Does everyone manipulate

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Hello I have heard that everyone manipulates other people is this really true? If so how crucial to your life is it?

It's a fundamental part of human behaviour (even animal behaviour in a simpler way, for instance, young birds pestering their parents for food). It's not very nice, but I guess everyone has our own personal agenda, which we are trying to pursue, and which we see as more important than anyone else's. It's almost a survival thing. And as part of that, people learn to get their own way with others, starting as young children. I'm not saying it's good, but it does seem to be a part of nature.

I don't think it's a purely NT thing, because I certainly know I can be manipulative, and I know a couple of other aspies that are pretty good at it too! But the way I do it is fairly simplistic and direct, whereas NTs can be quite skilled at being very subtle about how they manipulate. The mind games can get really complicated. It's one of the reasons I sometimes find being around them too much hard work

Yeah, but hopfully a lot of people keep it down to manipulations that akin to white lies.

Yes.

This is truth.

Deal.

(On a more positive note, actually GETTING manipulated is pretty much up to you. Just stick to your own morals, if people around you can't stick to theirs, then you can't make them. Well, unless you out-manipulate the people manipulating the people around you )

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Last edited by FaithHopeCheese on 29 Dec 2009, 3:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I avoid dating NTs because of manipulation issues.

From my experience aspies are bad at lying.

No, not everyone manipulates. I honestly don't know how to think that way. But I am easily manipulated and have even become brutalized by it and that sort for too many years to count.

Manipulation doesn't always involve lying. The most effective techniques in manipulation are selective reveals - only tell the mark the facts that serve your purpose and keep mum about anything that might interfere with your agenda. That way you maintain plausible deniability - you can honestly say you never lied about anything. Governments and corporate conspirators do this every day. Its the primary technique used in all marketing and advertising.

I am not so sure *everyone* actually manipulates other people in ways that are bad or wrong, and neither do I believe everything we might consider "manipulation" actually is that. For example, a baby legitimately crying for food or a fresh diaper is communicating a need, not manipulating. Manipulation is far more about causing something to happen when the person/s or object/s in question would/might have otherwise been inanimate:

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Manipulate (Merriam-Webster Online)
1 : to treat or operate with or as if with the hands or by mechanical means especially in a skillful manner
2 a : to manage or utilize skillfully
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Such would be the case of a chef in the kitchen manipulating ingredients during the preparation of a meal, or in the case of a supervisor making assignments and directing workers effectively.

However, Merriam-Webster does also include this:

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2 b : to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one's own advantage
3 : to change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one's purpose
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Yet as LivingOutsideTheBox has said:



A good example there is the matter of the fund for securing a new server for WP. Many people want one and Alex seems willing if the funds are supplied, but helping with that expense is completely voluntary. Something like bribery or intimidation would have to be involved in order for something like that to be accurately considered manipulation, and even then we would each still have the opportunity to decide.

Thanks for your reply judging by what iv read manipulation seems to be a bi product of somones problems or as a means so that people can try and get what they want. I think some people proberly do it with out noticing so it would be apart of their personality. It certainly seems to be a natural thing that some people do but for others they tap into this natural thing and then they start to use it. Like anything in life some people are proberly bad at it some people are not.

I think that Aspies do manipulate, but aren't very good at it. It would be because we're not very good at lying either. Most animals manipulate in some way or other.

I'll agree with you there, if I try to lie my face scrunches up and it's fairly obvious that I'm lying.

It works both ways. I do a lot of favors for people and when I need help they'll help me. It's good for your reputation with people you don't normally deal with too. You just have to watch out who you're dealing with.

I guess you could say that it's manipulation. It's more of symbiotic one than a parasitic one though.

I might be wrong here, but I think that is either misunderstanding or misinterpretation if selfishness, self-centeredness and/or ill intent are being implied. An adult instinctually "manipulates" an offspring for his/her/its (the offspring's) own good, and "the leader of the pack" or "head of house" manipulates the herd or family for the good of all. The stereotypical "cult leader" manipulates for his or her own cause, and some politicians certainly seem to do the same. But in out typical day-to-day lives, I suspect few of us actually manipulate or are manipulated negatively or at each other's unwilling personal expense.

I think people who manipulate have a devious thing going on but that it may have a spectrum to it. I don't appear to have the kind of smarts to entirely know when I'm being manipulated, until it's too late, which also has a continuum.

Yes, and I used to have a lot of trouble because of that. Overall, I no longer do something "just because" someone else happens to think, believe, "feel" or even actually say I should or demand I do unless I first *know* whatever is being suggested truly is a right and good thing to do. I want people to like me, of course, and I want to be helpful and pleasing ... but I now refuse to trade any of my actual assets for mere trinkets.