Manipulation and Headgames

[mackenzie]

I'll begin this with a note. The term "manipulation" has a really bad reputation. I was introduced to it as a neutral term for changing an object or a situation. I later found out that it has a strong pejorative connotation when used in a social context. When I talk about manipulation here, I am speaking of it in a positive light. Manipulation is a

Comments

[archonsengine]

This is fascinating, because it describes how I've always seen social interactions, yet never could have elaborated. I've also always hated the connotations behind manipulation as a term and concept, for the reasons you've posted.

Sorry, I have very little of content to add, aside from agreement and appreciation.

Which means it's a good time to ask you to dinner! ;)

[mackenzie]

I'm glad you like it, and I'd love to get dinner.

This post came about in a kind of funny way. bennj and I were talking about turning acquaintances into friends, a process I call "conversion". I said "I totally need to blog this" but then realized I needed to back up and make an updated version of an old post about calendaring for anything about conversion to make sense. As I started to rewrite that post, I realized that what I was lacking was an explanation of how I view social interactions in general.

In short, now that I've written this, I've got two more blog entries that build off of these concepts to write. It's hard to be a blogger!

[brooksmoses]

That sounds like an interesting conversation! I've been thinking a bit about that process lately as well, mostly along the lines of realizing that I ought be actively doing it more.

(Incidentally, to introduce myself -- if I'm correctly correlating online and offline identities, we met some years ago at dinner in Palo Alto; I was a friend of leback and akosut's, as well as rmjwell's.)

[willskyfall]

This is a really nifty piece.

In some ways, both kinds of manipulation are about navigating the black/white box of the other person in ways that might not be entirely apparent to that person. This may be the source of some of the negative aspects of manipulation; that you are executing a person's social "program" in a manner designed to get a certain (possibly unintended or exploitative) behavior, or re-programming that person.

I know I tend to get defensive when people whom I know well (like relationship partners or my parents) make statements that seem tailor-made to provoke a particular response on my part. Sometimes I feel like I have no real conscious say in how I react, and that feeling is a terrifying one. Even when the manipulation is well-meaning, and I recognize it as well-meaning, I get this gut reaction to do the opposite just to spite the idea that I'm controllable.

(Which I suppose leaves me open to reverse psychology; but don't let my brain know, or I might fuse into place. :D)

[ex_serenejo]

Now, I believe that social behavior is deterministic and predictable. The same input will always give the same output. Always. The issue is that social interactions are so complex, with so many variables, that it's difficult to impossible to replicate the input.

Oh, wow, I couldn't disagree more, but I don't have the brainpower (migraine) to articulate why, but I'll get back to it.

[mackenzie]

I'm looking forward to it. I don't get the impression that most folks believe in determinism of most kinds, so I'll confess to being surprised that no one wanted to hash that out sooner.

Feel better soon!

[brooksmoses]

Reading this much, much later, that was also a part that I was going to question

[nasu_dengaku]

This was an interesting read, thanks. One place where the metaphor starts to get strange is when you consider that the "black box" is also modeling you and likely using manipulation of some sort on you. So now I have the mental image of two boxes reaching into one another's machinery at the same time. Hello, strange loops! A healthy relationship would involve the two boxes tinkering with their own and each other's machinery in an attempt to optimize their interface with one another.