PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MANIPULATION WITHIN AN INTERPERSONAL INTERACTION: MANIPULATIONS AND MANIPULATORS

Abstract

INTRODUCTION The phenomenon of manipulation has long attracted the attention of scientists – theorists and practitioners in various fields. It still attracts their attention, especially in times of informational outbreak, latest information technologies and industrial development, during rapid technical and technological progress, in times of reorientation of an individual to the market type of interaction and transformation of the individual’s value system. In the light of this agenda, we find it necessary to consider manipulation as a means of hidden control and to outline the key features by which it can be differentiated from other methods of influence; to compare the approaches used by various authors to the understanding of manipulation, and to analyse reasons for the personality development of a modern manipulative person as well as his/her typical psychological characteristics. Trying to define the concept of “influence”, researchers often refer to such a scientific category as “interaction” and to the concept of “interinfluence” derived from it 1 . Today, a generalized attitude to influence as an element of psychological interaction is observed, which often leads to the assimilation of these concepts 2 . In psychological dictionaries, influence during interaction is viewed as a process when an individual is changing the behaviour of another person as well as his/her attitudes, intentions, ideas, as a result of the person’s activity 3, 4. The concept of psychological impact (or psychological influence) is narrower; it is regarded as one of the options for impact in general. The singling out of this category is based on ‘cause and effect’ changes in the