Most resources only provide the basic, easy-to-spot manipulation tactics. To become truly manipulation-proof for life, you need more.

This article provides a list of 9 advanced manipulation tactics, which are used to attack, devalue, and control victims. Thanks to our clear examples, you will learn to recognize techniques like Social Scalping (framing you as the perpetual “taker”) and Isolation Tactics (cutting you off from support), so you can spot even the most covert abusers and know how to defend yourself.

Intro

First, you must understand this:

The best manipulators are so smooth that most victims don’t even realize they’re being manipulated.

Indeed, manipulation and manipulation detection are part of an evolutionary arms race.
To excel in that race from a manipulator’s point of view means never being perceived as a manipulator.
On the other hand, your job in that manipulation arms race is to excel in detecting manipulators so that you can become manipulation-proof for life.

Unluckily, most resources on manipulation only provide the most basic manipulation tactics.
And that means that you’d only be able to spot the most basic manipulators.

Better than nothing, maybe.
But if you want to aim high in life, you need more than just basics.

Right after learning to “see” manipulation, you want to learn how to deal with manipulation.
And then eventually you want to learn how to strategically use manipulation (when it’s fair to do so!). For great life quality, you then want to develop manipulation-free friendships and relationships with higher-quality people.

We help people walk that full circle in Power University.
But this article is a good start.

To give you the biggest bang for the buck, we’ll share some more advanced manipulation tactics:

1. Social Scalping™

Social scalping™ includes a host of manipulation tactics that frame the manipulator as a giver and the victim as a taker.

Social scalping includes a host of different tactics. They’re all aimed at making you the “taker” of the relationship

That is huge because social exchange dynamics teach us that givers and takers have very different rights and obligations.

Just as an example:

No matter how displeased you may be, you have little rights to demand any change when you are the taker within any given relationship.
Givers instead can demand changes above and beyond what would be fair in a more balanced relationship.
As a matter of fact, givers may even act out because they’d be right to be dissatisfied with the relationship (and dissatisfied with the taker).

Of course there is no “law” that says that takers must put up with abuse. But these dynamics are often far more powerful than laws are.
We didn’t evolve to follow a legal code. But we did all evolve to subconsciously run those give/take calculations.
And we naturally adjust our behavior based on the result of those calculations.

That means that you become far more accepting of abuse when the manipulator presents himself as the giver.

2. Devaluing You (Value Scalping™)

Frame the manipulator as having higher value than the victim, or the victim as lower value

The cast system may be over, but the underlying dynamics aren’t. Higher-value people will always enjoy power over others. Sometimes, and especially in the hands of poor characters, that power turns abusive.

Value scalping works on dimensions:

• Becoming higher value than you (value inflating for the self). This frames the manipulator as the “giver” and the ‘relationship prize‘
• Making you lower value (value deflating for you). This frames you the “taker” in that relationship

As per Social Investment model, the lower-value person must make the difference by investing more (Law of Compensatory Investment™)
Studies support that this imbalance allows the manipulator to give less, and take more (for dating applications, see our articles on the sexual marketplace and the sexual market value).

Tactics to deflate your value:

• Criticism
• Aggressive “humor”
• Negative comparisons
• …

Tactics to inflate his value:

• Bragging
• Teacher frames
• “Confidence game”, speaking with certitude
  • Appeal to authority, for example “science”, “research”, or quotes from famous figures

Example of confidence game to appear as a higher value authority:

Tom: one of the things that I THINK is foundational to growth is joy <— Humble, power-protecting and truthful approach that includes doubt

Sadhguru: (speaking with haughty and babying tone) nononono, there is substantial medical and scientific evidence that (states his point of view as a fact) there is no argument about that, there is enough evidence to show that

The speaker is socially dominant.
Dominance facilitates manipulation because you submit and become the “lesser of” in the relationship.
But the speaker is also manipulative because he feigns authority to impose his point of view.

Does it make sense?

If so, then you’re ready to move to another advanced manipulation tactic:

3. Disempowering You (Power Scalping™)

Tactics to maintain power for the self or actively disempower the target, including for example credit withholding, apologies withholding, or various power moves

While most people may not care to maintain power, it’s a central objective for many manipulative personalities.

Just as an example:

Covert Questions™

To seek new information, without directly asking a question (part of ‘covert power moves’)

To understand the manipulators’ psychology, you need to understand this:

• Asking means admitting ignorance, and ignorance is a display of vulnerability and lower value than ‘knowledgeable’
• Asking means taking from those who provide an answer. And it puts the asker in debt

Fragile ego manipulators cannot admit ignorance, and don’t want to give you credit for your advice.

