Between love and fear: the most powerful human motivator

There is nothing like the elation and bliss of new love. Especially when you believed you had found ‘the one.’ That took it to another level. You may have felt you never really knew what love was before. You were probably infused with incredible joy and happiness. You finally found what you were searching for, and it was even better than you ever imagined.

And then one day something unexpected happened. You got a queasy feeling that you couldn’t shake. You sensed deep in your gut that he or she was pulling away. Your heart sank and your stomach clenched with fear.

In the process of the psychopathic bond, the moment when the joy at finding love turns into the fear of losing it is called the ‘manipulative shift.’ When that happens, the psychopath takes control. This is when the devaluation stage begins.

Fear takes away our ability to think clearly. It’s an intensely powerful and uncomfortable emotion, and we want it to go away. In this case, fear was caused by the threat of losing our (supposedly) wonderful relationship. When we see someone as being the one who can take our fear away, we will give them just about anything. In this situation, that would be the very person who caused it in the first place — the psychopath. He or she took our fear away by becoming attentive and loving again. If we asked him if something was wrong he told us that we were imagining things, or he blamed us, or made up some excuse for his  lapses.

If fear is something we want to avoid, how did the psychopath use it to keep us hooked?

By alternating it with another extremely powerful emotion — love.

Creating fear of losing the relationship — and then relieving it periodically with episodes of love and attention — is the perfect manipulation, one known as Intermittent Reinforcement.

Those positive episodes that banished our fear released a potent dose of dopamine-induced euphoria. We weren’t going to lose the best thing we ever had, after all. We took a deep breath and relaxed.

Have you ever gone to a casino and played a slot machine? You feed in your quarters and pull the handle, over and over, and watch the little colorful images of fruit and numbers and bells whiz by. If you don’t win anything you start to fear that you might lose all the money you already put in, let alone not win the jackpot.

Even though you risk losing more money, you are compelled to keep trying to win. What if you walk away from this machine now, after investing all this time and money, and the next person to sit down and pull the handle wins? You feed in a few more quarters, pull the handle and — amazingly — images of a red number 7 line up and bells ring while colourful lights flash. Handfuls of quarters pour loudly from the machine into your waiting hands. These rewards cause your brain to light up, too, by releasing a burst of pleasure-inducing dopamine, and you want more. Your fear vanishes, and you think that since you now have all these quarters you should keep playing. Who knows, maybe you’ll win the big jackpot next time! You start feeding the machine again. You’re hooked.

Psychology researchers have long considered intermittent reinforcement the most powerful motivator on the planet. It is also the most manipulative. Intermittent reinforcement is simply unpredictable random rewards in response to repeated behavior, but there is no more powerful formula to get someone to feel or act in a desired way. It can be elevated gradually (and subtly) to increasingly extreme levels, creating compliance that is obsessive and even self-destructive. I think this comes as no surprise to many of us. When we look back, we clearly see that intermittent reinforcement was hard at work.

The more infrequently the crumbs of love are offered, the more hooked you get. You become conditioned, like a rat in a laboratory cage. When rats are taught to press a lever that randomly dispenses a delicious morsel, they press the lever obsessively. After a while, they will keep pressing the lever even if no more morsels come out… until they starve to death (I think this is an unconscionable experiment, by the way, one probably carried out by psychopathic researchers).

Similarly, we may have held on even when there was no more “love” to be had.

Morsel-Bombing

Lab rats are taught to press the lever by starting them out with continuous positive reinforcement. In the beginning, every time they press the lever they get a morsel (just like the idealization phase, or ‘love-bombing’). Then the researchers change the game — the rat presses the lever, but a morsel isn’t delivered each time anymore, only once in a while.  He is fearful that he won’t get fed but he knows pressing the lever brought food in the past, so he keeps pressing it until he gets some. As long as he gets a morsel once in a while, he keeps pressing it. When the morsels stop coming, he’s sure he’ll get one next time he presses it, or the next time, or the time after that… so he never stops trying.

Intermittent reinforcement plays a big role in traumatic bonding. A trauma bond is a very strong attachment to an abuser that develops not in spite of, but because of the abuse.

“Dutton and Painter have elaborated a theory of ‘traumatic bonding,’ whereby powerful emotional attachments are seen to develop from two specific features of abusive relationships: Power imbalances and intermittent good-bad treatment.”

So what can we do to prevent from being victimized by intermittent reinforcement in the future? It was hard to recognize because it emerged later in the relationship, and it was hard to walk away because we were already attached. Also, we may not have been knowledgeable about this powerful manipulation technique. Now we have that knowledge along with experience to go with it, and we can put it to work for us.

