Are people really intentionally manipulative?

Most manipulation skills are just advanced social skills used for malicious purposes.

sometimes people do it on purpose but sometimes they don’t, sometimes it’s even more complicated than that

for example: general insults, these come from 2 places. it can be an expression of anger, maybe that’s how they were talked to so they see no problem in talking to other people that way when angry. it also serves the purpose of screwing with someone’s self esteem so that they submit.

it can be both of these things at once too “i am angry so im insulting you because i want you to shut up and do what i want you to”

it depends on the situation, i would argue that most of the time manipulation isn’t intentional, but also, if people are accusing you of being manipulative, and you think you are being vulnerable, where is the disconnect happening there?

someone feeling guilty because you are upset about something for example isn’t you manipulating them into feeling guilty, it’s you being upset about something they did that hurt you, it’s manipulative of them in that case to accuse you of being manipulative so that you stop coming forward with things that have hurt you

but, you could also be doing something that is genuinely manipulative, if you want to stop it would be good to have an open discussion and question why and how they think you are manipulative so that you can get to the bottom of it

also i genuinely don’t think it’s manipulative to ask someone why they seem to not care about your feelings in and of itself. that being said, if you want to have a healthy discussion with someone use “i” statements so “why don’t you care?” turns into “i feel like my feelings don’t matter” that makes it so they are less likely to go on defense and more likely to engage with you to help you feel better in a way that’s good for both of you

Don’t worry or bother wondering all that. Just be the true, nice, non-manipulative you that you are. I’m at the point where it’s fuck the manipulators, Liars, and cruel people. Be nice, be cool, chill, and love people. You’ll sleep well,

Depends. Back when I used to intentionally manipulate people, there were times when I'd think about how best to sway someone, and other times when I unconsciously picked up on a weak point and exploited it, but would be able to articulate what was happening in my mind later.

It's not manipulative to show your emotions, and whoever is trying to convince you that it is, is wrong.

I suppose nearly anything someone says could be manipulative. To know whether it is or not, I think we have to either verify that it is reasonable to believe it or, if we can't verify it or if we suspect it isn't, we don't rely on that information to make any important decisions. If someone shares their emotions and tells you how something makes them feel, we can acknowledge that and assume it's valid but be ready to reevaluate that if their behavior doesn't reflect that.

For example, if someone says "I love you" (this is most manipulators key strategy) but they steal from you, lie to you, cheat on you, hurt you, or do anything else that makes you feel bad about yourself, causes you to doubt something you know is true, or makes you feel guilty, then their actions don't match their words and that is manipulation. Regardless of the excuses, the promises to change, how often they say it, or how desperately you want to believe it, that person must deliver the goods they sold you. Manipulators will tell you what they think you want to hear in order for you to do what they want.

And while people can change over time, there has to be some evidence to back that up. Often there is an immediate change in their behavior in order to make you think they have changed, but it is short-lived. After a while, a few days, prob no more than a couple of weeks, they go back to their old ways. This is buying them time to continue to use you bc they know that most people would say to themselves, "I'll give him/her one more chance since they tried to change, everyone deserves a second chance." While that may be fair after the first relapse, but giving someone that 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc opportunity for someone to change is wasting your time, energy, and emotional health on someone that is unlikely to make real, lasting changes.

Sharing our emotions and feelings with others is natural and part of making relationships. Knowing whether the share is meant to be manipulative can be difficult to verify. Every manipulator loves to share their sad background story to rope people in by playing on our emotions. Yes, most everyone has had problems in our pasts that were difficult, problematic, traumatizing or just not what we expected or deserved. That is why manipulators share their sob story and remind you frequently that they have suffered and how life has been unfair. (Regardless of whether the story is true, it's how they leverage it against you. This is true when they want you to do something they want or need ("Buy me this") or if they think you are going to do something they don't want ("Don't kick me out, I won't do it again"). In fact, the more often they remind you of how bad their life has been, the more you should suspect they are being manipulative.

Trust yourself, your instinct, your gut feeling and above all, trust your senses and what you know to be true. Our emotions can be used against us quite easily. If something doesn't make sense, or if the facts as you know them don't seem to match what someone tells you, that should raise a red flag or two. Also, listen to what other people in your life (those you have come to trust over time and whom you don't suspect of manipulation) are saying to you. This is why one of the early strategies of manipulator is to isolate you from your friends and family. They know that these others in your life are not emotionally invested in them and the lies they tell. Many times, family and friends will see through them and try to get you to see that this person is playing you. Don't ignore them.

