r u abusive?

Loading poll ...

He warned her – Posted February 26, 2020 at 01:18AM by Renascent7 from JusticeServedPure

"Everybody’s trying to shame us" from PublicFreakout

are there ways to stop programmed and institutionalized divisiveness and abuse?
are there ways to internally mentally stop abusive ideas towards ourselves and others?
why in the world is psychological manipulation never reduced and always increased?

forget what you learned from school/media/religion,
these are the secret underpinnings of how all the world works
as a giant rube goldberg manipulation machine matrix.

Psychological manipulation

  • If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits.
  • No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.
  • Never have so many been manipulated so much by so few.
    • Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 3, p. 19
  • In the last analysis, the question of what are true and false needs must be answered by the individuals themselves, but only in the last analysis; that is, if and when they are free to give their own answer. As long as they are kept incapable of being autonomous, as long as they are indoctrinated and manipulated (down to their very instincts), their answer to this question cannot be taken as their own.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the behavior or perception of others through indirect, deceptive, or underhanded tactics.[1] By advancing the interests of the manipulator, often at another’s expense, such methods could be considered exploitative and devious.

Social influence is not necessarily negative. For example, people such as friends, family and doctors, can try to persuade to change clearly unhelpful habits and behaviors. Social influence is generally perceived to be harmless when it respects the right of the influenced to accept or reject it, and is not unduly coercive. Depending on the context and motivations, social influence may constitute underhanded manipulation.

Theories on successful manipulation[edit]

Concealing aggressive intentions and behaviors and being affable.According to psychology author George K. Simon, successful psychological manipulation primarily involves the manipulator:[2]

  1. Knowing the psychological vulnerabilities of the victim to determine which tactics are likely to be the most effective.
  2. Having a sufficient level of ruthlessness to have no qualms about causing harm to the victim if necessary.

Consequently, the manipulation is likely to be accomplished through covert aggressive means.[2]

According to Braiker[edit]

Harriet B. Braiker (2004) identified the following ways that manipulators control their victims:[3]

According to Simon[edit]

Simon identified the following manipulative techniques:[2]

