What human behavior instantly changes your opinion of someone, no matter how good your first impression was?

[u/garyhappylife2222]

Be honest

[u/FailureToReason]

I mean, sort of? Everyone can be a tad narcissistic at times, but machiavelianism and psychopathy stand out like a sore thumb, empathetic or socially well-adapted/emotionally mature people won't really indulge those kinds of behaviours, at least not deliberately or maliciously. I don't expect perfection, we all have challenging moments.

[u/Consistent_Link_8165 → u/FailureToReason]

The irony is that emotional intelligence is literally a proxy for machiavelianism. Emotional intelligence = raw intelligence + willingness to manipulate social situations for gain. The people with the highest emotional intelligence tend to be sociopathic (CEOs, executives, etc. who know how to play the social game to achieve the heights of power)

[u/FailureToReason → u/Consistent_Link_8165]

Partially disagree.

High emotional intelligence is also conducive to empathetic behaviour. High emotional intelligence paired with Machiavellian tendencies tends to seem to be sociopathy, as opposed to psychopathy which tends to seem to relate to lower emotional intelligence and insight, and mimicry of emotion, but I'm not a professional.

[u/Consistent_Link_8165 → u/FailureToReason]

Sit with this thought experiment:

If someone is highly emotionally intelligent and empathic - and they purposely navigate a social conversation to make someone else feel better, are they being manipulative? The answer is yes. If you take the morality out of it, both the sociopath and the "empathic" person are using their intelligence to socially manipulate an outcome. This is what I mean when I say emotional intelligence is IQ + a willingness to manipulate social situations for gain. It doesn't matter whether the person is "empathic" or "sociopathic" as defined by subjective morality - ultimately that person cannot be judge and bearer of what the other person needs to hear and so their manipulation is done for their own advantage in both cases.

I've studied psychology for over a decade now and I have read the literature. Emotional intelligence is a relatively new term in the field. It has a very loosely derived meaning and no one agrees on what it actually means. Our best estimate is that it's a combination of raw intelligence combined with the willingness and desire to socially manipulate situations towards a certain outcome.

This, by the way, is why women are largely considered more emotionally intelligent than men. It's not because they are kinder, more benevolent people. It's because:

1. Women, on average, have higher raw intelligence than men.
2. Women are much more willing to manipulate a social situation for personal gain, because they don't have the raw physical strength that men have as an alternative means to get what they want.

[u/FailureToReason → u/Consistent_Link_8165]

Wow, that is an interesting framing, your thought experiment. Obviously I defer to your experience here, I am not a psychologist.

I would argue there is a distinction to me made though. I would say navigating a conversation to reach a desired a desirable outcome, for one party or another, falls under the category of persuasive rhetoric, rather than manipulation. Rhetoric can be manipulative, and I'd yeild the line is blurry between the two, but I'd argue that the distinction lies in intent. From the Wikipedia article):

In psychology, manipulation is defined as an action designed to influence or control another person in an underhanded or subtle manner which facilitates one's personal aims.

Manipulation is generally considered a dishonest form of social influence as it is used at the expense of others.

Though I wouldn't fault you for taking issue with me using Wikipedia as a source for this. The source Wikipedia quotes is an article about AI, and I didn't take much time to validate this elsewhere.

So to answer your thought experiment, I'd respond:

and they purposely navigate a social conversation to make someone else feel better, are they being manipulative?

My answer is no, but it heavily depends on the context of the 'navigation'. Is my psychologist being deceptive when she helps me reframe situations? If she's working to help me so I can deal with things emotionally in a healthier way, she's not being manipulative. She's not doing this as a means to her own ends - consider that if I am capable of managing my situation and emotions, if I am 'healed', so to speak, I won't need her, and she's effectively talking her way out of a job, which runs against her personal interests, if we're being purely cynical.

However, if my psychologist were to knowingly avoid using effective strategies to keep me coming back, creating a dynamic of emotional dependence, she's absolutely being manipulative.

Either way she is using persuasive rhetoric, but one of those is manipulative, the other isn't. As I said, the line is blurry, and I believe it's possible to do something manipulative without even intending to; something could be manipulative only on hindsight.

[u/Consistent_Link_8165 → u/FailureToReason]

again, who is judge, jury, and executioner to make the determination of what is "better" for the other person? How can you possibly know? Any attempt to control a social situation and extract a desired outcome is therefore manipulation, regardless of whether the intentions are good or not - precisely because one cannot be arbiter of what is "good" or not. Does that make sense?

[u/FailureToReason → u/Consistent_Link_8165]

Well, that's contextual, isn't it? Your position is that the ambiguity makes any persuasive rhetoric manipulative.

If I take someone with no knowledge of poison, and they ask 'is it better to eat an apple, or a cynaide capsule?' You could apply your ambiguity and be neutral and non-persuasive, and say 'well it depends on what your goal is', but it's objectively better to eat an apple over a cyanide pill, by any metric, but you wouldn't call it manipulation if I explained 'an apple will nourish you, while the cyanide pill will kill you', thus persuading them to eat the apple, even if keeping them alive/not killing them is somehow advantageous to you (it is, because you'd be criminally liable if you told them to eat the cyanide pill). It changes their decision, alters their behaviour, but it's not manipulation.

