Manipulation: Definition, Examples, & Tactics​

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
Manipulation is any action that changes other people or your environment. When is manipulating the people around you good or bad? Let’s see how intentions matter in manipulation.​
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Think about how many times during the day you find yourself in a situation where other people do not share your goals – where their goals and yours might even be in direct conflict. How do you resolve these continual moments of friction, of conflicting priorities? The answer is that you probably engage in some kind of manipulation, just like I do when I’m trying to get something out of a given situation. ​
Is it wrong of us to go around trying to change people and situations to meet our needs? When is manipulation good, and when is it wrong? Let’s work our way through the philosophical and psychological gray areas of the topic of manipulation.
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What Is Manipulation? (A Definition)​

On a very basic level, one is manipulating any time that one tries to change or influence the behaviors or bodies of another organism or object (Buss et al., 1987). In this sense, a cat hissing at you or a dog barking at you are both acts of manipulation, as they send a clear message about which behaviors they do and do not want to see from you (Krebs & Dawkins, 1984). At this very basic level, manipulation does not necessarily carry a negative connotation; when I turn the steering wheel of my car, I am manipulating the car, but it could just be so that I can enter the grocery store parking lot. (No harm in that, unless I’m showing up hungry and craving cookies.)

While some manipulation is socially frowned upon and harmful – and we will spend lots of time looking at these behaviors – much of the manipulation among animals and humans is functional, necessary, and even inevitable (Krebs & Dawkins, 1984). Think of a newborn baby, for example: what options does it have for getting its needs met besides crying? When world leaders negotiate with each other, wouldn’t they be doing a disservice to their countries if they did not push for the best results possible for their people? And should we not put our best foot forward when out dating, even if what we wear on a first date is not what we wear most days?

Is Manipulation Always Bad?

So while all manipulation is intentional, in the sense that it is geared toward getting us some outcome that we want, not all of it is bad or done with malicious intent (Buss et al., 1987). However, in the realm of psychology, it is common to study manipulation as a behavior with more specific traits. Specifically, psychology often looks at manipulation as pursuing a goal using more deceptive means and without much care for the well-being of the other parties involved (Bowers, 2003).
 
Maybe an example will make this distinction clear. Suppose I call you to invite you to dinner, saying I have missed your company and want to catch up. If that is the full extent of my intentions, then this behavior is not psychologically manipulative. If, however, I call you because I am interested in dating your sibling, or gossiping about a mutual friend whom I have started to resent, or because all my other friends are busy… then my deceiving you makes my behavior psychologically manipulative.

The Psychology of Manipulation​

Why do we manipulate others? In addition to having concrete goals, such as getting company, money, or sexual intimacy, we also manipulate others so that we can impress them and fulfill our sense of who we are (Baumeister, 1982). In other words, much manipulation is done so that other people will see us the way we would like to be seen.
 
This drive to manage our self-image and look good underlies our behaviors with family, friends, and coworkers (Highhouse et al., 2016; Jones & Pittman, 1982). We put our best foot forward, even if that foot is not quite an honest representation of our whole selves so that we can be confirmed as good, desirable, or worthy.
 
Perhaps I am making this behavior sound fake and dishonest, but I believe it comes from a very natural pattern of learning how to influence our environments. For example, think about how adults and babies smile reciprocally at each other. Babies that are becoming toddlers learn quickly to associate certain behaviors of their own with certain responses from their environment. Scream and wail, and a caregiver should appear relatively soon. Smile, and you will get a smile back, as well as some high-pitched, singsong words of affection. This same learning process is at play when you (consciously or unconsciously) learn that raising your voice at your partner really will get them to take out the trash next time, or that being unreasonably friendly when you call the dentist’s office will get you a better appointment time.

Manipulation Research

The extent to which people are willing to engage in this kind of manipulation, and to do so without regard for the wellbeing of the people being manipulated, has been studied a great deal (Potter, 2006). People who are higher in manipulativity – the tendency to engage in psychological manipulation – are also more likely to have some psychopathological traits (Potter, 2006). Manipulative behavior is often studied in the context of the trait called Machiavellianism, so named in honor of a sixteenth-century Italian philosopher and government official whose writings detailed how effective political leaders could (and should, in his opinion) use psychological manipulation to pursue their goals. People high in this trait are manipulative – and very effective at identifying when and how to be manipulative (Christie & Geis, 1970).
 
Machiavellianism, it turns out, does not always work (Wilson et al., 1996). Instead, it seems to work best in situations in which other means of negotiating, convincing, or collaborating will be less successful.

Manipulation Tactics

While there are many different manipulation tactics, they appear to cluster into six categories (Buss et al., 1987):
 
  • Charm. I have a very warm and personable friend who I have seen effectively navigate her way through conversations with all sorts of customer service representatives by turning on the charm offensive. In these moments, she is so agreeable and engaging that you would have a hard time ruining the conversation by refusing her what she wants.
  • Silent Treatment. Disengaging with another person can be powerful leverage. Many couples give each other the silent treatment after particularly painful arguments, for example. Putting children in timeout – where they cannot play or have positive attention from parents – is another (effective!) form of manipulation, I would argue.
  • Coercion. Threatening, demanding, blackmailing, intimidating others – all these coercive behaviors are also manipulative. They are designed to force the other person into compliance.
  • Reason. Reasoning with others might seem less aggressive but it can be no less manipulative. I have been on the receiving end of an onslaught of logical arguments that felt manipulative instead of collaborative.
  • Regression. When a child (or adult) acts “younger than their age”, they may have run out of “mature” ways to try to manipulate the situation. Regression is one way to force the other person to give in, whether it is to stop the unpleasantness of the regression or to make the manipulator behave more maturely again.
  • Debasement. If nothing else, a manipulator can always try to insult or humiliate the target of their manipulation into submission.