With some people there is no line...it just depends on the person...some people don't manipulate at all. Some use it as a survival mechanism, some people use in for fun, because they purely take joy In what they receive when they manipulate the person, the person is nothing more than a means to a way to get what they want.

The symptoms of ptsd, cptsd over lap with some of the symptoms that true manipulative personalities have. You mentioned trauma. Maybe looking into the symptoms of ptsd would help. Do you have nightmares all the time?

Interesting discussion-there are lots of well-developed thoughts that diverge from my experience of manipulation. I appreciate the perspectives, and will jump in with my own.

It's hard for me to see how manipulation can be entirely unintentional. People use certain behaviors because they've worked in the past. Maybe the manipulator has never labeled the behavior as manipulative in their own mind, but the decision to engage in the behavior is a choice to seek a certain result (even if this decision happens so quickly and automatically that it doesn't feel like a choice). If you slap someone in the face and don't consider it assault because of the way you've selectively defined assault in your head, it doesn't mean the slap was unintentional, if that makes sense.

Contrast that with people who learn interpersonally dysfunctional behaviors from a parent. I think some people develop these behaviors because it's the only way they know how to relate to others. Take someone who was never validated in expressing her needs to others. As an adult, when others forget to be considerate, she might adopt a martyr tone and say "oh that's fine, I can make it work." Let's say her mom handled situations the same way. In a lot of cases, someone might say this with manipulative intent, but maybe the woman feels hurt that others have overlooked her needs and tries to suppress how she's feeling, but a little bit of upset leaks out. I've known people like this. Which is all a way of saying that I think intent matters and have noticed different patterns of behavior between people who wanted to bend me to their will (manipulators) and people who weren't taught great strategies for relating to others. If we equate these behaviors, I think it's a lot harder to analyze behaviors and give people advice in handling their relationships. We can teach strategies for relating to others better, but manipulators need to let go of their inner desire to control others.

OP, I'm skeptical of anyone who is telling you thar you're manipulative for expressing your feelings. Sometimes people do this when they're being manipulative. I once had someone accuse me of being manipulative when I brought up concerns I had or reacted emotionally when he treated me badly. He was the one being manipulative and was trying to maneuver me into being unable to express any feelings or concerns to him.

Also, some people make others responsible for their own feelings. So if you say or do something that makes them feel bad, they might feel manipulated because they aren't taking responsibility for their own mood states.

I had some emotional and physical abuse growing up, whenever I first started dating we would have an argument almost everyday and I thought it was completely normal, I would emotionally manipulate them talking about my history, I unknowingly manipulated these women into feeling bad for me and staying with me, realized how fucked up I was and completely stopped dating and trying to heal that part of me, I won’t date until I’m whole, but yes some people are intentionally manipulative while some people unknowingly manipulate just not knowing what they’re doing is manipulation.

"Intentionally"...that's difficult to delineate simply because everyone's pathological conscious/subconscious intentions and how that translates into action varies so widely person to person. Ultimately, we can only speak to our own experiences, here's mine: I have practiced narcissistic, manipulative behaviors for years, specifically where women and interpersonal romantic relationships are concerned. I have never found that I specifically entered a situation wherein I was *willing myself* to be a jerk, it just kind of happened because I didn't care about other people's emotions or mental stability and did whatever felt good, damn the consequences, because these actions in the moment helped to forget the traumatic pain and psychosocial discomfort that I felt as a result of several bad experiences with relationships, one in particular being incredibly painful and is something that, years later, I still haven't fully recovered from. It broke a piece of me that can never be repaired, and I believe it was that piece that possessed some degree of moral sensibility enough to know that being deceitful and hurting others is wrong, even if it means I get what I want in the moment.

People are absolutely intentionally manipulative

Even kids who can't speak yet understand on an instinctive level that certain behaviors get certain reactions.

Adults write books and teach classes about how to manipulate others.

In a word, yes.

Some peoole are and some are just self deluded.

Moved in with a friend who as soon as I got there started to just mess with me in the worse ways. He knew I was from a liberal town, and he would just berate me and ask me all sorts of horrible questions about homosexuals if I would have them as lawyers a therapist just the worst kind of stuff and then he would push it until I finally snapped and said I had enough and then he later say he did that just to like get on my nerves, I had to move out. It was a really bad situation. He did a lot of other stuff that was really messed up too.

