Is the job suppressed by the boss becoming less confident?
Three ways to help you stay away from "workplace PUA"
Psychological talk
Recently, a female group artist exposed the recording of a meeting where the boss verbally humiliated him at a staff meeting. Later, the artist posted that he became more and more self-doubt and less and less self-doubt in the conflicting treatment promised by the boss while suppressing it. self. Many netizens felt the same, saying: Isn't this just the workplace PUA of the entertainment industry? So, what is PUA? What kind of people are easily affected by workplace PUA?
PUA, originated in the United States, is called "Pick-up Artist", which translates as "Pick-up Artist". It was created in the 1960s when American society changed drastically. Many rebellious young people left their hometowns to live in big cities. However, they did not have the traditional channels to meet the opposite sex and lack the social skills to develop romantic relationships.
After targeting this market, some successful men with rich emotional experience opened classes and wrote books to teach those clumsy and frustrated men how to strike up a conversation, attract and successfully confirm a romantic relationship with the opposite sex.
With the development of PUA studies, mental control methods such as brainwashing and hypnotism were added, and its later development became criminal. For example, some people use PUA to manipulate others to defraud money and sex, and some people use PUA to destroy the dignity of women. Even induce suicide.
Depreciation and grace are two core characteristics of PUA
To this day, the term PUA is no longer a literal meaning, but specifically refers to some kind of mind control method, which satisfies one's own selfish desires by destroying others' self-esteem and self-confidence and manipulating others. Its application scenarios are no longer limited to gender emotions, but extend to various interpersonal relationships, such as boss PUA employees, parents PUA children, tutor PUA students, etc. How to quickly identify PUA? PUA mainly has two core characteristics, namely depreciation and grace.
Take the workplace as an example. Disparagement is the first routine of PUA, that is, the boss continuously suppresses you, denies you, demeans you, attacks you personally, and then manipulates your thoughts. As the above-mentioned artist’s boss said about the artist’s appearance, day after day, the degraded gradually lost their self-judgment and began to doubt and deny themselves. PUA devalues, disintegrates and destroys a person's self-esteem and confidence through words, and then controls his thoughts. When a person loses self-identity, he will unconditionally identify with the boss, believing that what the boss says is correct.
Only depreciation is not a PUA. Because only belittle, we can quickly identify the negative effects of this relationship, and then leave the relationship. The second routine of PUA, who is proficient in human heart manipulation, is to give grace, which is what we often say "slap a sweet date". For example, the boss scolded you horribly one second before, and the next second he said to you "I scold you for your own good" and "I scold you for treating you as my own." There are many ways to show kindness, such as occasional praise and affirmation, promises of benefits, and "painting a big pie", which makes you feel that even being degraded is tolerable.
Why can people's hearts be manipulated only in the two steps of belittle and benevolence? Because it directly hits the weakness of human nature to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages. The behaviorist school believes that people are afraid of punishment and want to be rewarded, and that punishment and reward can shape a person's behavior. In order not to be devalued and to gain benefits, employees who have been PUA in the workplace dare not have self and become the only leader.
Unconfidence and dependence make people vulnerable to PUA
Psychological research has found that some people are very good at manipulating people's hearts. Fromm, a German psychoanalytic school psychologist, called it "totalitarian personality". They like to use and exploit others, and they are good at relying on tricks or violence to obtain things from others. American personality psychologists Christie and Guise call this dark personality trait "Machiavellianism". They are ruthless, ignore morality, only look at results, and are good at manipulating and calculating. In their eyes, other people are not independent individuals with thoughts and dignity, but only tools to satisfy their own interests, so they are more concerned about how to manipulate others to gain benefits than equality and respect.
Correspondingly, people with the following two kinds of psychology are easily hurt by PUA: One type is a person who is not confident in himself. Take workplace PUA as an example. If you are not firm enough to believe in your own feelings and thoughts, you will easily agree with what your boss says. If your boss says you are not good, you will feel bad about yourself, and you will feel more and more bad about yourself. The second category is people who are easily dependent on others, including spiritual dependence and material dependence. When you rely on one person, you will unconsciously "hand over" yourself, taking the other person's thinking as your own. For example, as a newcomer in the workplace, you have a lot of things you don't understand, and your boss is very strong in all aspects such as ability, experience and experience. You trust him and feel that everything he says is right. At the same time, because you depend on this job, you dare not say no to your boss. Even if you feel uncomfortable, you will convince yourself that "the boss denies me for my good."
So how to avoid being PUA in the workplace? First, we must distinguish between PUA-style criticism and constructive criticism. PUA-style criticism is wrong to people, the attitude is authoritarian, absolute, and personality humiliating, and constructive criticism is wrong to people and is instructive and feasible. Dare to say no to PUA-style criticism. Second, a scientific self-assessment must be carried out. If your self is not firm enough and you are not sure whether you are good or not, when you are constantly suppressed and degraded, you should ask other people's opinions and evaluate yourself objectively, comprehensively and dialectically. At the same time, we must look at our shortcomings from a development perspective. Scientific self-assessment can prevent self-esteem and self-confidence from being destroyed by PUA. Finally, believe in how you feel. When you feel that in a workplace relationship, you are often afraid of being criticized and often self-doubt and self-denial, then please believe your feeling that you are in a relationship that will have too much negative impact on yourself, please leave this relationship. If the relationship cannot be terminated for the time being, the isolation strategy of "left ear in and right ear out" is adopted to isolate the impact of PUA.
(The author of Yang Jianlan is a national secondary psychological counselor)