  • Lying (by commission) : It is hard to tell if somebody is lying at the time they do it, although often the truth may be apparent later when it is too late. One way to minimize the chances of being lied to is to understand that some personality types (particularly psychopaths) are experts at the art of lying and cheating, doing it frequently, and often in subtle ways.
  • Lying by omission: This is a subtle form of lying by withholding a significant amount of the truth. This technique is also used in propaganda.
  • Denial: Manipulator refuses to admit that they have done something wrong.
  • Rationalization: An excuse made by the manipulator for inappropriate behavior. Rationalization is closely related to spin.
  • Minimization: This is a type of denial coupled with rationalization. The manipulator asserts that their behavior is not as harmful or irresponsible as someone else was suggesting, for example, saying that a taunt or insult was only a joke.
  • Selective inattention or selective attention: Manipulator refuses to pay attention to anything that may distract from their agenda, saying things like “I don’t want to hear it”.
  • Diversion: Manipulator not giving a straight answer to a straight question and instead being diversionary, steering the conversation onto another topic.
  • Evasion: Similar to diversion but giving irrelevant, rambling, vague responses, weasel words.
  • Covert intimidation: Manipulator throwing the victim onto the defensive by using veiled (subtle, indirect or implied) threats.
  • Guilt trip: A special kind of intimidation tactic. A manipulator suggests to the conscientious victim that they do not care enough, are too selfish or have it easy. This usually results in the victim feeling bad, keeping them in a self-doubting, anxious and submissiveposition.
  • Shaming: Manipulator uses sarcasm and put-downs to increase fear and self-doubt in the victim. Manipulators use this tactic to make others feel unworthy and therefore defer to them. Shaming tactics can be very subtle such as a fierce look or glance, unpleasant tone of voice, rhetorical comments, subtle sarcasm. Manipulators can make one feel ashamed for even daring to challenge them. It is an effective way to foster a sense of inadequacy in the victim.
  • Vilifying the victim: More than any other, this tactic is a powerful means of putting the victim on the defensive while simultaneously masking the aggressive intent of the manipulator, while the manipulator falsely accuses the victim as being an abuser in response when the victim stands up for or defends themselves or their position.
  • Playing the victim role: Manipulator portrays themself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else’s behavior in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another. Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering and the manipulator often finds it easy to play on sympathy to get cooperation.
  • Playing the servant role: Cloaking a self-serving agenda in the guise of a service to a more noble cause, for example saying they are acting in a certain way to be “obedient” to or in “service” to an authority figure or “just doing their job”.
  • Seduction: Manipulator uses charm, praise, flattery or overtly supporting others in order to get them to lower their defenses and give their trust and loyalty to the manipulator. They will also offer help with the intent to gain trust and access to an unsuspecting victim they have charmed.
  • Projecting the blame (blaming others): Manipulator scapegoats in often subtle, hard-to-detect ways. Often, the manipulator will project their own thinking onto the victim, making the victim look like they have done something wrong. Manipulators will also claim that the victim is the one who is at fault for believing lies that they were conned into believing, as if the victim forced the manipulator to be deceitful. All blame, except for the part that is used by the manipulator to accept false guilt, is done in order to make the victim feel guilty about making healthy choices, correct thinking and good behaviors. It is frequently used as a means of psychological and emotional manipulation and control. Manipulators lie about lying, only to re-manipulate the original, less believable story into a “more acceptable” truth that the victim will believe. Projecting lies as being the truth is another common method of control and manipulation. Manipulators love to falsely accuse the victim as “deserving to be treated that way.” They often claim that the victim is crazy and/or abusive, especially when there is evidence against the manipulator. (See Feigning, below.)
  • Feigning innocence: Manipulator tries to suggest that any harm done was unintentional or that they did not do something that they were accused of. Manipulator may put on a look of surprise or indignation. This tactic makes the victim question their own judgment and possibly their own sanity.
  • Feigning confusion: Manipulator tries to play dumb by pretending they do not know what the victim is talking about or is confused about an important issue brought to their attention. The manipulator intentionally confuses the victim in order for the victim to doubt their own accuracy of perception, often pointing out key elements that the manipulator intentionally included in case there is room for doubt. Sometimes manipulators will have used cohorts in advance to help back up their story.
  • Brandishing anger: Manipulator uses anger to brandish sufficient emotional intensity and rage to shock the victim into submission. The manipulator is not actually angry, they just put on an act. They just want what they want and get “angry” when denied. Controlled anger is often used as a manipulation tactic to avoid confrontation, avoid telling the truth or to further hide intent. There are often threats used by the manipulator of going to the police, or falsely reporting abuses that the manipulator intentionally contrived to scare or intimidate the victim into submission. Blackmail and other threats of exposure are other forms of controlled anger and manipulation, especially when the victim refuses initial requests or suggestions by the manipulator. Anger is also used as a defense so the manipulator can avoid telling truths at inconvenient times or circumstances. Anger is often used as a tool or defense to ward off inquiries or suspicion. The victim becomes more focused on the anger instead of the manipulation tactic.
  • Bandwagon effect: Manipulator comforts the victim into submission by claiming (whether true or false) that many people already have done something, and the victim should as well. These include phrases such as “Many people like you …” or “Everyone does this anyways.” Such manipulation can be seen in peer pressure situations, often occurring in scenarios where the manipulator attempts to influence the victim into trying drugs or other substances.

Vulnerabilities exploited by manipulators[edit]

According to Braiker’s self-help book,[3] manipulators exploit the following vulnerabilities (buttons) that may exist in victims:

  • the “disease to please”
  • addiction to earning the approval and acceptance of others
  • Emotophobia (fear of negative emotion; i.e. a fear of expressing anger, frustration or disapproval)
  • lack of assertiveness and ability to say no
  • blurry sense of identity (with soft personal boundaries)
  • low self-reliance
  • external locus of control

According to Simon,[2] manipulators exploit the following vulnerabilities that may exist in victims:

  • naïveté – victim finds it too hard to accept the idea that some people are cunning, devious and ruthless or is “in denial” if they are being victimized.
  • over-conscientiousness – victim is too willing to give manipulator the benefit of the doubt and see their side of things in which they blame the victim.
  • low self-confidence – victim is self-doubting, lacking in confidence and assertiveness, likely to go on the defensive too easily.
  • over-intellectualization – victim tries too hard to understand and believes the manipulator has some understandable reason to be hurtful.
  • emotional dependency – victim has a submissive or dependent personality. The more emotionally dependent the victim is, the more vulnerable they are to being exploited and manipulated.

Manipulators generally take the time to scope out the characteristics and vulnerabilities of their victims.