Do you share your emotions to get a reaction? Or just because you have the desire to be intimate?

Depends. I don't share my real emotions with the general public in my professional persona - and since a professional persona and your real life are now strongly coupled....

I don't share my emotions at work or outside my home. I imagine the person I think you might be in a given context, and share what that person would be. Since people are generally in love with their own reflections, that works out pretty well.

Yeah, i highly recommend learning about the unconscious mind, spending the next 15 years going through the dark night of the soul, and emerging as a fully integrated, self actualized bad ass

Why does it matter if it’s intentional or not? I just care about whether or not they’re going to continue the behavior I don’t like. If I think they will, I leave them alone.

If you’re trying for a certain outcome that is manipulative. If you’re expressing how you feel and letting the dice fall where they may that’s real. 

People are most likely to be accused of being manipulative when someone is angry that they are difficult to manipulate or are making manipulative people look bad.

I think you know when you are being manipulative. Even posting such a question in itself is a bit manipulative. Clearly you are looking for a specific answer in my opinion. It seems to me you are simply fishing for responses that suit you and your needs. There are those who wear the heart on their sleeve. They are simply honest with their emotions at all times with no ulterior motives. Others may feel they are manipulative at times but the intent is never really there. Then of course there are those who live their life manipulating others to gain this or that. Financial, sexual, company, emotional punching bag you name it. If you need another's opinion on whether or not you are manipulative, not a good sign.

It all depends on the person. There are just people out there that only care about themselves and will try to do everything to a person to get what they want out of them while not being seen as a terrible person

People can be complex. If you're sharing your feelings to connect, not control, it's probably not manipulation. Just keep an eye on the situation and trust your gut.

The nature of action is based in intention. You always do what you most want to do.

Understanding the motivation behind the behavior is the key to understanding though.

Everyone who is manipulative has some inkling that they are being manipulative because at some point they have considered their behavior in the context of forcing someone else to behave in a certain way via indirect action. Which is the definition of manipulation.

The question is when manipulation becomes malicious or sinister.

Nah, no one at all manipulated on purpose…

The real answer? Only since the beginning of time. Even animals manipulate. It’s human nature. You are actually manipulated constantly through everything you ever read, hear and much of what you see. We are taught as children that if we act a certain way then we will gain or achieve certain things.

Advertisements, commercials, politics, social media. It’s all manipulation.

Yes but a lot of time, it's just something they naturally do. Like they don't say "I'm manipulating right now" it's just their natural reactions to the world around them and navigating it

Sometimes yes sometimes no. Not all manipulation is overt. Some people truly, genuinely might not consciously realize that a thing they’re doing or saying is manipulative.

With that being said, there’s no way to read minds and know for certain what “type” of manipulator a person is, and that’s what makes it scary.

Some yes, some it’s just a behavior and they probably don’t realize they do it

I mean to some extent we’re all manipulative. We’re all trying to get our needs met. We’ve just figured out that in the long run it’s better to maintain a relationship instead of getting over on someone. Even when we do things that seem altruistic it’s meeting some need of ours. If it didn’t we wouldn’t do it.

Now there is a subset of people who either are unable to or unwilling to consider the needs of the other person. Their aim is to get from a person all they can because a person has no inherit value to them. These people do this intentionally and unintentionally.

There's different types of manipulation, not all are inherently evil nor intentional.

There's definitely folks out their who are intentionally manipulative and known exactly what they're saying/doing

Car salesmen are all manipulative as fuck never met one who wasn't.

Yes . People are . People should go into the world aware of this and always atleast somewhat question conversations or things that happen in your life.

Never attribute to malice what can explained by incompetence.

the act of manipulation itself is inherently intentional however most people aren’t aware that thats what they’re doing. the definition of manipulation is to control someone or something for one’s own benefit. it’s similar to lying in the way every human does it, daily. the important difference is whether someone is knowingly manipulating maliciously and or at the harmful expense of others or not.

The ones browsing this subreddit probably 😆

Sometimes yes.

yeah they are.

If multiple people have accused you of manipulation, you might want to examine that. It’s possible those people are saying that as a manipulation. It’s also possible that you are using your vulnerability as manipulation without realizing it. Both are common. But, as it’s happened multiple times, you should take a cold hard look at yourself.

No, not at all. That’s a silly question.

If you aren't doing it intentionally then you aren't manipulating.