Here are some things to keep in mind for future relationships:

  • Trust is based on three things: Predictability, dependability and faith. Predictability is based on the consistency of a partner’s behavior, which is in stark contrast to intermittent good-bad treatment. Dependability is the degree to which you trust your partner to be honest and reliable. Faith represents your conviction that your partner will be responsive to your needs, can be relied upon, and be counted on to behave in a kind and caring manner. Don’t judge these things by how they were at one time, in the past — consider how they are at the present time. Psychopaths are good at gaining our trust, but not good at keeping it.
  • Look for the hallmarks of a healthy relationship: Intimacy, commitment, consistency, balance, progression, shared values, love, care, trust, and respect.
  • Listen to any alarm bells that go off in your head, and listen to friends and family members whom you know to have your best interest at heart. Don’t ignore them, no matter how much you would like to.
  • Become and stay very conscious of the dynamic of the relationship, and of the part you play in it. Be aware that when you feel chronically insecure, heartsick, anxious or hurt, you can get caught up in the drama caused by manipulation and become blind to the larger dynamics at play.
  • Keep in mind the signs in yourself that you’re being manipulated — it is easier than trying to figure out your partner, who will be lying and making excuses. You will not feel like this in a healthy, normal relationship.
  • Work on developing good, clear boundaries now, before you get involved with someone. This is probably the most important thing you can do.

7 things entrepreneurs can learn from art of loving

Eleanor of Aquitane is the origin of courtly love. Courts of Love, troubadours and de Troyes bore her influence.

Philosopher Fromm presents love as a skill that can be learnt/nurtured, not unlike entrepreneurship.

Ideally, I (entrepreneur) feel towards you (idea):

  1. intense desire/attraction;
  2. full dedication without (material) expectations in return;
  3. no sense of rigid ownership;
  4. love for what you’re now – support in your desire to grow;
  5. need to constantly communicate/interact;
  6. your right to go your way with my love/support still with you, despite me/my feelings;
  7. joy for moments shared together.

Love is the highest feeling humans can attain.

I am sorry

It has been some time since I last wrote about personal failures. I stumbed accidentially on “I am sorry” poem-list of utterances by men who fail to be noticed, appreciated and loved by women. Men, as it usually is when serious feelings are invovled, are quite perseverant and tolerant, but even then they might become disillusioned. Many women come to an eventual realization of what they really were looking for or cared about. However, it is too late…Below find that poem-list of common I am sorry-s (my own formatting)

I’m sorry
that I bought you roses
to tell you that i like you

I’m sorry
That I was raised with respect
not to sleep with you when you were drunk

I’m sorry
That my body’s not ripped enough
to “satisfy” your wants

I’m sorry
that I open your car door,
and pull out your chair like I was raised

I’m sorry
That I’m not cute enough
to be “your guy”

I’m sorry
That I am actually nice;
not a jerk

I’m sorry
I don’t have a huge bank account
to buy you expensive things

I’m sorry
I like to spend quality nights at home
cuddling with you, instead of at a club

I’m sorry
I would rather make love to you then just screw you
like some random guy.

I’m sorry
That I am always the one you need to talk to,
but never good enough to date

I’m sorry
That I always held your hair back when you threw up,and didn’t get mad at you for puking in my car, but when we went out you went home with another guy

I’m sorry
That I am there to pick you up at 4am when your new man hit you and dropped you off in the middle of nowhere, but not good enough to listen to me when I need a friend

I’m sorry
If I start not being there because it hurts being used as a door mat, only to be thrown to the side when the new jerk comes around

I’m sorry
If I don’t answer my phone anymore when you call, to listen to you cry for hours, instead of getting a couple hours of sleep before work

I’m sorry
that you can’t realize.. I’ve been the one all along.

I’m sorry
If you read this and know somebody like this but don’t care

But most of all

I’m sorry
For not being sorry anymore

I’m sorry
That you can’t accept me for who I am

I’m sorry
I can never do anything right, and nothing that I do is good enough to make it in your world.

I’m sorry
I caught your boyfriend with another girl and told you about it, I thought that was what friends were for…

I’m sorry
That I told you I loved you and actually meant it.

I’m sorry
That I talked to you for nine hours on Thanksgiving when your boyfriend was threatening you instead of spending time with my family.

I’m Sorry
That I cared

I’m sorry
that I listen to you at night talking about how you wish you could have done something different.

The author concludes:

Ladies always complain and gripe to their friends that there is never any good guys out there, and they always end up with assholes who mistreat them. Well ladies next time you’re complaining, maybe look up to see who you’re complaining to, maybe that special someone is right there hanging on your every word as usual, screaming in his head “Why won’t you give me a chance?”
Because the person you are usually searching for is right by you.