Emotional Manipulation, A Common Way To Resolve Internal Conflicts

You must be more than used to hearing about emotional manipulation. Of her ways of coming into play and of the victims she leaves in her path. It is undoubtedly one of the behaviors which generates the most pernicious effects in the victim, especially because of its silent and lethal nature.

The emotionally manipulating person has a perfectly defined course of action in their head. She is aware of her prey’s weaknesses and knows how to dismantle her defenses to defeat it. Defeating her may involve posing as the victim and the other being guilty. Let the other person finally prove her right and get what she wants.

They also triumph when they manage to generate certain emotions in the other, depending on what interests them. The plan, as we said, is all mapped out. And these people will have no qualms about using the means necessary to appropriate the will of the other, as a necessary tool for their objective.

Cognitive dissonance, a frequent origin of emotional manipulation

You have surely realized that  the term used in psychology is that of “cognitive dissonance”. Cognitive dissonance refers to the internal conflict we experience when two thoughts that do not seem congruent with each other take shelter in our mind. Or when a thought doesn’t fit into our belief system or our behavior.

This internal conflict, this tension which gnaws at the thought, ends up leading to a rather curious result. We will do everything to avoid this feeling of cognitive uprooting in which we have immersed ourselves without realizing it. This feeling of internal inconsistency moves us in such a way that we will do all we can to eliminate it.

We need to feel an internal congruence between what we feel and what we think, between our beliefs and our attitudes…  between what we think and the way we act. When we find ourselves at this crossroads, we will get out of it by any means, even if it is by taking the hand of self-deception.

Self-deception is the quintessential subterfuge of all cognitive dissonance

As we said before, we will do everything not to have to endure for a long time this so unpleasant feeling that has taken hold of our body. We will avoid becoming aware of all this information that increases this dissonance  and we will “turn a deaf ear” to anything that can destabilize us even more.

The emotional manipulator knows how to deal with cognitive dissonance, deceiving himself to achieve his goal. For example, there are people who feel unable to end a relationship; these people will do everything in their power to turn the situation around and have the other end the story.

Jorge wants to leave María because he has just met another girl with whom he has felt a “special connection”. María, on the other hand, who is not aware of this, does not want to leave him because she is very much in love with him. Well. Faced with this situation, Jorge will do everything possible to ensure that María is fed up with this relationship and that she puts an end to it once and for all. Later, he will make her feel the only one responsible for the breakup. “Ah, but no, you left me, I never wanted any of that!”.

The manipulator transfers the fault to the other and is free from any guilt

Faced with the extreme discomfort produced by the clash between what he would like to be, someone faithful, and what he is right now, someone unfaithful,  Jorge chooses to emotionally manipulate María to that it is she who resolves the situation… For, in the end, that she is the only culprit. Most likely, María does not even understand what is really going on because few people can conceive of a spouse acting this way. On the other hand, Jorge’s behavior is not necessarily conscious.

The point is, Jorge can’t imagine ending a relationship he’d like to end because another person has appeared in his life. In his head, he does not want to have the role of executioner, so this one, to protect him, will make him pass for the victim. And, because he does not accept this reality, because he does not take responsibility, he will manipulate María until the cord breaks definitively. And it doesn’t matter how much harm he does to her.

If María is the one who leaves him, he no longer has to feel guilty for wanting to leave her for someone else. Because it is “very frowned upon” and because it can cost him dearly. On the other hand, in this way, the internal conflict is resolved and he manages to emerge triumphant from this battle.

It is for all these reasons that emotional manipulation, sometimes, duplicates itself in a cognitive chaos that seeks to get rid of it at all costs. Manipulative people will look for an executioner, a culprit who will pass them off as victims or who will put them in a situation that will justify their thoughts or behavior.

The other will be guilty. And they will always be, in the end, the unhappy victims in their relationships.