Kantor advises in his book The Psychopathology of Everyday Life: How Antisocial Personality Disorder Affects All of Us[4] that vulnerability to psychopathic manipulators involves being too:

  • dependent – dependent people need to be loved and are therefore gullible and liable to say yes to something to which they should say no.
  • immature – has impaired judgment and so tends to believe exaggerated advertising claims.
  • naïve – cannot believe there are dishonest people in the world, or takes it for granted that if there are any, they will not be allowed to prey on others.
  • impressionable – overly seduced by charmers. For example, they might vote for the seemingly charming politician who kisses babies.
  • trusting – people who are honest often assume that everyone else is honest. They are more likely to commit themselves to people they hardly know without checking credentials, etc., and less likely to question so-called experts.
  • Carelessness not giving sufficient amount of thought or attention on harm or errors.
  • lonely – lonely people may accept any offer of human contact. A psychopathic stranger may offer human companionship for a price.
  • narcissistic – narcissists are prone to falling for unmerited flattery.
  • impulsive – make snap decisions about, for example, what to buy or whom to marry without consulting others.
  • altruistic – the opposite of psychopathic: too honest, too fair, too empathetic.
  • frugal – cannot say no to a bargain even if they know the reason it is so cheap.
  • materialistic – easy prey for loan sharks or get-rich-quick schemes.
  • greedy – the greedy and dishonest may fall prey to a psychopath who can easily entice them to act in an immoral way.
  • masochistic – lack self-respect and so unconsciously let psychopaths take advantage of them. They think they deserve it out of a sense of guilt.
  • the elderly – the elderly can become fatigued and less capable of multi-tasking. When hearing a sales pitch they are less likely to consider that it could be a con. They are prone to giving money to someone with a hard-luck story. See elder abuse.

Motivations of manipulators[edit]

Manipulators can have various possible motivations, including but not limited to:[3]

  • the need to advance their own purposes and personal gain at virtually any cost to others
  • a strong need to attain feelings of power and superiority in relationships with others
  • a want and need to feel in control
  • a desire to gain a feeling of power over others in order to raise their perception of self-esteem
  • boredom, or growing tired of their surroundings, seeing it as a game more than hurting others
  • covert agenda, criminal or otherwise, including financial manipulation (often seen when the elderly or unsuspecting, unprotected wealthy are intentionally targeted for the sole purpose of obtaining a victim’s financial assets)
  • not identifying with underlying emotions, commitment phobia, and subsequent rationalization (offender does not manipulate consciously, but rather tries to convince themselves of the invalidity of their own emotions)
  • Lack of self control over impulsive and anti social behaviour thus pre-emptive or reactionary manipulation to maintain image

Psychopathy[edit]

Main article: Psychopathy

Being manipulative appears in Factor 1 of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL).[5]

In the workplace[edit]

Main article: Psychopathy in the workplace

One approach to management in general identifies a very fine, almost non-existent dividing line between management and manipulation.[6]

The workplace psychopath may often rapidly shift between emotions – used to manipulate people or to cause high anxiety.[7]

The authors of the book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work describe a five-phase model of how a typical workplace psychopath climbs to and maintains power. In phase three (manipulation) the psychopath will create a scenario of “psychopathic fiction”where positive information about themselves and negative disinformation about others will be created, where one’s role as a part of a network of pawns or patrons will be utilised and one will be groomed into accepting the psychopath’s agenda.[8]

Antisocial, borderline and narcissistic personality disorders[edit]

According to Kernberg, antisocial, borderline, and narcissistic personality disorders are all organized at a borderline level of personality organization,[9] and the three share some common characterological deficits and overlapping personality traits, with deceitfulness and exceptional manipulative abilities being the most common traits among antisocial and narcissism. Borderline is emphasized by unintentional and dysfunctional manipulation, but stigma towards borderlines being deceitful still wrongfully persists.[10] Antisocials, borderlines, and narcissists are often pathological liars.[9] Other shared traits may include pathological narcissism,[9] consistent irresponsibility, Machiavellianism, lack of empathy,[11] cruelty, meanness, impulsivity, proneness to self-harm and addictions,[12] interpersonal exploitation, hostility, anger and rage, vanity, emotional instability, rejection sensitivity, perfectionism, and the use of primitive defence mechanisms that are pathological and narcissistic. Common narcissistic defences include splitting, denial, projection, projective identification, primitive idealization and devaluation, distortion (including exaggeration, minimization and lies), and omnipotence.[13]