So now we can understand that a common manipulation tactic is to swap questions with statements, loud questions that are not directed at you, or blame shifting.

For example:

• 🗨️ “The key has disappeared” (statement) as a covert request for help to find the key
• 🗨️ “You cleaned up and now my key is gone” (blame-shifting). So not only they get your help without asking, but they even blame you for the issue
• 🗨️ I’m thinking of investing in ads these days (loud thinking) to covertly get you to share your experience running ads

If you help them, they will never say “thanks”.

Another manipulative tactic is to share a meaningless trope in the presence of an expert to indirectly get the expert’s opinion.
For example, on our forum, they may have said:

• 🗨️ “You never outshine the master, that’s why when my boss made a mistake on the presentation, I didn’t correct it. Feel free to share your thoughts“.

Then, they hope, I will feel compelled to correct the generalization and offer expert advice.

4. Misleading The Competition (Competitors Manipulation™)

Tactics aimed at weakening rivals by misleading, restraining, or misdirecting them—such as giving sub-par advice, virtue-signaling to promote cooperation while secretly defecting, or spreading false information about one’s true actions, goals, or results.

Never trust a manipulator to tell you what they truly value, what truly works best, and what they’re truly pursuing.

Instead, they will share falsehoods to get you off track.

For example, they may say:

• “Real men drink” <— To convince other men to indulge, and lose health and productivity
• “If I could go back in time, I’d pursue my mission and ignore distraction from women“ <— To convince other men to never date or learn dating, so they never enter the competition
• “I don’t really care about job promotions here, it’s not a great environment. I’m thinking of switching careers“ <— To mislead colleagues into believing there is little competition and the environment isn’t worth it

In all these cases, the manipulator lowers the competition against him.
He hides his true goals, motives and behaviors to seem less competitive, devalues the object he desires, and misleads others into giving up the race.

5. Isolating the Victim

Manipulators may provoke the victim’s family into hostility towards him. He’d then use the opportunity to escalate and force his partner to “choose him” and cut contact

Isolation is a common manipulation tactic in relationships because isolation disempowers the victim and facilitates control.

Isolation Tactics

There are countless tactics manipulators deploy to isolate their victims.

Bel did a fantastic job with a growing compendium of isolation techniques here.

Some of the main ones include:

1. Manipulative “us bubbles”. Framing the couple as the only safe and sacred “unit”
   Examples:
   • It’s us against the world
   • You and I forever baby, nobody else
   • We cannot trust anyone, but we have each other
2. Behaving oddly or abusively in the victim’s social circle. That way, the victim will avoid his social circle out of embarrassment and shame
3. Making up enemies and encouraging “enemies making”. A manipulation tactic you also see from politicians and cult leaders. The more enemies, the more the victim’s dependence on the manipulator.
   Competitive and disagreeable people make for perfect targets
4. Setting up the victim in difficult situations with others.
   For example, the manipulator may press his partner to borrow money from family and friends. He may then try to make it difficult for the victim to repay. And he will criticize the lenders for being so “greedy”
5. Devalue the victim within her social circle. A good manipulator avoids direct criticism. Instead, he may “hint” the partner was unsupportive during his time of need (“yeah, I cut my expenses, but not everyone is willing to sacrifice so… Ramen for me tonight guys“)
6. Triangulations with the victim’s social circle. For example, the manipulator may flirt with a friend of the victim, or make the victim resent her friend with unflattering comparisons
   • Exaggerated “love” for the victim’s social circle. It works especially well with jealous or insecure victims
7. Reframe isolation as “strength“. High power manipulators use their emotional leverage to frame strong people as ‘not needing others’. Victims who crave gaining the respect of the manipulator will adapt
8. Monopolizing the victim’s time disguised as love. Only later, when the manipulator has (emotional) power, it will turn nasty

Manipulator vs Non-Manipulator Approach

Mind the difference:

• Well-meaning partners want you to have great relationships and be well-connected with other high-quality people.
• Manipulators want you isolated. They want you to have broken relationships or, better yet, no relationship at all

For example, a woman I was seeing had a strong temper. She one day said mean things to her sister. And I told her:

Non-manipulator: Look, you’re an expat here. Your family is abroad. The only family you have here is your sister. I’d rather you have a great relationship with her so that you can take care of each other

Make friends, not enemies principle.

A manipulator instead would have told her she was right, the sister terrible, and encouraged her to escalate further, or cut contact.

