The Art of Moral Manipulation: Lessons from A Scorpio Mastermind
Manipulation isn’t inherently bad.
Both my parents are Scorpios. I regularly wonder how our household keeps from bursting into flames under the pressure of all that intense Plutonian energy.
For readers who are less obsessed with astrology, the Scorpio sign originates from the constellation of Scorpius, God of the Underworld. It’s the sign of death and regeneration. People born under this sign are said to be assertive and resourceful but are more notoriously known to be secretive and manipulative.
I often joke that Scorpios are the super-villains of the Zodiac. In reality, I love Scorpios, and not just because I grew up surrounded by them. Their sign is connected to both life and death, giving them an intimate understanding of good and evil, Yin and Yang, light and dark. Seeing duality in all things and the merits of balance, Scorpios can harness the complementary nature of competing forces. They see both sides of everything and use that to their advantage.
I don’t prescribe to the notion that sun signs dictate personality, but my mother is undoubtedly a Scorpio through and through. When I was younger, I marveled at her wisdom. She challenged people to think critically and be mindful. From my perspective, she could persuade anyone of anything, and I believed it was simply because she knew all the answers.
As I grew older, I slowly recognized her prowess with compromise, debate, and persuasion as something else entirely: master manipulation.
For example: As a kid, I struggled with perfectionism before I even understood what perfectionism is. My high-strung tendencies made me high-anxiety and judgmental towards those I didn’t view as “competent enough”, which was the majority of my much calmer peer group, to be honest. Concerned about my emerging insensitivity, my mother recommended books highlighting perspectives and values different from mine. As I read, she asked me questions that challenged my self-centered, perfectionistic view on life.
Later I realized she covertly urged me to change my beliefs and behavior. But her manipulation was focused on making me more empathetic.
Similarly, my mother told my sister and me how helpful we were to encourage us to do chores or offer assistance. To teach us compassion or honesty, she’d tell us stories of people doing cruel or dishonest things. But instead of saying “don’t do that”, she’d confidently say, “I know you’d never do that”. And her confidence sealed my values.
When it first occurred to me that my mother was as manipulative as they come, I was horrified. My mother was good. It was implausible that she systematically exploited people’s motivations, behavioral patterns, and cognitive biases. But she did. And it was genius. It was good.
Manipulation Isn’t Inherently Bad.
Manipulation is a type of social influence. Manipulators use indirect and covert tactics to persuade other’s thoughts and ultimately alter their behavior. Though we usually connote manipulation with deceptive and underhanded intentions, the definition is open to interpretation.
Manipulators can use their skills to advance personal interests. Or they can promote some other good. Manipulators can detriment or benefit. It all depends on how they’re trying to alter someone’s behavior and why.
On one end of the spectrum, you have evil master manipulator Iago from Shakespeare’s Othello. Iago’s lies, misleading suggestions, and self-interested, amoral intentions led Othello to murder his wife and commit suicide. On the other end of the spectrum, you have people like my mother, who convince others it’s in their best interest to do what’s in their best interest.
The distinction between moral and amoral manipulation is the manipulator’s intention.
People who manipulate — who use covert tactics to alter someone’s behavior — to further their self-interest consciously disregard the dignity and autonomy of another human being. This is vastly different from manipulation that helps people overcome limiting beliefs or promotes beneficial behaviors.
Positive manipulation uses cognitive biases to present information that might otherwise be overlooked.
When my mother recommended books that presented alternative perspectives, she was challenging my egocentric bias — the tendency to predominantly rely on your own perspective. By exposing me to new perspectives, my mother diminished the influence of my egocentric bias. The result: I was more open-minded and empathetic about what other people were going through.
In encouraging me to be helpful or kind by calling me helpful or kind, she exploited the Illusory Truth Effect. This cognitive bias describes our tendency to believe something is true if it is reiterated. She acted confidant in her children’s character, so we were also confident in our character. That confidence translated to firm values which translated to behavior that aligned with those values.
Truly, she is a manipulative genius.
Positive manipulation is the art of seeing people’s cognitive blind spots and either exposing them to information that challenges those blindspots or using their biases to reinforce helpful information. It’s the covert operation of getting the best out of people.
I imagine moral manipulation takes a great deal of talent and patience. The manipulator must be able to:
- Recognize people’s self-limiting behavior or beliefs.
- Know how that individual can overcome their self-limiting habits.
- Identify what cognitive bias is limiting them, promoting poor behavior, or can be used to present information that counteracts their self-limiting habits. This step requires an exceptional intuition for human behavior and psychology.
- Use indirect and covert strategies to address the cognitive biases identified in a way that encourages new, beneficial behavior without making the other person feel used or exploited.
Using manipulation for good is a dangerous balancing act. Once you open the door to using someone’s cognitive biases, you cannot stop seeing the blind spots in people’s perception. And those blind spots can be exploited for injury as much as they can be exploited for good. It’s a precarious line to walk.
Eventually, I confronted my mother about her manipulative nature. She smiled slyly, admitting she knew what she was doing all along. But she promised to walk the line carefully, only ever using her talent for exploitation to open people’s eyes to their own goodness. She said she wanted to help people reach their fullest potential, and all they needed was a little push.