Psychologist Marsha M. Linehan has stated that people with borderline personality disorder often exhibit behaviors which are not truly manipulative, but are erroneously interpreted as such.[14] According to her, these behaviors often appear as unthinking manifestations of intense pain, and are often not deliberate as to be considered truly manipulative. In the DSM-V, manipulation was removed as a defining characteristic of borderline personality disorder.[10]

Manipulative behavior is intrinsic to narcissists, who use manipulation to obtain power and narcissistic supply. Those with antisocial personalities will manipulate for material items, power, revenge, and a wide variety of other reasons.[15]

Histrionic personality disorder[edit]

Main article: Histrionic personality disorder

People with histrionic personality disorder are usually high-functioning, both socially and professionally. They usually have good social skills, despite tending to use them to manipulate others into making them the center of attention.[16]

Machiavellianism[edit]

Machiavellianism is a term that some social and personality psychologists use to describe a person’s tendency to be unemotional, uninfluenced by conventional morality and more prone to deceive and manipulate others. In the 1960s, Richard Christie and Florence L. Geis developed a test for measuring a person’s level of Machiavellianism (sometimes referred to as the Machiavelli test).[17]

See also[edit]

 

Social Undermining

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Social undermining is the expression of negative emotions directed towards a particular person or negative evaluations of the person as a way to prevent the person from achieving their goals. This behavior can often be attributed to certain feelings, such as dislike or anger. The negative evaluation of the person may involve criticizing their actions, efforts or characteristics.[1] Social undermining is seen in relationships between family members, friends, personal relationships and co-workers. Social undermining can affect a person’s mental health, including an increase in depressive symptoms. This behavior is only considered social undermining if the person’s perceived action is intended to hinder their target. When social undermining is seen in the work environment the behavior is used to hinder the co-worker’s ability to establish and maintain a positive interpersonal relationship, success and a good reputation.[2] Examples of how an employee can use social undermining in the work environment are behaviors that are used to delay the work of co-workers, to make them look bad or slow them down, competing with co-workers to gain status and recognition and giving co-workers incorrect or even misleading information about a particular job.[2]

Definition[edit]

According to Duffy, Gangster, and Pagon, 2002, the definition of social undermining in a workplace is, behavior intended to hinder over time and not allowing a person to establish or maintain positive interpersonal relationships.[3]

In the workplace[edit]

Social undermining has been very effective in the workplace.[3] Various aspects of social undermining have affected the workplace and specific races. In workplaces, social undermining has connection with social interaction. Research has shown if a person has a supportive environment in their work setting, they are more likely to have a more satisfied life. Research has shown that social undermining exists in a separate and distinct continuum when looking at positive workplace behavior (e.g. social support).[citation needed]

Social undermining can arise through interactions with co-workers and supervisors; these interactions have an effect on the workers that are being undermined and can affect their work performance. Vinokur found that those who alleged to have social undermining in the workplace reported to have poorer mental health and experienced less well-being.[4] The study shows that undermining has a significant role in worker-supervisor and co-worker relationship and that it leads to various different outcomes such as feelings of irritability, anxiety, depersonalization, and depression. It shows that social undermining affects a person’s work ethics and well being.

Various different empirical studies have found that undermining has three specific factors[which?] that develop counterfactual thoughts. For example: “what would my life be like if I were not the target of undermining?” These studies’ findings[which?] indicate that “this rift plays a role in determining the magnitude of the employee’s reaction to the event by making the deprived state more salient”.[5][6][7][8]

Behaviors of social undermining can affect a person and their perceptions. The study conducted by Gant et al. addressed African American workers’ perceptions of co-workers and supervisors.[9] The research by Duffy, Gangster, Shaw, Johnson, and Pagon[3] addressed the fairness theory introduced by Folger and Cropanzano 1998.[5] The fairness theory suggests that when individuals face negative situations (such as being undermined by coworkers or supervision) they make cognitive comparisons known as counterfactual thoughts; i.e., they compare what actually happened to what might have been.[10] The results show that social undermining is closely related to attitudes and behavior regarding one person being or feeling “singled out”.

Envy[edit]

While social undermining can affect a person’s behavior and attitude on their job, it can also bring about envy. Envy can have a positive or negative effect: positive effects include increased performance or attempts at self-improvement. However, envy can have some very harmful effects, including aggression or crime. It can lead to belittling, gossip, withholding information, and giving someone the silent treatment.[citation needed]

Abusive supervision[edit]

Main article: Abusive supervision

Abusive supervision can arise in different areas such as in the household, at school, and at a workplace. “Abusive supervision has been investigated as an antecedent to negative subordinate workplace outcome” ;[11][12] “Workplace violence has combination of situational and personal factors” (e.g., Barling, 1996). The study that was conducted looked at the link between abusive supervision and different workplace events. Social undermining can arise from abusive supervision, such as when a supervisor uses negative actions and it leads to “flow downhill”; a supervisor is perceived as abusive.

