By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
Most of you know I have spent a good portion of my life training animals of various kinds dogs for obedience and to work livestock, horses, donkeys and cattle (oxen).
When we train animals, we “condition” them to do X and they receive Y reward. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, conditioned dogs to expect to be fed by ringing a bell every time they got fed. Eventually when a bell was rung, even though there was no food in sight, the animals expected to be fed, and their bodies reacted by making them “slobber” at the mouth, just as they would if food were present.
B.F. Skinner, and American psychologist, observed that animals who had intermittent rewards, rather than continual rewards, would continue a behavior longer than animals who got rewarded every time they did an act. For example, a rat that pushed a lever and got a grain of food every time, would quickly stop pushing it if the food didn’t com. But a rat that sometimes got a food pellet when he pushed the lever would continue to pound on the lever for a very long time, or even never stop pushing it, even though he did not get a food pellet.
In humans, this “intermittent” rewards works in a slot machine, or in gambling games, because every once in a while you get rewarded. Therefore, you keep hoping that next time will be THE TIME.
Psychopaths and intermittent rewards
You may ask what this training technique has to do with psychopaths. Well, just as Las Vegas was built on intermittent rewards for gamblers, relationships with psychopaths are built on the intermittent rewards they give us.
At the first part of the relationship, the psychopath “love bombs” us by giving us the good things we enjoy compliments, doing things for us, great sex. WOW! We think we have found nirvana. Just as a dog I am beginning to train gets a treat every time he “sits,” then only sometimes when he “sits,” the psychopath only gives us the “loving” some of the time. Also, just as I eventually no longer give the dog a food treat any time he “sits,” and the most he will get is a “good dog” verbal compliment, or a scolding if he doesn’t sit fast enough, the psychopath quits giving us treats and gives us “scoldings.”
We have been conditioned by the psychopath to be and do what they want, because we still desire that initial “love bombing,” and we dread the “scolding” they will give us if we don’t “jump” when they say “frog.” We keep on hoping against hope that we will be able to please them again. We do whatever we can to keep the scoldings to a minimum and get them to reward us with “love” again.
Running for bread
It doesn’t make any kind of difference if the animal we are training is a dog, a parrot, a donkey, an steer, a horse ”¦ the conditioning works the same. Intermittent rewards cause the desired behavior to continue. If we give continual rewards every time they perform the behavior, it wouldn’t take long for the behavior to be extinguished when we stopped rewarding it.
My mammoth jack donkeys, Fat Ass and Hairy Ass, haven’t had a piece of bread (their preferred treat) in a year or more. But any time I go to the hangar and open the freezer, they come running up to the fence on the never dying hope that I will get bread out of the freezer and give them a piece. They are totally “conditioned” to that treat, and they know that the opening and closing of the freezer is what always preceded them getting a slice of bread.
The psychopath we have had relationships with know what “rings our chimes,” what makes us happy and what makes us sad, or what makes us angry. It is like a panel of buttons on the front of our chest. They know just the exact words to say, or the thing to do, that will press our “buttons” and get the reaction they want from us.
No Contact is the answer
No Contact keeps those buttons covered. That is why it works.
Psychopaths know that in the past, if they pressed “button A,” you would do B. So they will keep on trying because IT ALWAYS WORKED IN THE PAST. They just know if they keep doing it, it will EVENTUALLY work again. So they will press it harder and faster and longer. Just like some old lady sitting at a slot machine, plugging in quarters, she just “knows” that the very next quarter will get her a reward. Just like my donkeys running up to the fence when I open the freezer, they still hope to get a slice of bread, a reward.
Expect when you go No Contact that the psychopath will up the ante and will work harder and longer to get a reaction. If it takes 30 times for them to eventually get a reaction, THEY LEARN THAT it takes 30 TIMES TO GET A REACTION. If next time it takes 40 times, they learn that they must work a bit harder to get a reaction, so they keep on and on and never stop.