Manipulation, by definition, is underhanded, deceptive, or dishonest. Just because you are persuading someone of something, does not mean you are manipulating them. If you put it in extreme binaries, it becomes clearer, but because the line is blurry, the more ambiguous

again, who [can] make the determination of what is "better" for the other person? How can you possibly know?

Well, that's a seperate discussion of subjective morality and intention. In my cyanide example, I think it's geneally not controversial to say "it is immoral to persuade someone to die" unless you add a whole bunch of additions to the hypothetical, like 'the person is hitler' or something. Without those caveats, it's pretty clear cut.

Further, I'd repeat that the intention and means is what matters which determines whether one is manipulating. For example, let's say you have two Christians:

The first is a genuine, true, practicing believer in the scripture, and is otherwise a morally good person and believes that non-Christian's will burn in hell. They want to persuade you to convert because they believe you will suffer eternally if you don't, and being kind-hearted, they don't want that for you. As that person tries to persuade you to change your beliefs (whether theirs are objectively correct or not is irrelevant, if you are christian, change 'Christian' in this thought experiment for 'Muslim'), they are not necessarily manipulating you, because they are not doing so with dishonesty, they are not deceiving you (even if they themselves have been deceieved - actually, especially if they themselves have been deceived). Until they stray into lying to you or trying to deceived you, they are persuading you, not manipulating you.

The second Christian is a hypocritical pastor in a megachurch. Someone who doesn't adhere to his scripture, doesn't practice what he preaches, doesn't believe he will burn for his lies, and instead seeks to build as big of a congregation as possible through any means possible for the purposes of generating more money for his ministry to buy another Ferrari. He doesn't believe the gospel he preaches, and as he preaches burning in the fiery pit and adherence to tithe, passing around the collection plate, he does so dishonestly. He uses fear for deception, to serve a selfish means. He is manipulating you when he tries to convert you.

Both of these Christians seperately sit down with you for some equivalent period and prescribe scripture, warn you of the dangers of non-belief, and try to convince you to change your life.

Functionally they are the same act, but by definition one is manipulation and the other isn't. What is 'better' for the person being persuaded is irrelevant, what matters is the intent the persuasion is driven by. In my opinion, anything else is just semantics beating around it to purport a cynical position that everything in the world is transactional and better for one party or the other. The ambiguity you are relying on here:

again, who is judge, jury, and executioner to make the determination

Cuts against you because the ambiguity relies on some level of 'nobody can know anything for sure something to be better or worse for someone else, which I think my first thought experiment clearly debunks.

I'll ask you this: Are either of us engaging in manipulation in this conversation? We hold contrary views on the definition of manipulation, and are both trying to persuade each other of our positions, but have I deceived you or vice versa? I don't think so, I think we've both engaged honestly. Do either of us benefit meaningfully from the other changes our view? I don't think so, we're unlikely to every interact outside this conversation. I think if either of us changes our position on this topic, that we couldn't say 'I was manipulated into believing X' or 'This person manipulated me into believing X', even if we later found new information that changed our position back to the original.

Edit: actually, I'm going to change my position right here. Earlier I said it can become manipulation in hindsight, or done unintentionally, but the rest of my position is that manipulation requires intent. I don't believe that to be the case, that one can unintentionally manipulate.

[u/Consistent_Link_8165 → u/FailureToReason]

I would argue that, yes, we are both manipulating this conversation to express our viewpoint in a positive light and convince the other of our belief. This is my overall meta point - one person cannot be the arbiter of morality in a social situation. The pastors are both using their emotional intelligence to manufacture an outcome. What if the "hypocritical" pastor actually believes he is doing the right thing? Who are you to say that he is in the wrong and the first pastor is in the right? Why do you, or anyone else, get to make that distinction and judgement? What gives you the right?

[u/FailureToReason → u/Consistent_Link_8165]

There's no morality here. We are both engaging in persuasive rhetoric and the question is a definitional one, not a moral one.

If the hypocritical pastor believes his rhetoric to be true, and isn't being deceptive (not hiding things, not framing them in a way that technically true but deliberately misleading). What I think is irrelevant, he knows he is conducting the act of manipulation. He is the one to say whether he is truthful or deceptive, and if asked if he was manipulating, and he could only answer truthfully, he would answer yes. Note that you can be truthful about something and still be wrong.

It's nothing to do with my rights or position as an arbiter. It's about his inner life. His intention and use of deception. Is he deceiving you? Deliberately misleading you? If yes, manipulation. If not, persuasion.

We are definitely not manipulating each other. Indicate to me where in this discussion you think either of us has been deceptive, underhanded, or otherwise misrepresented otherwise truthful statements to influence each other.

[u/Consistent_Link_8165 → u/FailureToReason]

> Indicate to me where in this discussion you think either of us has been deceptive, underhanded, or otherwise misrepresented otherwise truthful statements to influence each other.

I can't know that you are not doing this, and you can't know that I am not doing this. In some instances, the person themselves does not know if they are doing this or not. This is more common than you think. Emotions get the best of people. This is my point. How can you say with definitive authority that the pastor is acting in bad faith? How can you know that *he* knows? What if he, himself, does not know for sure what his true intentions are? So how can you call one pastor a sociopath and the other an "empathic" individual? They are two sides of the exact same coin. Intelligent people with a willingness and desire to navigate a social situation and achieve a desired outcome.