Research has shown that “abusive supervision is a subjective assessment made by subordinates regarding their supervisors” behavior towards them over a period of time.[13] For example, abusive supervision includes a “boss demeaning, belittling, or invading privacy of the subordinate.[14]

Hostile attribution bias is an extra punitive mentality where individuals tend to project blame on others. Researchers wanted to see how hostile attribution bias can moderate the relationship between perceptions of psychological contract violation and subordinates’ perceptions of abusive supervision. Undermining does arise with abusive supervision, which affects families and aggression; they believe that there is a stronger positive relationship between experiences of psychological contract violation and subordinates’ reports of abuse. It suggests that when someone has a negative work environment, it will affect their emotional training ground where this would result in negative home encounters. The findings from this study show that abused subordinates’ family members reported a higher incidence of undermining in their home. When this occurs, complications arise at both home and work. Workplace abuse may be spawning negative interpersonal relations in the home, which may contribution to a downward spiral of relationships in both spheres.[15]

When a subordinate is being abused, it can lead to negative affect towards their family where the subordinate starts undermining their family members. The undermining can arise from displaced aggression which is “redirection of a [person’s] harm doing behavior from a primary to a secondary target” (Tedeschi & Norman, 1985, p. 30). Family undermining arises from a negative work environment: when someone above you puts you down, one starts to think that one should be put down by one’s family members.[13]

Bottom-line mentality[edit]

Bottom line is defined as profits or losses of a business. Greenbaum and colleagues found that some employees tend to focus on a bottom-line outcome, which may be related to their tendency to engage in social undermining behavior.[2] Employees with a bottom line mentality (BLM) tend to focus on only the bottom line, and to neglect other outcomes of their actions, including interpersonal consequences. Research has found that a bottom-line mentality can cause a problem, especially if the employer uses BLM as an objective for them to strive for. If someone is hurt by their actions it is not a priority for those with a BLM.[citation needed]

Employees that have a BLM may learn these actions from their supervisors. BLMs can cause rivalries within the organization since the employee may feel as if the organization should have a winner or loser when it comes to completing work. Employees with this approach think of their work as a game where the winner takes all instead of working with other employees to make sure everyone is contributing to the work that needs to be completed. The competitiveness that is created between the coworkers is to attain bottom-line outcomes. When the employees are trying to attain bottom-line outcomes, with this winner-take-all mentality, they begin to want their co-workers to fail as that consequently means, to them, they, the undermining employee, must be succeeding. The supervisor’s BLM causes employee social undermining. This happens because the employees may role-model after the adopted supervisor’s BLM. Employee personality also plays a role in the relationship between BLM and undermining. Employees that have confidence in their work ability rely on their work ethic while employees who are low in confidence are more likely to engage in social undermining behavior to make themselves look better when it comes to the bottom line of success.[2]

Individual differences[edit]

Research suggests that whether or not someone engages in social support or social undermining depends upon their own goals. Those with compassionate goals are more likely to be supportive of others, while those who have more selfish motives believe that people should take care of themselves. When people have goals to preserve their own self-image this can undermine their compassionate goals and make them less supportive.[16]

Health[edit]

Research[which?] has shown that social undermining can have an effect on a person’s health. It has been shown that social undermining can cause depressive symptoms. Depending on the relationship between a patient and their loved one, the loved one can support or undermine the patient and can even do both within the same interaction, which can increase the depressive symptoms. Creating more social support can improve treatment outcomes of a patient depending on the type of stress level the person is enduring.

Research by Joseph et al.[1] found that when participants are exposed to high levels of social undermining and even high levels of social support it can improve the participants course of antidepressive treatment. High levels of social support and social undermining could reduce and also cause remission of the participant’s depressive symptoms. The study found that African American participants who had low levels of social undermining were able to fare better than the Caucasians participants in reducing their symptoms. When both groups of participants were given high levels of social undermining the African American participants had fewer achievements in symptom reduction, while the Caucasians participants had the reverse effect of symptom reduction.