So hang in there. Once you make up your mind to go NO CONTACT, then STAY no contact, because if you give them ANY reward of ANY kind, even a well deserved “cussing,” it is still a reward. It is ATTENTION, and even negative attention is attention. Not being noticed at all is the worst punishment they can have.
If you are required by law to have contact with them, like if you share children, do it only by e-mail, so that you have a record of it. Discuss ONLY the children. Do not respond to any nasty comments they make. Refuse to discuss the other person with your children, and Gray Rock them entirely. NO emotional responses at all. If possible, get someone else to pick up and drop off the kids, so you do not have to see him/her. Or do it in a public place, a police department parking lot if necessary.
We can stop them only by not responding. So when your ex is trying to push your buttons, just think about Joyce’s donkeys Fat Ass and Hairy Ass running up to the fence for a slice of bread. Visualize your psychopath with long ears, standing there trying to get a reaction from you, and then DON’T GIVE IT. Take control and refuse to allow the psychopath to make you respond to his/her button pushing!
God bless.
Thanks, Katydid. You make a lot of good points.
I think the language thing is interesting….and yes, some spaths are wordsmiths, and some just want to be, and maybe believe they are, but they fail miserably, because they over estimate themselves. (Narcissistic tendancy.)
But, again, I don’t think it’s so much about how something is said. Whether it is grammaticly correct, or perfectly puncuated and such…or, at the other extreme perfectly tweaked. It’s a matter of tone, attitude, consistancy, responsibility, mutual respect, etc.
What rouses my suspicions most is arrogance and self-righteiousness, and a nauseating feeling that I am being manipulated. So, it’s not really about the construction of the language, but the motive behind it, I think. JM2C.
Kim
That’s the trap for me. B/c part of my spath conditioning was that I was to KNOW and anticipate what would annoy him and correct myself to not be that. That’s actually the def of manipulation, trying to behave to ensure a certain outcome. And feeling high anxiety and doom if I failed. It’s such a trap b/c the conditioning continues to affect my world post spath. My spath would feel so please to know his infection still controls/damages my life. I kinda have to laugh at the irony of having to be on high alert about being on high alert.
Kim, you nailed it. You said, “some spaths are wordsmiths, and some just want to be, and maybe believe they are, but they fail miserably, because they over estimate themselves.”
Yep, once you know the red flags, spaths will always fail miserably because they use the same tricks over and over, they CAN’T CHANGE. They can’t come up with anything new, no matter how hard they try.
Spath manipulations usually take the same forms: Charm, Pity and Rage.
Charm takes the form of flattery, compliments, love bombing.
The Pity Ploy, is …well obviously… poor me.
Rage, is an attack that accuses.
In addition to these red flags there are others.
There is the refusal to take responsibility -they might admit to a behavior but it’s never their fault, it’s someone else’s fault.
There is the oppositional defiance. Specifically, they attack anyone who speaks authoritatively, because they envy anyone else getting attention.
The word salad, of course, helps to obfuscate the truth, because they can say that YOU misunderstood their meaning.
We so often don’t see the manipulation because our emotions have been engaged (that’s the anesthetic), and we don’t want to believe that someone could so easily blind us to reality. But they can. We’re only human.
my spath would never be so obvious to attack someone who speaks authoritatively. instead, he’d buddy up.
i made the point of questioning authority (shows my age too, b/c Question Authority was a mantra from my era) b/c too many times people give WAY too much respect to those who have that skill, and don’t bother to use their critical reasoning skills. this problem is best illustrated in another article about religious leaders and of course, those surgeons who use their authority to bully patients.
please dear LF members, there is a difference b/t the spath pity play and the hurt/begging for understanding and empathy about pain from being abused. don’t let anyone dismiss your hurt as pity play. I know the dif and so do many other readers.
Upthread, Truthy commented
“There’s a gulf of difference in the motivations. When a strong handler works their border collie in the field, the handler recognizes and appreciates their dog’s dedication and ability and rewards that dog with lots of love and affection. When a spath works their dog in the field, the “love and affection” is cursory and superficial ”“ I’ve seen this with a guy that did K-9 training. He could mouth the words and go through the physical motions of praise, but it was ALWAYS tainted with an attitude of “You’d BETTER obey, or else!”
