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The Manipulative Response Style A fourth way of responding to differences in expectations between people is by manipulation. Whereas aggressive people attempt to coerce someone to change by angry threats and intimidation, manipulative persons use more indirect, frequently psychological means to get their way. For example, one mother would never tell her daughter openly and directly what she wanted, but whenever the daughter would deviate very far from what the mother wanted, the mother would rush into her bedroom, fling herself onto the bed, and cry hysterically “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you” or “You’re going to drive me crazy.” A father told his ten-year-old daughter that he would return to the family if she got straight A’s in school. Another mother claimed to have heart pains whenever her family or friends broached a subject she didn’t want to talk about. Aggressive people usually try to produce fear of themselves as a way of getting what they want. Manipulative people usually try to control others by producing a different kind of fear—the fear that if other people do not change, something terrible will happen. Manipulation can take several forms. We can compare the other person with some hypothetical ideal: “Any Christian who really loves the Lord would/ wouldn’t . . . Any good husband would/wouldn’t . . . Why can’t you be like your brother (sister, kids at church)?” Children quickly learn to use the same manipulative strategy: “I wish you were like my friends’ parents. They let them . . .
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