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Everybody Wants to Rule the World: What’s Your Go-To Tactic?

Everybody Wants to Rule the World: What’s Your Go-To Tactic?

 

In my divorce and mediation practice, I see people changing. Whatever balance they had in their own corner of the universe has been jarred. Nothing ever lasts forever. Whatever worked for them in the past no longer works. There’s no turning back. Change has come in some unexpected way, so people want to restore some sense of order, balance, control to their corner of the universe. They can’t stand this indecision. What do they do?

We all have developed strategies in our lives to make our way in the world, all for freedom and for pleasure. More or less, we think we know how to control our world and how to have some power in it. Depending on how our personality has developed, we have ways to try to get what we want.

  1. Desire to control my environment to get what I want
  2. Need to influence your thinking and behavior
  3. Choice of tactic

Surprisingly, psychologists say we choose from the same menu of manipulation tactics. By manipulation, we mean the way we try to influence other people, the way we try to maintain some power and control in our lives. The goal we seek could be noble or sinister. Implementation of our strategy could be subtle or violent. We could be acting on our best behavior or our most extreme tendencies. And the outcome could reflect mutual agreement or domination or continued conflict.

In any event, we all use the menu. Say that you’ll never, never, never, never need it? Welcome to your life. We all try to shape our lives. So, what is it that you do? What’s your go-to tactic to get what you want?

  • Be nice?
  • Be nasty?
  • Be silent ?
  • Give reasons?
  • Whine?
  • Be submissive?
  • Force a commitment?
  • Hit?
  • Show the fun in it?
  • Say everyone’s doing it ?
  • Pay money?

Our menu of manipulation tactics can be found in Personality Psychology by psychologists Randy Larsen and David M. Buss. There are 11 tactics on our menu. At any given time, we may select one tactic over another depending on our goal and the person involved. We likely have used each of the tactics at some time over the course of our lives. But when danger threatens chaos, our menu might shrink from 11 options down to our one or two favorite tactics. Our specific preferences all depend on the composition of our peculiar personality, generally considered across five broad dimensional domains:

Five-Factor Model of Personality

  • Extraversion
  • Agreeableness
  • Conscientiousness
  • Emotional Stability
  • Openness-Intellect

Certain personality traits do tend to point a person to use one tactic more frequently than another. Someone high in dominance (extraversion) prefers “demanding, threatening, cursing, and criticizing,” as well as getting commitments by claiming it’s the other person’s duty. Low dominance? They prefer “lowering themselves” or “trying to look sickly,” but they also turn to “deception, lying, degradation, and even violence.”

A highly agreeable person tends toward showing how enjoyable it will be or explaining the rationale. The disagreeable? They tend toward threatening, criticizing, yelling, and the silent treatment. They also use revenge and cost-inflicting strategies.

The highly conscientious explain reasons and use logic. Low conscientious? They are more likely to turn to criminal strategies.

The emotionally unstable use lots of tactics, but their most common tactic selected flows directly from their instability: they “pout, sulk, whine, and cry.” However, surprisingly, the emotionally unstable employ this tactic in a very strategic, motivated way to get what they want.

The highly Intellect-Openness most often use reason, as well as using pleasure induction and responsibility induction. Low Intellect-Openness? They prefer saying everyone else is doing it or comparing the other person to someone who would do it or claiming the person will look stupid for not doing it.

Men and women? There is no meaningful difference. We all use the same 11 tactics.

So, here’s the menu for exercising influence in our social environment, A Taxonomy of Eleven Tactics of Manipulation:

•1. Charm

  • I try to be loving when I ask her to do it.

•2. Coercion

  • I yell at him until he does it.

•3. Silent Treatment

  • I don’t respond to her until she does it.

•4. Reason

  • I will explain why I want him to do it.

•5. Regression

  • I whine until she does it.

•6. Self-Abasement

  • I act submissive so that he will do it.

•7. Responsibility Invocation

  • I get her to make a commitment to doing it.

•8. Hardball

  • I hit him so that he will do it.

•9. Pleasure Induction

  • I show her how much fun it will be to do it.

•10. Social Comparison

  • I tell him that everyone else is doing it.

•11. Monetary Reward

  • I offer her money so that she will do it.

Now, what’s your go-to tactic?

Note: The title of this article and the sprinkling of lyrics are from “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley, and Chris Hughes (Tears for Fears, 1985).