Psychology Expert: The No. 1 Way To Respond To A Manipulator—It 'Shifts The Power In Your Favor'

 

Manipulation doesn’t always look dramatic or explosive. It could be a loaded comment in a meeting, a subtle guilt trip in an email, or a casual remark that leaves you questioning yourself long after the conversation ends.

What makes manipulators effective is their ability to influence how you feel. Research on social influence and coercive control shows that manipulators aim

for emotional impact: the drop in your confidence, the spike in your anxiety, the moment you start defending instead of deciding.

In my decade advising Fortune 500 companies as a behavioral researcher, I’ve seen this pattern at every level: the person who controls the emotional tone often controls the direction of the interaction.

The most powerful response to a manipulator isn’t to confront them. This often backfires, triggering gaslighting, denial, or escalation. Here’s a simple strategy I teach to help you “CUT” through manipulation.

C: Control your emotions

When your nervous system spikes, your thinking narrows and your behavior becomes easier to steer. Studies on emotional regulation show that staying physiologically calm preserves decision quality under pressure. Slow your breath. Lower your voice. Buy yourself a few seconds before responding.

Instead of reacting with:

·    Snapping or raising your voice: “Why are you saying that? That’s not true!”

·    Over-explaining or defending yourself: “Actually, I did do [X], and here’s why…”

·    Appeasing or over-committing when it’s unreasonable: “Okay, I’ll handle it.”

·    Getting defensive or anxious: internal panic, self-doubt, or visible agitation.

Try responding with:

·    Neutral acknowledgment: “Noted.”

·    Redirect to facts or agenda: “Let’s focus on the next step.”

·    Brief, calm clarification if necessary: “I understood it differently; here’s what I did.”

·    Pause and buy time: a slow breath, or a moment to compose your response before engaging.

By staying neutral in your responses, you remove the emotional fuel that manipulators rely on and shift the interaction back into your control.

U: Unfazed appearance

Even when your heart is racing, how you show up matters. A relaxed posture, relaxed facial expression, and steady verbal pace signal that there’s nothing to hook into.

Research on status dynamics and dominance signaling shows that the least reactive person is often seen as the most powerful. Staying unfazed tells the manipulator: Your tactics aren’t working on me.

T: Turn off engagement

This is where most people slip. They explain, defend, justify, and try to be understood. But feeding the emotional layer is exactly what keeps manipulation alive. Instead, refocus on facts, boundaries, or the task at hand. Pay attention only to what you can control.

Together, these three moves cut off the oxygen from the interaction. You’re no longer a lever that can be pulled. Over time, that shifts the power in your favor.

The most powerful response is far more destabilizing to the manipulator’s strategy: emotional non-cooperation. Calmly, neutrally, and consistently refusing to feed the emotional leverage, you take away the fuel that sustains their behavior. When emotional leverage disappears, the manipulation often stops.

3 Unique Hacks To Eat Healthier In 2026

For many, a new year means new opportunities to form better habits — to meditate or hit the gym, for example. If one of your resolutions for 2026 is to eat healthier, some of the world’s leading longevity experts offer up simple ways to start.

“I recommend what I call the longevity diet, which takes from lots of different things,” Dr. Valter Longo told CNBC Make It in 2024. “Both the Okinawa diet and the Mediterranean diet.” Longo is the director of the Longevity Institute of the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California-Los Angeles.

Most of the popular diets that experts suggest for living a healthier — and longer — life, focus on whole foods, like fruits and vegetables and healthy proteins like beans and salmon. Those diets like the DASH eating plan also call for limiting or avoiding ultra-processed foods like pizza and donuts.

“You can be in any kind of dietary program you want, as long as you’re avoiding ultra-processed foods,” Dr. Darshan Shah told CNBC Make It earlier this year.

In addition to those tried-and-true tips, a few other longevity experts we interviewed this year shared some lesser-known hacks for eating well.