Research conducted by Horwitz et al. (1998)[full citation needed] found that spouse undermining was almost twice as large as the effect for support. For example, a spouse that shows behaviors of withdrawal, avoidance and being overly critical can cause psychological distress in a relationship. This in turn causes stress that increases the depressive symptoms on individuals that have endure high levels of social undermining. This can happen, because the support that a person can get from their spouse compared to a close friend is more exclusive and generally involves more frequent and emotionally intense interactions (Cutrone 1996;[full citation needed] Vinokur & Vinokur & Vinokur- Kaplan, 1990)[full citation needed] and depending on their relationship that can influence the social support or even the social undermining that affect the relationship.

Cranford found that spouse undermining and not spouse support can increase depressive symptoms within that relationship. Social undermining has been found to be a stronger indicator for psychological adaption than social support. When there is social undermining in a relationship it can have fatal effects on the spouse’s ability to deal with other stressors. It can also lead to an increase of wishful thinking, poor psychological adjustment, maladaptive coping behaviors, and even decrease adaptive coping behaviors. This can give more attention to coping resources and it takes away from other stressors which causes the couple to have fewer chances resolving their problems. If the couple cannot resolve their problems it can cause marital conflict. Social undermining within the relationship can cause negative effects on the spouse physical health and can make the spouse vulnerable to different stressors. This can lead to depressive symptoms that can lessen the spouse self-esteem.[17]

Nutrition and exercise[edit]

Research has shown that partners that offer social support can also offer social undermining. An example of this is when family members try to undermine parenting styles in order to raise healthy children.[citation needed] Another study found that participants who endure social undermining regarding their eating and exercise behavior, try to ignore the pressure, and the undermining affects their exercise decisions more than eating decisions.[citation needed]

Market, Stanforth, and Garcia found that social undermining used by family members, friends and coworkers can affect daily activities. Social undermining can affect exercise routines when their exercise routines can conflict with seeing friends or even coworkers. Friends and coworkers can influence the person to skip their exercise, even when a spouse is concerned about their well being. The study also showed that social undermining can affect men and women differently. Men tend to feel as if they can overcome social undermining because they were still able to make a healthy eating decision. Women have stated that they tend to make bad eating decision when they are eating with other people such as their friends. Social undermining pressures can cause serious challenges when a person is trying to maintain healthy eating and trying to stay active. The study found that people that engage in undermining behavior tend to feel guilty about their own unhealthy behavior and may feel jealous of someone else maintaining their healthy behavior when they cannot achieve the same behavior. The study also suggests when a person is satisfied with their weight it can help the person resist against social undermining. By being satisfied with one’s own weight can reduce the likelihood of social undermining in social situations when having dinner with friends. So when a person is not satisfied with their weight they receive more social undermining pressures from the people around them.[18]

Mental health[edit]

Social undermining and social support can have opposite effects on a person that can be negative or positive depending on the person or even the relationship. Being in a close relationship can provide a person both social undermining and social support. Example of these relationships can be an abusive relationship that offers low support and high undermining. A typical healthy close relationship has high support and low undermining. In a relationship between an adolescent and a parent, their relationship can offer high levels of support and even undermining. Depending on the relationship, patterns can change over time based on the characteristics and the situation of the relationship. Whether a relationship is positive or negative can have devastating effects.[19]

Social support can give a person coping resources that can reduce threat in a stressful situation. In a relationship if a partner has lower status or even lower power social undermining becomes more of threat for the relationship. Research concludes that social undermining has a greater impact on a person’s mental health than social support.

Vinokur and van Ryn used unemployed participants and some of the participants were reemployed to look at the impact that social support and social undermining can have on a person’s mental health during economic hardships.[19] They suggest that although the support and undermining are inversely and strongly correlated they do not form the same factor but constitute empirically distinct constructs. The study looked at the effect of financial strain, social support, and undermining on poor mental health the results found that it was not statistically significant. Social support and social undermining did have significant but the opposite effect on poor mental health. Vinokur and Ryn(1993)[19] found that social support and undermining were shown in longitudinal design even when prior levels of mental health and the contribution of another critical stressful factor. Social support and undermining had a dynamic pattern influence on mental health.

