HOW TO TAKE CONTROL

Exploring the ways in which people take advantage of someone

Do people take advantage of you? Perhaps people use your ideas and claim them as their own? Maybe you've been misled about the facts? In extreme cases you might have been bullied, lied to and subject to the narcissistic ambitions of others.

Imagine...never being duped again! Why do some people always seem to take advantage of others? How do some people have the advantage taken of their good nature? What can you do to stop people taking advantage of you? As you know people can take advantage of us in a variety of situations. It is the dark side of our naturally co-operative instinct. When we co-operate or share we place our trust in others and anticipate that this will be reciprocated.

People who abuse this trust or deliberately take advantage of our vulnerability or dependency take advantage of us. This happens in one to one relationships, the workplace, the school yard, and even in society and invariably involves a combination of the abuse of power, the deployment of deceit, and betrayal of trust. So, cheaters, con artists, bullies, betrayers, and traitors are all in the business of taking advantage of us in some form or other.They are self serving individuals who have little care for the feelings and consequences of their actions for others. Psychologically they tend towards socio-pathic behaviour and show narcissistic character traits. Ultimately people who take you for a fool, who try to dupe you, who deliberately try and deceive you are what Eric Fromm would call life thwarters the opposite of life enhancers

When people take advantage of us they rely on us devoting our thoughts to the people involved, "what did I do wrong", "how could they do that to me", "what makes me so gullible".You might like to know that there is no such thing as a gullibility gene so you can let your yourself off the hook.Psychologists call this a Fundamental Attribution Error, where we blame the person more than we blame the situation. People who take advantage of us are highly skilled at manipulating the situation we are in in order that we operate on false assumptions. So, one of the best ways of avoiding being taken advantage of is to critically look at the situation you are in and how that can be set up so that you are more easily duped, conned, or betrayed. Control the situation and you control the person.