Examples of Manipulation

Manipulation can also be accomplished through much smaller actions than what we have discussed thus far. In fact, Thaler and Sunstein (2008), in their influential book titled Nudge, used psychological research to argue that sometimes small tweaks to systems can be more effective manipulations than the heavy-handed options people often think of.
 
For example, instead of taxing sodas and junk food more heavily, which will just increase the economic burden on the people buying these foods, grocery stores could be incentivized to put healthier food choices in the most prominent, visible locations. What if the sugar-free muesli was at eye level when you hit the cereal aisle, instead of the high-sugar, highly familiar brand names?
 
I am a big advocate, as a therapist and psychologically curious person, of small manipulations of one’s environment. For example, I snack a lot less if the container of peanuts in our house is buried at the bottom of a tower of containers. Sure, I could move all those containers, but suddenly it doesn’t seem worth the effort. I have also learned that putting fun activities on my Google Calendar, as well as my work responsibilities, gives me something to look forward to and keeps me on task.

Signs of Manipulation

We can become aware of psychological manipulation on both conscious and unconscious levels. People have an intuitive sense of when others are not being honest, which seems to be more online and effective when the stakes are high enough that detecting deception is important (Ten Brinke et al., 2016). Think of the difference between when a close, trusted friend compliments your appearance and when somebody you are just meeting does the same thing. In ways that you might not be able to describe, you are probably tracking that person’s behaviors closely to see how genuine they are being.
​
At the same time, some signs that a person is being manipulative are clearer and more overt. For example, research into the cues of lying has shown that people who are lying, compared to people who are telling the truth, tend to withhold information, appear tenser, come across more negatively, and tell unusually neat and tidy stories (DePaulo et al., 2003).

Is Manipulation Abuse?​

Psychological manipulation, in the sense that it involves a selfish drive to satisfy one’s own wants without regard for the consequences for other people, can be considered abusive (Kaukiainen et al., 2001). Indeed, some manipulative behavior is done with the intention of hurting the other person, as this can be the primary goal of the manipulator. At its most abusive, manipulation is used to keep another person isolated and feeling bad about themselves, which in turn makes that person easier to control and manipulate further.​

Manipulation vs Persuasion

When we persuade other people, we get them to do something, or adopt a belief, through fair and reasonable tactics, such as presenting them with factual evidence. When we manipulate people, by contrast, it is usually done with some degree of deception. For example, a research study that considered hundreds of thousands of political emails from the 2020 election cycle in the United States found that deceptive practices were common, from using inaccurate, clickbait-like titles to making it seem like the email comes as part of a preexisting email chain (Mathur et al., 2023).​

Manipulation in Relationships

As I think I made clear earlier, people manipulating each other in relationships is the norm, not the exception, and much of it is ordinary and relatively harmless. One study of couples found that different manipulation tactics were used to achieve different ends (Buss et al., 1987). For example, charming behaviors were used more often to get partners to do things, while coercion and giving the silent treatment were used to make partners stop undesired behaviors. Partners that did not seem as well matched to each other also seemed to use manipulative behaviors more often.​

Manipulation and Gaslighting

Gaslighting is a classic example of manipulative behavior. Gaslighting is behavior that tries to convince another person that they are “crazy” or that they should not believe their own senses and experiences (Sweet, 2019). For example, manipulators may rely on the stereotype that women are overly emotional to dismiss a woman’s experience as an overreaction.​

Manipulation and Narcissism

Research studies make it clear that manipulation is a common tactic among narcissists (Frick et al., 2000; Rothbart, 2007). This may be because narcissists focus vastly more on their own goals and on feeling good than they do on the needs of others (Roose et al., 2011). For more information about common manipulative behaviors from narcissists, check out the video below:​

Video: 13 Narcissistic Manipulation Tactics You Need To Know About

Manipulation and Love Bombing

Love bombing – the act of showering another person with gifts, attention, and apparent affection (Hayes & Jeffries, 2016) – is also a form of manipulation. Love bombers are creating an unsustainable and unrealistic experience of romantic love, with the goal of bringing the target of the love bombing closer to them.

Quotes on Manipulation

  • “Manipulative people are those who wish to be loved on their own terms.” – David S. Viscott
  • “Vision without integrity is not mission – it's manipulation.” – Howard G. Hendricks
  • “I do respect people's faith, but I don't respect their manipulation of that faith in order to create fear and control.” – Javier Bardem
  • “Nothing manipulates people more than the desire to please.” – Zoe Durlock
  • “When you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him.” – George R.R. Martin
  • “Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.” – Lao Tzu
  • “The best way to manipulate a man is to make him think he is manipulating you.” – John Smith
  • “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” – Abraham Lincoln

Articles Related to Manipulation

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

Books Related to Manipulation

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Manipulation​

I want to return to my earlier message: not all manipulation is bad. Although psychological manipulation is typically done to achieve one’s own goals, much manipulation has the fate of the manipulated individual in mind. For example, therapists regularly manipulate their clients in ways that they hope will be for the clients’ own benefit (Hepworth, 1993). I don’t want my therapist to sit there passively as I stumble through my own pain – I want him to manipulate me into greater understanding, acceptance, and self-compassion. So when you think of manipulation, I hope you can keep in mind that we all do this to each other and that unless harm is actively being caused, a little manipulation might not be all that bad.​

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