How to Control People

Co-authored by Lena Dicken, Psy.D

Last Updated: October 4, 2024 Fact Checked

There are lots of reasons to want to control people. Some of those reasons are healthy and some of them are not. Either way, you can find a good approach that helps you do the right thing by trying to understand people and yourself a little bit better.

Part 1

Part 1 of 4:

Understanding Other People

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Abusive manipulation can cause serious harm, and may end the relationship before you get what you want. Instead, think of "control" as convincing other people to agree with your perspective. With the right methods, you can shift people's attitudes without losing their respect.
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Choose an appropriate goal. Make sure that the person you're influencing can actually achieve your aims. Setting yourself an impossible task can create a high-pressure situation, hurting everyone involved. Instead, aim to start a friendship, improve your work or chore routine, or solve an interpersonal problem.
- Never attempt to force another person to love you, to snap out of an addiction or mental illness, or to make significant life changes against their will. The "success" of serious emotional manipulation is tense, fragile, and extremely damaging to yourself and the other people involved. If these are your goals, find a healthier approach instead.
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Find their motivations. Right now, you're dissatisfied with how certain other people behave. But before you can begin to persuade them towards something different, you have to understand what’s motivating them to choose their current course of action. What makes them think that what they’re doing is a good idea? Once you know their current set of motivations, you can influence these motivations to persuade them towards something different.
- Usually, the easiest way to find out their motivations is to simply ask: “Why do you think this is a good idea?” You can also try and figure it out by listening to what they say and watching what they do.
- For example, your project partner is not contributing as much work as you'd like. He might be motivated by a sense of fairness (he already thinks he's doing enough), laziness (he wants to avoid the work), or low self-esteem (he doesn't think he can do the work as well as you).
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Identify the most powerful motivation. Now that you know what their current set of motivations are, try to understand the motivator that’s most important to them. Influencing this motivator will be the easiest way to get the most impact. Think about what they value most in making a decision, by thinking about decisions that you’ve seen them make in the past or arguments that you’ve had with them. If you know what’s most important to them, then you can introduce that motivator to get the result you want.
- For example, you want your mom to vote a certain way in an election. She’s voting for the incumbent candidate because she knows her political stance better, and agrees with her social values. You know she values educational spending more than the social values platform, since she used to be a teacher. You can use facts about your candidate’s relationship with children, families, and education policy to motivate her to change her mind.
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Understand what’s holding them back. Now that you understand what kind of things make an argument look good to them, you’ll want to take a look at the factors that hold them back from your argument. What about what you’re trying to do makes them think it’s a bad idea? When you know what they perceive as the risks with what you’re asking, you can figure out how to make those risks seem smaller.^{[1]
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- There’s no reason to be coy about finding out why someone doesn’t like an idea. Frequently, once someone says why they don’t like an idea out-loud, they’ll think that it sounds stupid or realize that they can’t explain themselves well, which can give you the perfect opening to talk them over to your side.

Part 2

Part 2 of 4:

