Recognising the moves

The teaching

As the psychology of influence and coercive control teaches it.

Every lever is a good habit turned

Robert Cialdini's first teaching is that the levers of compliance work because they are useful shortcuts. Most of the time it is right to repay favours, to keep one's word, to follow the crowd in a strange town, to trust a doctor and to seize a rare chance. A person who uses these shortcuts against us does not create a weakness; they borrow a good habit and point it the wrong way. Recognition means catching the moment when a habit is being set off on purpose.

Reciprocity

We feel bound to repay what we are given, even a gift we did not ask for and do not want. The free sample, the small favour before the large request, and the concession that seems to be offered in a bargain all work on this rule. A refined form is rejection then retreat: ask for something large, accept the refusal, then ask for the smaller thing that was wanted all along, which now feels like a concession owed in return. Cialdini's defence is not to refuse every gift but to see a trick as a trick: a favour that turns out to be a sales device creates no debt.

Commitment and consistency

Once we have taken a stand, especially in public or in writing, we feel pressure to behave in keeping with it. The foot in the door starts with a small request so that a larger one later feels consistent; the low ball agrees a good price and raises it once the buyer is committed. The defence is a question Cialdini puts in the heart's terms: knowing what I know now, if I could go back, would I make the same choice? A sinking feeling in the stomach at the moment of saying yes is worth listening to.

Social proof and liking

When we are unsure, we look at what people like us are doing. Canned laughter, queues, testimonials and claims that a thing is selling fast all borrow this. The defence is to notice when the evidence of the crowd has been manufactured, and to remember that a crowd can be wrong.

We say yes most easily to people we like, and we like those who are attractive, similar to us, complimentary, familiar and linked with good things. The defence is not to distrust likeable people but to notice when one likes someone more, and faster, than the time spent with them warrants, and then to separate the person from the request.

Authority, scarcity and unity

Titles, uniforms and the trappings of success win obedience even when they are only costumes. The defence is two questions: is this person truly an expert in this matter, and how truthful can I expect them to be here?

Opportunities seem more valuable as they become less available, and freedoms we are about to lose are wanted most fiercely. Limited numbers, deadlines and the rival bidder all play on this. When the rush of wanting rises, the rush itself is the signal to slow down and ask what the thing is wanted for, using it or merely having it.

In later work Cialdini added a seventh lever, unity: the pull of a shared identity, of family, place, faith or tribe, which makes it easy to say yes to someone who is one of us. A plain check against it is to ask whether the request would still be granted if a stranger made it.

The moves of close quarters

Between people who know each other well, the same levers take harsher forms. Love bombing floods a new relationship with attention, praise and gifts, so that the debt and the dazzle come before any real knowledge of the person. Intermittent warmth, kindness that comes and goes without reason, keeps the other working to win it back, as an uncertain reward holds attention more firmly than a sure one. Isolation follows, often presented as devotion: the friends who would say that something is wrong are criticised, mocked or made hard to see. Moving goalposts keep the target always one step short of approval, and the silent treatment punishes without a word that can be answered.

Gaslighting

Gaslighting attacks memory and judgement directly. Its forms are steady and recognisable: denying what plainly happened, insisting that the other is remembering it wrong, belittling the feeling as oversensitive, and withholding, refusing to discuss a thing at all and calling the wish to discuss it the problem. Over time the target begins to doubt their own mind and to lean on the other's account of what is real. The best single defence is a written record made at the time, which does not change when it is argued with.

Turning the tables

When confronted, a manipulator often answers with a pattern that Jennifer Freyd named DARVO: deny the behaviour, attack the person raising it, and reverse the roles of victim and offender, so that the one who complained ends up apologising. Its sign is the feeling of having walked in with a grievance and walked out with a fault. Triangulation, bringing in a third person as an ally, a rival or a judge, serves the same end of moving the subject away from what was done.

Coercive control

Evan Stark describes a pattern that is more than any single incident. Coercive control is a campaign of domination in a close relationship, carried out by several means at once: violence or its threat, and also intimidation, isolation and control. Intimidation includes threats, watching of phone and movements, humiliation and degradation. Isolation cuts the person off from friends, family, work and money. Control reaches into the smallest parts of daily life, with rules about clothes, food, sleep, spending and whom one may speak to, enforced by punishment.

Stark calls it a crime against liberty: its harm lies less in any single blow than in the steady loss of the freedom to act for oneself. Its sign is a life rearranged around another person's reactions: asking permission for ordinary things, changing plans to avoid an outburst, rehearsing conversations, feeling watched. A person who recognises this is not imagining it, and it is not their fault.

What to do with what you see

Recognition begins with naming and with a record of what was said and done, in order and with dates, kept somewhere private and safe. The ordinary defences follow from it: take time before deciding anything, ask for important things in writing, and talk to someone outside the situation.

Where the pattern is coercive control, confronting the other person can raise the danger, and leaving is best planned with a specialist service. If someone is controlling or frightening you, tell someone you trust; if you are in danger, call the police.