I think the MOTIVATIONS of “manipulation” should be kept in mind too….when we potty train our kids we are “manipulating” them, rewarding them for doing what we want them to do and where we want them to do it.
My new dog LOVES to play fetch and that is her reward IF and ONLY if she pees on command…and it didn’t take her long to figure out if we went outside and she peed when I said “go pee pee” that when we got inside we played fetch, and if she did not do a Pee pee or a doo doo, she did NOT get to play fetch.
You can also do this with a younger dog by saying the word every time it DOES it.
So yea, I am manipulating her, conditioning her to get a reward every time she does what **I** want her to do, but my desire to do this makes it possible for me to live in a house that is not fouled with dog excrement, or take endless hours in the middle of the night to get her to “do her thing” LOL
Rage is the one thing I will not tolerate. Anybody that can go into a rage is dangerous.
That is were the gift of fear come’s in handy. You rage at me and your history and I am gone like the wind..
Oxy
Am a little slow on the uptake. My little collie had to train ME. I have been taking her outside and saying peepee, go peepee b/c she is easily distracted and i wanted her to focus on doing her “duty” first. then she’d come back and wiggle and be so proud. It was my neighbor who pointed out to me how amazed they were that I had “potty trained” my dog. Yes, I did, but it just happened. She gets so excited and pleased with herself for doing her tricks that ya can’t help but love her up. Funny how I missed that she saw going peepee as just another trick in her repretoire. (She also runs left and right and circles and backs, learning all those just from our walks.) What an amazing dog!… from the SHELTER!
I hear ya MoonDancer. I am okay with anger but I have a thing about rage. If someone can’t control their behavior and feels entitled to rage, physically or verbally, I make myself scarce. My mother was a rager. If my spath had been physically rager like my mother, I would have left WAY sooner. He did show physical violence in the last two years I was with him (towards animals), and all that did was validate my decision to leave him. His physical rage did not intimidate me. Instead, he was tightly controlled, I knew times he was VERY angry but his voice was calm and soft. He took great pride in controlling himself. He thought those who did not control their emotions were weak. So at first, I was confused how someone could be so mean and be so kind and softspoken about it.
KatyDid
Thanks! Yes he was one of those people that the world doesn’t make enough of. At 27 years old he took in 3 nieces and 2 nephews as a single guy to raise. A very nice man.
The “No Mistakes” or “being perfect” is a killer to have. I also had to deal with “Nuttin is Good enough.” They are all learned beliefs. And when we can not fulfill a belief we either walk off or freeze up and [as you said] do nothing. Normal response to the situation. Not fun just normal.
Here is how I see this thing your having a problem with in regards with “LF members” and it plays on others as well. One of those backasswards things we do. We tend to see the problem as outside of us. It’s them. If they would only… How can they do this.. But, can’t make others do what we want. We play this loop enough and we feel “Helpless” “Dirty” “Less Then” What we have with this kind of thinking is “Inner Conflict.” We have set it up to be a victim. We are giving the power over us to outside circumstances. If they act this way I feel this way. In other words they control how we feel.
In truth the feeling is not coming from them or the circumstance but from us. We create what we feel. And the program we run [loop] leads us to these feels we have.
Most of the feelings we have where not created consciously. We didn’t say I want to feel this way about this. They where created on an unconscious level. Without us knowing what we were doing. But they are our creation. And we are the only one’s that can change how we feel.
It’s like being “IN LOVE” it doesn’t matter how we got there. Be it based on truth or based on lies. The brain just plays we are “IN LOVE.” So we feel we are “IN LOVE.” Like still feeling all the crappy feelings leftover from the spath. They are in us, so we will feel them until they are dealt with. i. e. “defense mechanisms”
So since we can not make others behave how we would like. Then only constructive solution is to take our feelings back. And not hang them on the behaviors of others. Which if they don’t treat you well. Stop having anything to do with them. Ignore them. If someone on “LF” response to something you wrote and it’s one of those people. Don’t read it. We have the “Power of Choice.”