Creating Confidence and Rapport

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Let them see themselves as the hero. One of the best ways to convince somebody to do something is to help them see themselves as the hero of the story.^{[2]
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Research source} Humans look for their lives to have some kind of continuity. It’s what makes them feel like they can expect a happy ending. Shape other people's perception of their personal stories, showing them how much better they are when they’re part of your story. If you achieve this, you will be able to talk them into almost anything.
- For example, let’s say that you want an investor to support your start-up company. Talk to them about how by supporting your company, they’re paving the way for innovation. They will be the hero that brings positive change to your community. They get to be the next Andrew Carnegie, leaving ripples of good work through history.
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Give them a sense of community or identity. Another way to make your ideas look more appealing is to get the person you’re trying to convince to feel like a part of the community, or to make them feel like they play a very specific role in the community. People have an incredibly strong need to belong^{[3]
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Research source} and when you make them feel like they belong, they’ll be much more willing to go along with what you’re wanting them to do.
- For example, let’s say that you want your sister to switch chores with you. Help her to see that by cleaning the kitchen, she'll be contributing to the house in a way that everyone will notice. Explain that you'd rather weed the garden for your own enjoyment, but that no one ever thanks people for those tasks.
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Do things for them. When you’re helpful to people and do things for them, they end up feeling indebted to you, making them more likely to think that they should do what you ask. ^{[4]
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Research source} Provide significant help (like helping them move, finding them a job and getting them hired, or setting them up on a good date) and they’ll be ready to help you in return when you ask.
- An important part of this technique, though, is not letting them see an ulterior motive. They need to believe that you sincerely want to help them because you like them. It's up to you how true this needs to be; for your own comfort, you may want to avoid exploitative situations.
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Let them see you in control. Another way to make them feel like your path is the right path is to seem like you’re in control of the situation. If they think that you’ve got your hands on the steering wheel of life, then they don’t need to worry about surprise outcomes. This makes your way look like the safe way.
- Seem in control by first of all being knowledgeable. Do your research. Know what it is you’re talking about. After that, project confidence as you discuss a solid plan that you have. Be ready for questions and have lots of counter arguments prepared.
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Catch flies with honey. There’s that old saying that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. While it’s not always true for flies, being kind to people and projecting positive feelings usually makes them more willing to listen to you, take you seriously, and agree with what you say. When you talk to people, don’t be judgmental, demeaning, rude, critical, or confrontational. Be firm and confident, but don’t be a jerk.
- For example, avoid calling their views or choices “stupid” or explaining your views to them like they’re a child or mentally deficient.
- Instead, build them up, be positive in your interactions, and do nice things for them. When they see you as a nice person who goes out of your way to help others, they’ll want you to succeed, they’ll want you to get your way, because it reinforces the idea that fate rewards good people. Their need for the world to be “fair” will necessitate that they do what you want.

Part 3

Part 3 of 4:

Using Convincing Language

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1
Appeal to emotions. Some people are very emotionally prone. They experience strong emotions and then tend to think with how things make them feel. These are the kind of people that share lots of returning-soldier-reunited-with-dog videos on your Facebook wall. For these kinds of people, when you talk to them use language and arguments that play to their emotions in order to convince them. In the study of argumentation, this is called appealing to "pathos."
- For example, make them feel sorry for you. If you’re trying to convince your mom to let you go to summer camp, say something like, “I just don't want to stay home all summer while my friends are away. I get so sad when there's no one around."
- People whose emotions are easily swayed tend to be vulnerable. Think carefully about the effect you'll have if you succeed. Are you comfortable causing regret or panic to get what you want, or will that spoil your victory?
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Appeal to logic. There are other people (and sometimes these two groups overlap), that like arguments that hold up to logic. They want evidence and good reasons to line up before they’ll be convinced. These are usually the people that post news stories refuting the latest Supreme Court decision with evidence of its negative effects. When talking to people like this, use logic in order to appeal to them. In the study of argumentation, this is called appealing to the “logos.”
- For example, convince a boss to give you a sabbatical by listing the job-related skills you'll learn, and showing studies that breaks make employees more productive.
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Flatter them. With just about anyone, use language that makes them feel capable, confident, smart, knowledgeable, important, and kind. Using subtle, flattering language will make them like you more but it will also distract them. If they’re too busy thinking about how good they feel to get a compliment that they really like and weren’t expecting, then they won’t think about how your argument doesn’t make 100% sense to them.
- For example, say something like “You know, I’d like to be the speaker for our presentation but I feel like I would just say everything wrong. Probably freeze up too. You’re just so much better at talking to people and making a convincing argument than I am. You’d probably have the whole group eating out of your hand.”
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Make them think it was their idea. Women have been saying for centuries that the best way to get a man to do something is to make him think it was his idea. However, this is basically true of anyone. If they think that not only is the idea probably good but that it was also their idea, then they’ll be much less resistant to doing that thing.
- For example, say something like “My poor friend Dale is such a good guy. It’s a shame he never seems to catch a break. He’s got so much going for him too: he works so hard and he’s really smart. He’s even charming, really charming, once you get to know him.” if you want to try and get them to realize that they should hire/date/whatever Dale. They’ll hear this fantastic description and think, “You know, he doesn’t sound half bad. Maybe I should...”
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Cause someone to worry. This shouldn’t be your first stop, but planting concern in someone's mind can be a very effective technique. Use language that plays to their worries, or that suggests the decision is time-sensitive.
- For example, say something like, “You know, I heard they’re not going to be making these any more. If you want one, it’s probably better to buy it now, before you have to spend three times as much on eBay in order to get one.”
- This kind of language and persuasion should be your last resort, because you usually only get to do this once. People quickly figure out that you’re just fear-mongering in order to get what you want, and then they won’t trust anything you say. This kind of reputation can spread as well, so be careful.

