Can a person be manipulated by playing on there personality and traits?

[Ice_Phoenix87]

Can a person be manipulated by playing on there personality and traits?

[Glider]

Yes, and we all do it, most of the time.

[Radical Edward]

very much so. that is why animal rights groups put all those pictures on posters, and anti-abortion groups show pictures of miscarriages in order to upset people.

[JaKiri]

I don't see how you could manipulate someone by any other method.

[Ice_Phoenix87]

oh ok, is there websites on manipulating. I am doing it as an assignment.

[BrainMan]

What, specifically, are you trying to get at with the term "manipulation"? Isn't all language just a form of manipulation? Language is how we reach over and grab ahold of another person's brain and say "think this way, damn it!" Aren't all pursuavive speaches a type of manipulation? How about an infant crying? People talk about telepathy and mind-control and such without even noticing that we all use telepathy and mind control everyday- we normally call it "langauge". So it is clear that manipulation is not necessarily directed at particular personality types or particular traits (aside from those traits we all share).

 

I think the important question here is if specific traits or personality types make people more vulnerable to certain kinds manipulation. For example, we might ask if introverts are more likely to submit to authority figures' commands- even if they are immoral or harmful. Understaning what kinds of traits or personalities are more susceptible to what kinds of manipulation would basically answer the question.

 

Wether or not people always pick up on these traits and know how to (and actually do) use them for manipulating a person is a slightly different issue.

 

Can you be more specific as to what it is you are looking at or trying to understand (or write about, or whatever)?

[BrainMan]

Perhaps you are (or could) look at the way that psychological results have been used in advertising to get people to buy certain products...? Or in politics?

[Glider]

Advertising. That's a very good example.

[Kevin Conti]

Of course they can. And central to this is advertising! In a more academic spectrum, consider people with narcissitic or egotist personalities. One way to manipulate them is to constantly praise them up and give them a boost. This boost to them gives them a feeling that increases their feelings of superiority or grandeur and makes them more likely to agree to things that you ask subsequently.