How I dealt with “No Mistakes” – “being perfect” “Nuttin is Good enough.” type stuff is got rid of it.
http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2012/08/30/what-did-the-sociopath-give-me-and-why-is-it-so-hard-to-let-it-go/comment-page-1/#comment-168977
” KNOW and anticipate what would annoy him”
Spaths want compliance and if no compliance they try and dominate.
spoon
Joyce, what a great article! Thanks for all this information. Intermittent rewards,rather than continuous rewards, will continue behavior… All this is good info for me that makes sense. What never ceases to amaze me is that we read and spend so much time understanding “them”, yet their behavior comes to them so naturally! To naturally be so evil, rotten, and manipulative…horrible way to live!
Skylar, thanks for mentioning about NLP… I had to look it up since I never heard of it before. But all this is making me understand the techniques my sister in law is using on her daughter and my brother! It makes sense why they act the way they do! Sometimes I don’t even recognize them! Some of these techniques resonated with me: 1) Mirroring- that builds rapport and trust. 2) Anchoring- implants a sensation into the mind to act as a trigger. 3) Pattern Interruption-used to leave unconscious messages in the mind.4)Swish-replaces or changes the feeling associated with a condition 5)Loop Break-controls feelings, reactions, or behaviors to certain conditions 6)Framing-increases or decreases emotional response to memories. Thanks Skylar for your advice, and your motivation to gain knowledge!
This site has helped me understand why my niece behaves the way she does, her brainwashed behavior. She is sometimes herself, at times not. But understanding the reason behind it makes me love her even more, and not be angry with the helpless, sweet 7 year old girl! After all I have thought about leaving quite a few times… Thanks to all of you I am handling the situation better, I am more thankful for the few loving moments I still have with her.
I have also gained knowledge from the BITE model (Please see the article by Dr. Leedom). Incredible how my SIL alters my niece’s Behavior, Information she is given, control of her Thoughts, & Emotions… Thought blocking (SIL keeps niece occupied with an activity all the time, no room to think), emotion blocking… When I hug my niece and tell her that I love her, my niece used to tell me that she loved me too. But lately, she snaps her fingers and counts in her mind to 50 or until I am finished expressing my sentiments. Complete emotion blocking! I never even thought a mother or any human could modify behavior to such an extent, not to receive affection or love.
Sobrina is the spanish word for niece. I will not use her real name here. I tell my niece whenever she is not acting like herself, she is acting like ANIRBOS (SOBRINA spelled backwards). My niece totally understands this, she often tells me she does not like to act like ANIRBOS, ANIRBOS does not equal happy, and she wants to be SOBRINA and that is when she is happy. So my niece is very intelligent:she is aware when she alternates between her normal self and her brainwashed self. I have read about Cog Dis thanks to the wise and kind educators on this site, I do not want her to be affected by Cog dissonance. I am trying to come up with ways to teach her about it, so that I may immunize her! My niece is positively an empath, full of compassion and love. Any advice how to explain COG DISS to a child is appreciated!!!
Thanks to articles like this one by Joyce and others, and advice from Lovefraud members, I am able to understand my Sister-in Law more and more. The more knowledge I gain, the more I see these techniques used by her! More revelations!
What I am learning is that these spaths are extremely dangerous, they control minds & behaviors of the vulnerable… They kill serially, the spirit of an unsuspecting person, an individual’s identity, or cold blooded murder, they KILL!
If anyone has any ideas how to convey a few powerful messages to my little niece, please feel free to advise me! It is my hope that my niece will retain her identity, instincts, inhibitions, boundaries, her love & compassion, through all the mind controlling, manipulative techniques she is experiencing with her mother.
Thank You Donna, and everyone here on this site for opening my eyes, making me see them for who they are! Before I came to this site, I knew something was wrong with SIL, I was confused, sometimes I thought I was overreacting, no she could not do that, maybe she did not mean that, or maybe I am misunderstanding… No more of that! Thanks for the VALIDATION for which I am very grateful!