Part 4

Part 4 of 4:

Finding Healthier Experiences

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1
Analyze why you feel the way that you do. It’s important for you to understand that feeling the need to control another person is not usually a healthy feeling. Just like you wouldn’t want someone to control you, it’s reasonable for other people not to want to be controlled too. Your need to control, however, is usually a symptom of a larger problem. Usually, it is because you don’t have control over another situation in your life. Since other aspects of your life feel out of control, you want to control another person so that you feel more secure. You need to understand that controlling another person won’t make your situation better and that finding another way to actually fix the problem will have a much better impact on your life.
- For example, you might want to make some random girl you met fall in love with you. However, what you’re really worried about is that you feel like you’ll never meet someone who’s right for you, so you’re clinging to this girl who under normal circumstances you wouldn’t even like (or whom you at least have nothing in common with). A better way to deal with the situation would be to start looking in the right places, so that you find someone who really is your match. Even if you don’t end up finding someone right to date right off the bat, you’ll at least know that they’re out there.
If you’re going to have a satisfying experience with life and feel good about most of the things that happen to you, you need to understand that many things in life will not go your way. As a wise man once wrote, “The world is not a wish granting factory.”^{[5]
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Research source} If you know going in that you might not get your way, then you’ll be better prepared to deal with disappointment when it does happen. If you do get your way, though, it will be a pleasant surprise...meaning it’s a win either way.
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Release your need to control. We can't control everything in our lives and we especially can't control other people. When you feel the need to control everything, it creates a lot of stress and negative feelings for you. It may even make you feel worse, in the long term, than if you had just let events play out in a natural way. Releasing your need to control will help you let go and enjoy life more.
- Ask yourself: why do I need to control this situation? What happens if I'm not in control? You probably feel like things will go wrong if you don't control the situation. However, who's to say that what happens is what's wrong? Even a bad outcome may actually be a good outcome in disguise.
- For example, maybe you want to control girl you like to make her go out with you. However, if you could make her go out with you, you may find out that she's actually mean, manipulative, or bad for you in some other way. Now you're stuck with her and the bad experiences that come from dating her! You don't want that.
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Embrace the natural flow of life and relationships. It's much healthier to let your life take the course it's going to take, rather than try to control every aspect of it. When you realize that things don't always need to go according to plan, you'll be much happier and feel more relaxed.
- Start to embrace this concept by letting go of small things, like letting your waiter suggest something for you to eat when you go out to a restaurant.
- You can also develop your ability to accept your situation by exposing yourself to more situations which are outside of your control, such as by traveling to an unfamiliar place.
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Find control elsewhere in your life. A lot of the time, we try to control other people because we feel like we don't have enough control in our own lives. Before you try to control other people, try to find areas in your own life where you can change how you act in order to gain more control over what happens to you. This is much healthier than the negative interactions that can often come from trying to control other people.
- For example, maybe make yourself a schedule and work to stick to it, in order to create more time for you to get things done at work and do them well. This will work much better than trying to control your coworkers to make them do your tasks for you.

Community Q&A

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How can I change another person's mind?

Sherringford

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Your success will depend very heavily on how strong your subject is set in his opinion. If it is something extremely personal, part of his identity (political, religious, etc.), it will be difficult and possibly even impossible. The best way to do this is to appear to be on his side. If he thinks he's fighting you, you have lost. Agree with him a little bit, then say, "yeah, but..." to ask a question that leads him in the direction of your goal. The trick is to make him think he is coming up with the ideas himself, you just happen to be there.

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I want to make this guy I have a crush on worry about me as a prank. How can I do that via social media?

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I would not recommend doing this. Not only is it manipulative, but it could teach him that he can't trust you in the future. Pranks can be fun, but a prank that causes someone to seriously worry about your safety is best avoided.

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Is eye contact important while talking?

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Yes. Making eye contact with someone helps capture their attention and shows them you are invested in the conversation.

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Tips

Identify your own negative character traits and work to improve your personality. This will make you more convincing, and genuinely more likeable.

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