use of tactics and techniques of persuasion and pressure, which denotes selfish behavior and a malicious end. The manipulative person manages to influence both the actions and the feelings and thoughts of the person who is manipulated, to the point of mentally destabilizing them with the sole purpose of satisfying their personal needs and interests.
This psychological manipulation can develop in any environment and interpersonal relationship, so it can be observed both in families and in couples, among friends, in the workplace, etc.
So that you can know if you are a manipulative person, as well as identify someone in your environment who exercises this role, below we will explain what their psychological profile is like. Read on to find out what the main characteristics of a manipulative person:
- He is an insecure person: although it may seem otherwise, his egotistical and domineering attitude shows his fears of rejection, loss of power or changes in life.
- She does not trust herself: she has very low self-esteem even if she tries to prove the opposite.
- Any type of interpersonal relationship bothers him. For this reason, her insecurity tries to project it onto others and tries to hide it by making it clear that only she has the absolute truth in everything.
- He can’t stand frustration: if his power is in question or he is at risk, his manipulative attitude can be maximized and he can even become physically and verbally aggressive.
- He is an intolerant person and one who emits destructive criticism.
- She is self-centered and denies the evidence.
- He cannot stand that something is out of his control, he has to find out everything and feel that he is in control of every situation.
- He is obsessed with the idea of transmitting a good image to others.
- She does not like to feel analyzed by other people and has a rejection of social evaluation.
Now that you know what the psychological profile is, let’s see how a manipulative person acts in their day to day and what are the attitudes and behaviors that can help you identify it easily.
Detects weaknesses and uses them to hurt
Someone manipulative knows very well what the manipulated person’s weaknesses are and has no qualms about exposing them and using them to hurt and weaken them. It quickly identifies what the other’s main fears and insecurities are and is capable of torturing the other with that in order to gain greater control over their being.
Blames others
It makes the manipulated person feel guilty for thinking certain things or for having or not having done something. In addition, he is a specialist in not assuming his responsibilities and transferring them without any scruples to others.
Lie
A manipulative person lies more than talks. Apart from making the other believe anything, no matter how unreal, it tends to spread false information and change the real facts. His strength is persuasion and he argues everything perfectly. In the following article you can see How to deal with lying people.
In addition to this, she tends to hide information about herself and her personal life, but on the contrary, she always wants to know everything about the other person, getting them to give a lot of information about her.
Is victimized
A psychological manipulator is a constant victim of the world. He’s out of luck, his life is a real drama and everything bad happens to him. Has a defeatist, negative and theatrical attitude. He acts perfectly well but the world is against him and only reports misfortunes and injustices to him. And, worst of all, is that he is capable of making others feel guilty for his misfortunes. The problem never falls on him, since he does everything well, acts better than anyone else and does not make a single mistake.
Do what it takes to achieve your goals
For her, the end always justifies the means. If you have something in your mind that you want to achieve with all your might, no matter who or what is on the way, you are capable of going through everything to achieve it. He does not care if he has to be cruel or behave selfishly, his priority will be to carry out his strategy to win the victory no matter what.
Makes too many questions
In his conversations, he usually asks a lot of questions in order to obtain as much information as possible about the issue that interests him. This way, you can have even more control over that person. His way of acting in this sense is not direct, but he usually asks questions that revolve around the main question in order to extract the information that interests him the most little by little. In this way, it does it without the manipulated person noticing.
Constantly flatter
In the compliments, find the perfect strategy to get the other person to feel committed to behaving in a pleasant way with her or in the way that she wants in each situation.
Other acts that can help you recognize a manipulative person are:
- You use the words someone else has said at any time, you misrepresent them and make them go against you.
- She is not responsible for what she has said before, if she is confronted with her, she is capable of radically changing what she had exposed and even denying that she had said those words.
- It induces others to do what they do not want to do or to do things that, by themselves, they would never have done.
- In conversations, he tends to radically change the subject.
- You can show yourself as a very envious person.
- You do not care or take into account the preferences, wants or needs of other people.