The results showed that social support has weak positive effect while social undermining has more volatile effects. Even though the study found that a high level of social undermining has significant effects on mental health when the high levels are reduced there is an improvement in the person mental health over a period of time. In the study participants that received high levels of social undermining even after they return to their normal interactions the participant still returns to high level of undermining that affects the person mental health. These findings were found in relationships for men and women that were either unemployed or reemployed.[19]

Another example of how social undermining can affect a person’s relationship is shown by a study conducted by McCaskill and Lakey[20] which examined social support and social undermining when it came to adolescents and family relationships. Social support and social undermining can reflect different characteristics in the environment that can influence a person’s mental health. The study examined how adolescents reported their family support and undermining which reflected shared social reality (that is, all members of the family agree that support or undermining is occurring) and idiosyncratic perception (some family members believe that support or undermining has occurred, but others do not). The results of the study found that girls tend to report higher family stress and negative affect than boys. McCaskill and Lakey (2002)[20] found that adolescents with previous outpatient treatment experience reported both lower family support and higher family stress.

Researchers found that in adolescent self-reports, social undermining was related to negative affect and perceived support was more related to positive affect. The study found that adolescents’ idiosyncratic perceptions of family support did predict positive emotion, but shared perceptions of support did not. For social undermining, adolescents’ idiosyncratic perceptions, the idiosyncratic perceptions of the other family members as well as shared social reality that was among family members did predict negative emotion. The study suggest that social support is not based on a shared reality, while social undermining is.[20]

Due to the differences in the scope of the effects of social undermining and social support, many researchers have concluded that they are separate constructs, rather than two ends of a continuum.[19][20]

Emotional and behavioral reactions[edit]

Research has found that, depending on how the victim handles social undermining, it can have damaging effects when it comes to increased counterproductive behaviors, reciprocated social undermining, and decreased job satisfaction.[21] These negative outcomes can cause the person to have depression, a decreased self-esteem and even psychosomatic symptoms.

In a study of victims’ perceptions of undermining they had experienced, Crossley[21] found that when an offense was severe, the victim was more likely to believe that the offender committed the action with malicious intent or due to personal greed. Generally, victims’ perceptions of the offenders’ intentions relate to whether the victim responds to the undermining in a negative fashion with feelings of anger and a desire for revenge, or in a positive fashion with a desire to reconcile with the offender.

Post Traumatic Embitterment Disorder can be a reaction to this feeling of victimisation.

See also[edit]

Workplace incivility

Setting up to fail

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“Going through the motions” redirects here. For other uses, see Going Through the Motions (disambiguation).

Setting up to fail is a phrase denoting a no-win situation designed in such a way that the person in the situation cannot succeed at the task which they have been assigned. It is considered a form of workplace bullying.[1]

There are also situations in which an organization or project is set up to fail.[2][3] and where individuals set themselves up to fail.[4]

The first known documented use of “set up to fail” was in 1969 in the United States.[5]

In the workplace[edit]

Setting up to fail is a well-established workplace bullying tactic.[6][7][8] One technique is to overload with work, while denying the victim the authority to handle it and over-interfering;[9] another is the withholding of the information necessary to succeed.[10]

If a person puts another individual (usually a subordinate) in a stressful situation in which failure is almost certain, this may be an aspect of bullying wherein the outcome can then be used to discredit and blame the victim.[11] Sometimes, this may involve the bully covertly sabotaging and undermining an objective that may have otherwise been achievable. This type of bullying may be the result of the projection of the bully’s own feelings of inadequacy onto the victim.[12]

There can be cases where an employee is set up to fail because the stated goals of the task are considered harmful to the organization; an internal investigation is one example. Institutions may protect themselves by “going through the motions” of a sham investigation in which the findings conveniently fail to find any evidence of wrongdoing by the authorities involved with setting up the investigation.

Bigotry[edit]

Minorities seeking acceptance into the mainstream are often concerned about being set up to fail in the face of covert institutional racism – something feared for example by the first black US naval officers.[13]

Families[edit]

Parents may have excessive expectations for their children’s academic success for instance, thus setting them up for failure by hoping they may solve their parents’ problems for them.[14] The result may be to create a self-destructive syndrome in the child – the so-called Divine Child complex.[15]

Therapy[edit]

Therapy may be sabotaged by either the client or the provider. The client, both hoping for and fearing the possibility of real help, may impose conditions on the therapy that all but guarantee its failure.[16] Conversely, the helper, needing to keep clients in a state of dependency,[17] may be threatened by the prospect of success/closure, and undermine the therapy accordingly.[18]

Setting oneself up to fail[edit]

A person setting themselves up for failure may do so because they have a fear of failure, an unrealistic assessment of their own abilities, or because they are naive and uninformed regarding the abilities necessary to succeed. In some cases, an individual has an unjustified expectation that they will fail, a self-reinforcing negative spiral,[4] or failure neurosis[19] – perhaps driven by a sense of guilt,[20] or by the compulsion to repeat self-destructive behaviour.[21]

