Cracks are where the light comes in.
Article: 2800 words
Reading time: 7 minutes
In recent years, in various deceived "pig-killing plate" news, there is a word that is more and more familiar to the public, which is PUA, the full name of PUA is "Pick-up-Artist", which originally means "pick-up artist", which originally refers to the behavior of men who have received systematic learning, practice and continuous updating and improvement, self-improvement of emotional intelligence, and later generally refers to people who are very attractive to the opposite sex and fascinated by the opposite sex and their related behaviors.
In relationships, PUA does not only occur between men and women, but is present in many aspects of life. And people with antisocial personality traits are undoubtedly PUA masters.
I recently read a book called "Antisocial Personality in the Workplace", as the title indicates, the main setting of the book is the workplace, and the whole book runs through a fictional character - Dave's case in the workplace. However, the more important content of this book is to reveal the "antisocial personality", a personality trait that is extremely harmful and widespread in life. From the characteristics of such people, their style, how to manipulate, to teaching readers how to be vigilant, identifying, and protecting ourselves.... And so on.
Strictly speaking, people with antisocial personality disorder (a serious psychological disorder) do not make up too much of the population, with a prevalence of 4.3-9.4% in developed countries, but people with this personality trait are not uncommon. In the US population, about 1%~2% of people have antisocial personality traits. This means – almost certainly – that most of us encounter at least one sociopathic person every day. The most important point is that the harm and concealment brought by these people are too great, and we identify them. Just like in the PUA news, many people may laugh at those who are deceived as "too stupid", but few people can realize that if they are also unfortunate enough to become the prey of scammers, they may not be able to identify and successfully get out as they think.
Therefore, scammers repeatedly succeed, not because the person being scammed is stupid, but because their tricks are really clever. In "Antisocial Personalities in the Workplace" there is this description:
"We've interviewed a lot of people who have been in long-term relationships with antisocial personalities. Many people refer to their personality partners as their soulmates and report that they firmly believe that antisocial personalities are very similar to themselves. The more they come into contact with antisocial personalities, the more they become addicted to illusions and are hypnotized by illusions. What baffles us even more is that some victims report that after being abandoned by antisocial personalities, they still miss the relationship very much and hope that the antisocial personality will change their minds. Many people find it hard to believe that the one-sided, dysfunctional, destructive, antisocial connection was a hoax from the start. ”
So, in today's article, we will understand what personality traits such people have, and fundamentally, what "loopholes" they use us to achieve the purpose of cheating.
01 Introduction and features
Antisocial personalities generally have the following outstanding characteristics:
Has the talent to "read people". They will try to determine a person's likes and dislikes, motivations, needs and weaknesses, as well as whether they are good to start, and they know very well how to play with the emotions of others.
Their verbal and communication skills are excellent.
They are very good at impression management. Their insight into others, combined with exaggerated but persuasive rhetoric, allowed them to skillfully adjust their roles to suit the environment and plan. They are good at wearing different masks on different occasions, changing their roles according to different objects, and making themselves the darlings of the target victims. That's why researchers who often deal with these people describe them as "social chameleons."
Although the above description is accurate, it is difficult to awaken people's "experience", think back, have you ever met a similar person in your life? Anyway, I have met, originally I was a person who regarded myself as very accurate and intuitive, but when I really encountered this kind of person, I was inevitably deeply attracted by TA, and although I was not successfully manipulated in the end, I also deeply experienced the "charm" that this type of person carries that cannot be refused.
So the question is, what's the difference between an antisocial personality and someone who really has a deep relationship with us, or someone who has a close relationship? The biggest difference between antisocial personalities and normal people is that the former's motives are unfair and ruthlessly exploit others. They will stop at nothing to achieve their ends, and after using others, they will ruthlessly shake them off, without any sense of psychological guilt.
In a word, their dealings with others are inherently fake, and they are completely objectified to others other than themselves – all people are just tools for their own ends, not living people. The various personality masks they skillfully use and the nature of the relationship that keeps others trapped and feel good are also fake.
02 Human weakness
In this book, the author describes how antisocial personalities achieve manipulation of others. In general, their dealings with others are divided into three stages:
assess
manipulate
abandon
So, what exactly are they using others? The author lists four "thinking skills" that they often use, and these four thinking skills actually happen to contain the internal psychological needs of almost everyone, in a sense, which can also be counted as the weakness of almost everyone, or the weakness of human nature. Let's first look at what four important messages do antisocial personalities convey to others through words or actions when they associate with them? And by conveying these four important messages, we ultimately achieve the purpose of building deep relationships with others and implementing manipulation.
Message 1: Positive affirmation. They positively affirm the self-representation of others and tell others: I like who you show you. Affirming the personal image of others is a simple but very effective influence technique. Especially when others express it in a convincing and charismatic way, the listener is often overwhelmed.
Message two: "I'm just like you". They will elaborately fake a personality mask to reflect or supplement the flaws behind our ego personality mask. They share personal information about themselves, such as the same values, beliefs, and questions we share, and these conversations resonate strongly with us. In this process, the second message of antisocial personality is: I am just like you.
Message 3: Security. But we feel that this person knows himself better than anyone else, and when he understands himself, he feels ecstatic, and a part of his inner self is understood and accepted by others, which means that we can relax, let down our vigilance, and feel free to tell our secrets.
Message 4: I am your best friend, lover, and partner. When we sense that they understand and accept our weaknesses and flaws, we may believe that the relationship can go one step further and that this person can be our confidant. Antisocial personalities are always ready and willing to meet our deep psychological needs and desires. They are clever and have excellent social skills. Build a solid image in our minds. They have the strength you crave as well as forgivable flaws. This psychological connection deeply appeals to our inner personality, making us willing to make or more intimate commitments to them.
In fact, in the face of such a large web of elaborate deception, almost no one can escape. Because being praised, respected, seen, and understood by others makes us feel safe and empathetic, which is the deepest inner desire of everyone's heart. This inner longing regardless of age, country, race, or culture is the lowest common psychological need of human beings.
In a sense, these needs are the weakness of our human nature. That's why I say that if you are also fancy and become their target and prey, probably most people will not be able to really escape.
So the question is, should we give up these lowest intrinsic needs? Only by giving up these inner needs can we not be deceived? The answer, of course, is no. In fact, understanding one's own needs is the best way to prevent being deceived.
For a variety of reasons, we often suppress our inner needs. These needs are not met and are not seen. Many times even we cannot clearly identify these inner needs of ourselves. These intrinsic needs that will not be met become our inner deprivation, and once scammers use deception to fill these lacks, we will be easily deceived. So fundamentally, self-growth is the fundamental way to solve the lack of inner needs.
But growth is a long process. And many people will think that the word growth is very vain, and they don't know where to start. In fact, we start by accepting and seeing our inner needs, when we see that we are so eager to be praised by others and eager to be affirmed by others. The desire to be understood and accepted by others is, in a sense, our own deprivation.