Manipulator

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Manipulator — a person who tends to use manipulation in communication and relationships, or the author of a specific manipulation (a psychological impact that causes a person to have the necessary feelings and intentions, bypassing and against his conscious control). The opposite of a manipulator is an unsophisticated, simple person who acts according to the principle “because”, does not set the task of effective influence, does not select actions, emotions, words and formulations to obtain the desired result.

A manipulator is a kind of communicator. A communicator is a person who influences others (partner) in a targeted and appropriate way, choosing actions, words, intonations and formulations in order to get the desired reaction or answer. The communicator enters into communication, having his own, defined and pre-formulated goals. Look→

Manipulator manipulator — strife. A dark and frightening portrait of a manipulator is drawn in the popular book by E. Shostrom «Manipulator Man»: he is a severe neurotic who treats both others and himself without love. Other types are quite mentally healthy, sincere people and attractive to others, people of high culture and even developed spirituality. However, in everyday usage, perhaps thanks to the book of E. Shostrom, the word «manipulator» has a persistently negative connotation.

On the other hand, in business communication, a manipulator is more effective than an ordinary person, and the training of diplomats, managers, salespeople always includes training in effective communication and its varieties — adequate manipulations in communication.

Books and trainings that promise to teach you how to recognize manipulators and counter manipulation are very popular. The professionally written books in this series act in different directions: on the one hand, they successfully teach assertive behavior to decent people, on the other hand, they provide not the most honest people prone to manipulative behavior with a full description of the tools they need …

See, for example, Robert Cialdini, The Psychology of Influence.

Less professional literature teaches little, but contributes to the growth of distrust of people in general and suspicion of friends and relatives.

It seems that the «effect of the first year of the medical institute» is working, when novice medical students, after listening to a diagnostics course, begin to see all possible diseases in themselves. In this case, people begin to see manipulation in the most innocent things and treat others with caution, as dangerous people.