In television[edit]

It is a tactic used in reality television, where situations are engineered to produce certain results.[3] My Kitchen Rules contestant Emily Cheung told the reporter that “she believes the producers set them up for failure in the instant restaurant round when they were told at 6 o’clock the night before they had to cook a Chinese dish they weren’t familiar with—smoked quail—and scored 2 out of 10”.[3] The same article goes on to state that, “A former Apprentice contestant feels similarly manipulated, saying he believed producers had already decided who they wanted to win when he was eliminated.”[3]

9/11 Commission[edit]

9/11 Commission member Lee H. Hamilton was quoted as saying that “the Commission was set up to fail”; some observers interpreted this as meaning that he was dissatisfied with the results of the 9/11 Commission Report, and conspiracy theory developed. The context of the interview transcript indicates that Hamilton said his reasoning was that “Tom Kean and I were substitutes—Henry Kissinger and George Mitchell were the first choices; we got started late; we had a very short time frame—indeed, we had to get it extended; we did not have enough money—3 million dollars to conduct an extensive investigation. We needed more, we got more, but it took us a while to get it.”[2]

In popular culture[edit]

  • In the 1967 film The Producers and its later adaptations, two Broadway producers try to set up a show to fail by intentionally selecting an offensive script.
  • In the film The Hudsucker Proxy a corporation attempts to find a “dimwit, a proxy, a pawn, somebody we can really push around” for CEO, in order to manipulate the stock price to crash so that the board of directors can gain greater control of outstanding shares.
  • Reginald Perrin tried to set himself up to fail by starting a shop called Grot, which only sold useless goods.

See also[edit]

8 Type Of TOXIC managers from coolguides

Whitewashing (censorship)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To whitewash is a metaphor meaning “to gloss over or cover up vices, crimes or scandals or to exonerate by means of a perfunctory investigation or through biased presentation of data”.[1]

Etymology[edit]

The first known use of the term is from 1591 in England.[1][2] Whitewash is a cheap white paint or coating of chalked lime that was used to quickly give a uniform clean appearance to a wide variety of surfaces, for instance, the entire interior of a barn.

In 1800, in the United States, the word was used in a political context, when a Philadelphia Aurora editorial said that “if you do not whitewash President Adams speedily, the Democrats, like swarms of flies, will bespatter him all over, and make you both as speckled as a dirty wall, and as black as the devil.”[3]

Modern usage[edit]

In the 20th century, many dictatorships and authoritarian states, as well as democratic countries, have used the method of whitewash in order to glorify the results of war.

For instance, during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia following the Prague Spring of 1968, the Press Group of Soviet Journalists released a collection of “facts, documents, press reports and eye-witness accounts.” Western journalists promptly nicknamed it as “The White Book”, both for its white cover and its attempts to whitewash the invasion by creating the impression that the Warsaw Pact countries had the right and duty to invade.[citation needed]

In the early 21st century, North Korean radio broadcasts have claimed the nation has an abundance in food supplies, yet the government receives food aid from foreign states.[4]

In the study of reputation systems by means of algorithmic game theory, whitewashing is used to refer to an agent abandoning a tarnished identity and re-creating a new blank one,[5]:682 in what is more widely known in Internet slang as sockpuppeting.

The text of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow has been identified as being whitewashed due to the bias of its conceptual framework. It omits pertinent African American people and history, as well as politically radical ideas in favor of a more conventional and mainstream perspective. Critics maintain that the text has been whitewashed for white middle-class consumption.[6][7]

Representation in other media[edit]

Novels by George Orwell have dealt with the subject of whitewash as well. In Animal Farm, the pig Napoleon tries to whitewash history by deleting a few characters from the minds of the other animals. This was perceived as a direct reference to the USSR under Stalin. The protagonist of his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, set in a totalitarian dictatorship, is employed as a routine falsifier of the historical record to ensure that it is always in keeping with the party line.

Czech writer Milan Kundera, in his novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, described histories being revised with both text and photos being changed to take out unpopular dissidents or people on the wrong side of the government.

Related terms[edit]

Since the late 20th century in the United States, new terms have been coined to relate to similar efforts to associate with desirable social goals or get on a bandwagon.

See also[edit]

This page was last edited on 3 February 2020, at 17:29 (UTC).

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *