Thought Manipulation: The Use and Abuse of Psychological Trickery (4 page)

The motivating wish as a stimulating instrument in a manipulative interaction shows another aspect of the gap in viewpoints between the manipulator and the target. The target is trying to fulfill a powerful wish or to satisfy a strong desire while the manipulator motivates him to do it by employing incentives that create a false impression.

TWO TYPES OF MISLEADING

Manipulation is geared toward motivating the target to operate in a form that under normal conditions he would probably resist, object to, and reject. Manipulative interaction invites a meeting between opposing positions—the manipulator’s and the target’s positions. However, the meeting, or more precisely the clash, is mostly indirect, invisible, and covert. This effect is created by the trickery that is intrinsic to manipulative behavior. The use of morally questionable means, such as temptation, misdirection, and intimidation, contribute to the elusive feature of manipulation.

In order to better describe and concretize the sophistication of manipulation (at least relative to other motivating actions), I propose to distinguish between two types of misleading: simple misleading and complex misleading. The first type appears mostly in deception. The second type is employed mainly in motivating actions that can be better categorized as manipulation.

In simple misleading interactions, the clash between the different positions is clear, direct, and frontal. For example: John points to Rome after Joseph has asked him to show him the road to Washington. To put it differently, John simply and clearly lies to Joseph. In this book, I am inclined to categorize this type of behavior as deception.

In complex misleading interactions, the clash between the different positions is indirect, invisible, and covert. Let us take, for example, an imaginary scenario that is not so far from reality. The heroine is an African-American lady who believes that America needs a drastic change. The African-American candidate for the presidency symbolizes for her a change in the desirable direction. She is not even willing to consider another option. However, the white candidate approaches her in a sophisticated manner. He appoints as his deputy a woman. This move reminds our African-American voter that besides her ethnic identity (African-American) she holds also a gender identity (woman). Since each side has the potential to make history (an African-American president or a female vice president) our African-American voter, who is a passionate advocate of civil rights, equity, and social justice, faces a dilemma. The meaning is that the white candidate sophisticatedly maneuvered her to consider voting for him, an idea that she hates to begin with.

In general, manipulative behavior includes direct and indirect communication. The direct messages are used to affect critical capacity and paralyze any objection to the manipulator’s moves. The indirect messages intend to motivate the receiver to operate in a manner or for a cause that is controversial. Therefore, manipulation employs complex misleading tactics.

In our previous example, the direct message of the white candidate to the African-American voter is: “The time has come for America to have a female vice president,” and the indirect message is: “Therefore, you need to vote for me, the white candidate.” The clash between the different initial positions, the African-American voter’s preference (an African-American president) and the white candidate’s aspiration (to be a president), is indirect. Accordingly, we can classify the white candidate’s political move as a manipulation.

MANIPULATION INTRUDES ON AUTONOMY WITHOUT LIMITING FREEDOM

The distinction between “freedom” and “autonomy” is extremely important to the characterization of the very essence of manipulative behavior, or at least to those motivating actions that I am labeling manipulation in this book. In general, freedom (or liberty) refers to the range of operational possibilities available to a person, while autonomy is related to his decision-making process concerning these options. The meaning is that freedom is related to the physical dimension while autonomy is connected to the mental sphere. Let me draw out this distinction by using John Lock’s extreme example: “The person who...is put into a cell and convinced that all the doors are locked (when, in fact, one is left unlocked) is free to leave the cell. But because he cannot—given his information—avail himself of this opportunity, his ability to do what he wishes is limited.” According to our distinction, the person has the freedom to leave, but he does not have the autonomy to do so because he believes that he is trapped.

In principle, the manipulator does not coerce, in the physical sense, the target to act, but uses cunning, sneaky, and tricky ways to influence, in the mental sense, his decision-making process. To put it differently, manipulative behavior is geared toward influencing the target’s decisions, but without limiting his options. Accordingly, we can conclude that manipulation intrudes on the autonomy of the individual without limiting his freedom.

Of course, we should bear in mind that the possibility to object to, reject, and oppose any intrusion to our autonomic sphere is not always existent, even in theory. For example, hiding relevant information so that it is inaccessible can alter a decision-making process without any possibility of the decision-maker knowing about the distortion and raising protest. The crucial point is that these are exactly the cases that I would like to leave out of this discussion. The case where a motivator is able to invisibly control the external conditions and maneuver the target’s decision-making without any possibility of the target knowing about and objecting to the alteration have an effect similar to coercion. Physical compulsion is not involved, but the distance from it is not too far. Accordingly, the contribution of these interactions to our discussion, the clarification of the unique characteristics of manipulation, and the challenges that the phenomenon presents to proponents of the open society is marginal.

The more interesting and challenging cases are those where it seems that the target can protest, oppose, and resist the manipulative influence, but he does not do so. Moreover, often enough it turns out that the target is actually cooperating with the manipulator even when it clearly contradicts his very best interests. This is a crucial point that will be discussed in detail, later. For now the main point is that the discussion is limited to cases where the target is able, or apparently able, to choose his actions freely and independently.

To better clarify what I will consider as manipulation in this book, let me distinguish between two ways of shaping external conditions, or in Kelman’s term, “environmental manipulations”: manipulations that are based upon the manipulator’s ability to “construct the environment” and manipulations based upon the manipulator’s attempt to “construct the target’s vision upon the environment.” In general, our discussion excludes the first type and includes the second. Constructing the environment means that the motivator has the ability to control the external conditions with little possibility of the target knowing about it and protesting. An example of this might be indecent trading, which intentionally moves prices for the purpose of misleading participants in the financial market. Those cases seem to have an effect that is similar to coercion. Therefore, I will leave them out of our discussion.