Note: The non-manipulator is ultimately higher value.
The non-manipulator sub-communicates that he doesn’t need a woman to be dependent on him. I didn’t want her to depend on me because it would just be an added responsibility that I didn’t want. Plus, I trusted myself that I’d always be a top priority for her.
See more in this video.

6. Astroturfing to Manipulate Opinions

The Routledge Handbook on persuasion shares an example of public opinion manipulation tactic.

Read these organizations’ names:

• “Citizens for the Environment”
• “National Wetlands Coalition”
• “Greening Earth Society”

Sound environment-friendly enough?

Well, they’re all ANTI-environment think tanks, chosen on purpose to manipulate public opinion (Bricker, 2014).
This practice of posing as a non-profit group to exploit others has been called astroturfing or astroturf activism (Durkee, 2017).

7. Playing on Insecurities (Ego Scalping™)

Deliberately highlighting and expanding a target’s insecurities or playing up one’s own or others’ comparative superiority around the targets’ insecurities to induce self-consciousness and lower self-esteem.

This manipulative tactic is part of “value scalping” because you come to believe you’re lower value.
In the worst cases, victims may feel they’re worthless. And victims who feel worthless are trapped in abusive relationships because that’s what they think they deserve.

Read more on this dynamic here:

• Dating low self-esteem women, it digs deeper on the dynamics

Some insecurities are easy to guess because they’re shared along gender lines.
Women tend to be insecure about looks, weight, inclusion, kindness, etc. etc.
Men tend to be insecure about masculinity, “being an alpha“, or competence.

🔎 Relationship Example

Him: (grabs her calves) chub chub
Her: (starts getting self-conscious about “not being thin enough” for him)

8. Teaching Others (Teacher Frames™)

Making a show of teaching others to appear higher status, more authoritative, intelligent, or knowledgeable, while framing the target as lower status, lower authority, or less intelligent

Teaching is a power move to gain power at your detriment.

Teachers gain higher status, authority, and attention. And you lose power as the ‘pupil’.

An example of manipulative teacher frames:

Saltbae: (talks to people like he’s in charge and explaining the world to them. As a consequence, they become lower value “students” who must learn from him)

Gurus of all stripes also teach to fabricate authority and sell various knowledge products.

Infantilizing

The manipulator infantilizes -or babies- the victim to make him feel inferior and dependent.

When effective, babying makes the victim feel low IQ, immature, and dependent.
The manipulator, as the only adult, also becomes the leader of the relationship.

9. Trust Scalping™: Start Cooperative, Turn Exploitative

Starting with strategic cooperation, verbal cooperation-signaling, or kindness to boost social capital and lower the target’s defenses, only to exploit that trust and defect later

Manipulators start with an inviting facade to attract you make you drop your guard, only to take advantage of your trust once you trust them.

That facade can be kindness, cooperation, or a display of virtue.

This pattern has been observed in research on narcissism.
A study on a commons dilemma showed that exploitative individuals cooperated early in the task but turned more selfish over time, consuming more of the shared resources.
The researchers interpret this as a possible “bait-and-switch” strategy: gaining trust initially, then defecting once the partner is easier to exploit.

10. Flattery, Reframing, Etc.

We shared more advanced and less understood manipulative tactics.

However, the “basics” of manipulative tactics are still valid.
Some of the most common and “basic” manipulative tactics include:

• Lying: “I never said that, you’re imagining things“, part of gaslighting
• Flattery: “There is a reason why you’re the best at this”
  • Positive triangulations: “He’s good, but let’s face it, you’re at another level“
• Minimizing: “Yeah, sure, I may have gone over budget, but I’m focusing on the ultimate goal. A few thousand are peanuts when we turn profitable and we’re both millionaires”
  • Dismissiveness: “Ah come on, you’re even considering that a problem“

Hiding meanness behind “honesty” is a common manipulation tactic, potentially part of a gaslighting pattern

This is the rule of thumb:

Any red flag of poor character is also a red flag of manipulation.
Although they’re two different constructs, manipulation is inherently associated with poorer characters. And the opposite, talking straight, is associated with high-quality characters.

A good example of a manipulative character showing many red flags:

Him: and a lot of the skills is when they catch you (proceeds to gaslight her into dropping her complaints about infidelity and maker her feel like she’s the one)

Again, we see here how dominance and high power can facilitate manipulation.

Learn More

Power is the best antidote against manipulation:

• Empowered men do not need sneaky tactics: they have the strength to speak up, so they are more direct and assertive, and less manipulative
• Empowered men can spot and handle manipulators, both fundamental skills to succeed in life

We help men empower themselves in Power University

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