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Dark psychology is a tool to manipulate others for personal gain. Individuals with higher emotional intelligence use their understanding of others' emotions to control others.
While these qualities are helpful in handling social situations and understanding others, they can also be used for darker purposes, like manipulating others.
Here, let’s learn about 6 types of dark psychology that are used for manipulation.
Love bombing:
It’s when a person showers you with sudden love, affection, or gifts to make you feel special and later may use you for their gains. Example: a child being very affectionate to their parents to buy a gift.
Love Withholding:
This is the opposite trick of love bombing where someone withholds love and affection until you do what they want. The best example is your sibling not talking to you when you refuse to share your food.
Gaslighting:
Gaslighting is a type of manipulation where someone makes you doubt your sanity or perceptions by altering the truth or denying something. Example: your partner in the relationship, claiming, ‘That didn’t happen this way’ or ‘You are imagining this’, making you doubt yourself.
Reverse Psychology:
Here, someone puts up a convincing show to trick you into reverse psychology by coyly denying what they want to make it happen. Example: it’s when a mother says, ‘Why not, go hang out with your friends, no need to come home today.’
Confidence Breaching:
Here, a person to whom you confide your secrets reveals it to others. Example: you tell your friend you have a crush on someone and now the whole friend circle knows about it.
Semantic Manipulation:
This includes twisting words or phrases to make something else out of it than what’s actually said. Example: Your friend making jokes about you being overweight. When you ask them to stop, they reply, ‘I am encouraging you to lose weight’.
If you think you are unknowingly using dark psychology on others, you can change the course by reflecting on your behaviour, asking for forgiveness, and spreading love.