In contrast, constructing the vision upon the environment means that the motivator presents a decision-making problem in a misleading, fallacious, and tendentious manner. These manipulations are quite common in voting and elections, when the agent who chairs the meeting has the power to determine the agenda. The manipulator uses sophisticated tools, such as mathematical and psychological knowledge, to structure the alternatives in a manner that maximizes the chances of a favorable outcome. The manipulator could be an expert in statistics, a professional psychologist, or a well-known specialist in social choice theories. Social interactions, however, usually do not occur in a vacuum. Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine that the layman target has good reasons to be suspicious, can ask for help, is able to consult with experts, and even to protest. Accordingly, at least to some extent, those manipulations belong to the landscape of our discussion.

SUMMARY

This introductory chapter intends to give a general impression of the unique characteristics of the manipulation phenomenon. It seeks to cope with a very basic and fundamental question: What is a manipulative interaction?

I opened the discussion by proposing a broad, general, and nonbinding definition: “Manipulation is an indirect motivating action that is employed out of fear that a direct approach might face a resistance.” However, the idea is to use it only as a point of departure. This broad definition intends to stimulate critical thinking and provide a general orientation to the landscape of our discussion. The main analysis focused on exploring the necessary conditions for the phenomenon of manipulation to occur.

To facilitate the discussion, I proposed to examine the basic nature of manipulation from the standpoint of a rational human being who wishes to manipulate. What effects is the future manipulator hoping to create? What type of tactics does he intend to use? What are the possible outcomes of his moves? I have found eight major characteristics of manipulative interaction, as follows:

1. Manipulation is a motivating action.
   
2. Manipulation employs morally questionable means, such as temptation, misdirection, and intimidation.
   
3. Manipulation gives the target the illusion that he is able to choose his actions freely and independently.
   
4. Manipulation invisibly influences the target’s decision-making process in that the target cannot identify that he operates under manipulative influence.
   
5. Manipulation affects the target’s critical capacity.
   
6. Manipulation creates a link between the intentional action (the manipulator goal) and the fulfillment of a powerful wish or the satisfaction of a strong desire.
   
7. Manipulation employs complex misleading tactics whereby the clash between the positions of the manipulator and the target is designed to be indirect, invisible, and covert.
   
8. Manipulation intrudes on the target’s autonomy (the mental dimension) without limiting his freedom (the physical sphere).
   

To make the exploration more interesting and challenging, I have restricted the discussion. Manipulative interactions in this book are social situations where the target seems to have the ability to resist, protest, and oppose the uninvited intervention in his decision-making process. To put it differently, despite the sophisticated intrusion, the impression is that the target still carries the ability to choose his actions freely and independently. Therefore, there is no escape from wondering, especially in manipulative interactions where the target acts clearly against his interests, aspirations, and even declarations: How much of a free choice does the target really have? Does the target only hold an illusion of free choice or is he actually able to choose his actions freely and independently? How does the manipulator achieve such a sophisticated motivating effect? Does manipulation involve magical work?

These are fundamental questions for any discussion of the ethical-political aspects and implications of manipulation. They are extremely important to any exploration in the spirit of the liberal tradition, which always defended the individual’s liberty, independence, and freedom of choice. However, before we continue to examine the challenges that manipulation poses to proponents of the open society, we still need to get a better orientation of the topography of our discussion. Chapter 2 attempts to sketch manipulation relative to other motivating actions: coercion, persuasion, and deception.

NOTES

1. Rudinow (1978), “Manipulation,” Ethics 88: 339.

2. Ibid. 346.

3. Goodin, R. E. (1980),
Manipulatory Politics
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press), 8.

4. Ibid., 19.

5. Phillips, M. J. (1997),
Ethics and Manipulation in Advertising: Answering a Flawed Indictment
(Westport, CT: Quorum), 17.

6. In this respect, Karl Popper has attacked the view that scientific inquiry depends upon the precision of terms: “In science, we take care that the statements we make should never depend upon the meaning of our terms…This is why our terms make so little trouble. We do not overburden them. We try to attach to them as little weight as possible. We do not take their ‘meaning’ too seriously. We are always conscious that our terms are a little vague (since we have learned to use them only in practical applications) and we reach precision not by reducing their penumbra of vagueness, but rather by keeping well within it, by carefully phrasing our sentences in such a way that the possible shades of meaning of our terms do not matter.” Popper, K. R. [1945] (1996),
The Open Society and Its Enemies
(vol. 2) (London: Routledge), 19.

7. In the spirit of Popper’s view, I propose to distinguish between two kinds of definitions: a “closed definition” and an “open definition.” A close definition is a narrow concept that limits the discussion upon the very essence of the phenomenon and the social problems it encompassed. In contrast, an open definition is a broad and general notion intended to provide a basic orientation upon the territory of the discussion. My definition of manipulation will be an open one.

8. This methodology is consistent with Karl Popper’s view that it is quite common to open a critical discussion upon a social phenomenon with the presentation of an analytical model. According to Popper, explanatory theories in the social sciences always, or nearly always, are analytical and model-based. They operate “by the method of constructing typical situations or conditions—that is, by the method of constructing models...And the ‘models’ of the theoretical social sciences are essentially descriptions or reconstructions of typical social situations.” Hedstrom, P., R. Swedberg, and L. Udehn (1998), “Popper’s Situational Analysis and Contemporary Sociology,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 28(3): 351.

9. The application of major elements in economic analysis to other social sciences is a methodology known as Economic Imperialism. For a further discussion, see Matzner, E., and I. C. Jarvie (1998), “Introduction to the Special Issues on Situational Analysis,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 28 (3): 335–336.