Kindness is a superpower. It can even be used to control others.
There is this expression, in English: Kill them with kindness. Kill with kindness. The idea is to be so benevolent that you end up causing the other to question yourself, change their behavior or obtain favors. When I heard that my colleagues were preparing a report on kindness last week, I immediately thought about the fact that kindness can also be a weapon.
Unless, in this specific case, we are confusing “being nice” and “being manipulative”?
Let’s go with a concrete demonstration. I’m not proud to admit it, but I’ve used kindness to make people feel guilty before. You know, we have ideas about others. For example, it sometimes occurs to me that a person I have never met thinks little of me. Well, the day I meet said person, rather than acting blunt and being a little stupid, I make sure to be particularly nice to them… Until I can notice a little hint of regret in his eyes and feel the delicious taste of interpersonal victory.
I don’t want everyone to like me, but I appreciate seeing the shame in the eyes of an individual who has been unkind to me without me deserving it.
Did I cross-dress for him? No, I’m usually pretty nice. Did I put on an extra layer of smile just to make him feel bad? Absolutely.
According to psychologist Philippe Breton, “manipulation consists of ‘breaking into’ someone’s mind to post an opinion or provoke a behavior without that person knowing that there has been a break-in.”
There is no doubt, then, that I am trying to manipulate my interlocutor with good humor. And it may very well work…
In Psychology of social manipulation and submission, Nicolas Guégen exposes different processes which have the power to influence us. It is clear that kindness can apply to many of them. Let’s think about the principle of reciprocity. It is documented: if someone does us a favor, we feel a duty to do them a favor in turn. Do you want someone to be accountable to you? Give him gentle attention. “The technique consists of putting the manipulated person in the position of creditor vis-à-vis his interlocutor,” writes the professor of social psychology at the University of South Brittany.
(Request and receivablesthis is an excellent essay title, if you were looking for one…)
Nicolas Guégen also writes that “the simple attribution of a positive trait to a person is enough to obtain from them more submission to a request”. In short, we tend to be more accommodating when our ego is flattered.
The author notes that this is the reason why many fundraising campaigns use phrases like “You are generous” or “We are counting on your generosity”.
Even a simple smile can lead to a change in behavior! Research shows that not only do we think a smiling person is likely nice, but their facial expression also affects our mood. “These two factors […] could explain why smiling leads us to respond more easily to the requests of others,” writes Nicolas Guégen.
And if you are wondering which face allows you to deploy your full influence, know that according to research by Otta, Abrosio and Leneberg-Hoshino (1996), “the wider the smile, the more the target is evaluated positively in terms of kindness”… Show your teeth, then.
The question now is: is it necessarily evil to encourage someone to find us? smatte ? It all depends on the intention, I suppose.
In the work Psychology of manipulation, published by Éditions Sciences Humaines in March 2023, doctor of management sciences Benoît Heilbrunn notes that there are 1001 ways to change someone’s mind and that some – such as the use of arguments – are ethical . If manipulation disturbs us, it is because it “is based on dissimulation as opposed to argumentation,” the author believes. The appeal to emotions inevitably calls for recourse to seduction and therefore the idea of deception, even betrayal.”
False kindness is deception. Should we blame someone who smiles brightly to extract a few extra pennies from us in a fundraising campaign? I do not believe that.
But should we be wary of a boss who does us a favor to stimulate our commitment, a person who flatters our ego to inflate his tip or a girl whom we find vaguely stupid and who compliments us in the hope that we regret our judgments?
It’s more open to interpretation.
Still, if to live is to die a little, I prefer that it is through kindness that someone weakens me.