Psychological Profile Of The Emotional Blackmailer, In 5 Traits And Habits
The emotional blackmailer is a type of person used to manipulating others for personal benefits. That is to say, he has become accustomed to using methods to limit the decision-making power of his victims until leading them to a certain decision.
However, There are some characteristics that distinguish emotional blackmailers of other kinds of manipulators and, in fact, in many ways they are more difficult to detect than normal. That is why it is good to know some warning signs to identify the behavioral patterns that give these people away.
Not all emotional blackmailers have to have all of these characteristics, although they tend to have a good portion of them. It must be taken into account that emotional blackmail is not a personality trait, but a way of relating, or relational dynamics which has been learned and internalized, many times even almost unconsciously.
That means that the range of personality types behind emotional blackmailers can vary, although there are some more likely than others to fall into this type of behavior. Therefore, to recognize emotional blackmailers, it is not so important to study the personality of the other, but rather see in real time how you interact with others
Let’s move on to the traits and habits of the emotional blackmailer.
It is very typical of emotional blackmailers to talk about or tacitly referring to your own weaknesses even when that doesn’t fit well with the topic which is being talked about.
It is relatively normal to talk disruptively about what makes us sad or makes us feel “weak”, since we often need to take advantage of any moment of social interaction to express our feelings. However, in emotional blackmailers this has become a habit and occurs more frequently than usual.
Normally, these kinds of “gratuitous” and out-of-context comments can be interpreted as a warning sign that the other person feels very bad, instead of recognizing in them a strategy to manipulate. The next habit allows you to better distinguish what is really happening.
2. Victimizing comments are aimed at a few people
Emotional blackmailers do not make these kinds of pessimistic comments to anyone they trust, but only to those they want to manipulate.
This is something that reveals the instrumental desire of this behavior; It’s not just about asking for help but to make someone specific do something specific.
3. The instrumental use of indirectness
Emotional blackmailers use ambiguity to their advantage to make certain people begin to think that they have reasons to feel guilty. That is why they usually resort to hints published on social networks in a public or quasi-public manner relatively short texts (to ensure that they are read in their entirety).
Faced with the uncertainty of whether the message is directed at oneself and the tension that this produces, we tend to abandon the logical thinking style and start using soft thinking, that is, intuitive and emotionally based.
In this way, emotional blackmailers achieve a very curious effect; Since we notice that we feel bad in the face of uncertainty, we interpret that discomfort produced by the ambiguity of the message itself as a sign of our guilt.
4. Spreading the rumor of the conflict
Emotional blackmailers will rarely express signs of anger or enmity toward the people they want to manipulate, but they can instill the idea of unresolved tension. spreading rumors throughout the person’s social circle
For example, in front of others, and privately, they may make statements that show a certain sadness due to the distance or supposed indifference that is supposedly making the victim a colder, more individualistic and self-centered person. All this, of course, is not explained directly, but through hints.
When a few people in our social circle have perceived this idea, it is easier to assume that everyone else is right and that oneself is wrong If we analyzed more what others believe about us, we would come to the conclusion that they have also been manipulated as a strategy to affect us indirectly. However, the “law of silence” and social conventions make researching the matter complicated.
5. Disconcerting passive-aggressive attitude
Emotional blackmailers They do not use the passive-aggressive attitude constantly, but they do use it at key moments so that its use has more powerful effects.
This means that on certain occasions the other person will act as if they did not expect anything from the victim, in such a theatrical way that it seems to mean the opposite: “you could be doing a lot more for me.”
