Page 104 - How To Analyze People: 13 Laws About the Manipulation of the Human Mind, 7 Strategies to Quickly Figure Out Body Language, Dive into Dark Psychology and Persuasion for Making People Do What You Want

so quickly, and you didn’t like feeling your popularity might be threatened.

That colleague might have been taken aback by this sudden remark and

what you would have done is to plant a little seed of doubt in their mind

that perhaps their behavior was not as acceptable as they thought it was. Or

perhaps there was a colleague whom you were in danger of losing the

promotion to, and to throw them off their game, you subtly point out all the
“mistakes” they made while playing on their insecurities. Maybe you’ve

even had this done to you, where someone made a remark that completely

caught you off guard, made you feel stupid and doubt your own abilities.

Manipulators want everyone around them to feel like they are never good
enough. What’s worse is that most of us already feel inadequate, to begin

with, and we’re concerned that other people might notice it too. In fact, this

feeling has become so common, with research showing that 70% of the

population experiencing this feeling that it has its own term - Imposter

Syndrome. Those who suffer from this syndrome constantly find themselves
feeling inadequate or feeling like a failure, according to the California

Institute of Technology. No matter how much evidence there is to indicate

their success, those dealing with Imposter Syndrome continue to experience

self-doubt and believe they are intellectual frauds. Another study revealed

individuals who were dealing with this syndrome on a frequent basis often
performed poorly (even though they were capable of doing better) and

were, in general, a lot more anxious than those who dealt with Imposter

Syndrome less frequently. Imposter Syndrome sufferers also experienced a

greater, more significant loss of self-esteem after what they perceived to be

a failure. This feeling often hits them harder than anyone else, and several
studies have indicated a strong correlation between Impostor Syndrome and

feelings of shame, humiliation, and self-sabotage.