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Zoey Cambley

English 10H

Ms.Moss

23 september 2018

​Typed evidence
Marco Brambilla and Paolo Riva wrote about a study, “Predicting Pleasure at Others’
Misfortune: Mortality Trump's Sociability and Competence in Driving Deservingness and
Schadenfreude”, that was conducted and was based on finding the drive for manipulation. In
their journal they explain, “Study 1 compared a competent but immoral individual to a
competent but unsociable person and found that people felt more schadenfreude when a
misfortune befell an individual lacking morality. Study 2 confirmed the primary role of morality
in driving schadenfreude by manipulating not only morality and sociability, but also
competence.”

In “Situationism, Manipulation, and Objective Self-Awareness” Hagop Sarkissian

illustrates the ideas of how manipulation can be used for good. He address how manipulation is
used in our daily life by explaining, “​And yet, troubling though it may seem, the precise contours
of manipulation are complicated and hard to pin down, partly because influence and sway are
part of the very fabric of social life—as endemic to it as interaction itself. T.M. Wilkinson notes
that people can be manipulated when they go shopping, strike contracts, vote, study at school,
visit their doctors, or take turns to do the housework. All of these are entirely mundane
occurrences where the possibility that we might manipulate (or be manipulated) is hardly worth
noting. The brute fact of being swayed or influenced or otherwise prompted to one course of
action or another seems a part of everyday life.”

​Then to get an idea of the average manipulator, Abigail Brenner explains the qualities
that make up a manipulator. In “9 Classic Traits of Manipulative People” she asserts,
“Manipulative people either lack insight into how they engage others and create certain
scenarios, or they truly believe that their way of handling a situation is the only way because it
means that their needs are being met, and that's all that matters. Manipulative people do not
understand the concept of boundaries. A manipulator avoids responsibilities for his own conduct
by blaming others for causing it. Manipulative people prey on our sensibilities, emotional
sensitivity, and especially ​conscientiousness​.They will often talk about you behind your back the
same way they talk to you about others. They are masters at “triangulation"—creating scenarios
and dynamics that allow for intrigue, rivalry, and ​jealousy​, and encourage and promote
disharmony.”
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The evil side of Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, was assuming power over his consciousness. This
is when he notices that his want of being Mr. Hyde is no more, and he is being manipulative into
indulging the villainous side. This realization is declared, “It was on this side that my new power
tempted me until I fell in slavery. I had but to drink the cup, to doff at once the body of the noted
professor, and to assume, like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde” (Stevenson 72)

Now Dr. Jekyll is noticing the qualities of Mr. Hyde’s personality. Which coexist with
the qualities of a manipulator. An exemplification of this would be, “This familiar that I called
out of my own soul and sent forth alone to do this good pleasure, was a being inherently malign
and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity
from any degree of fortune to another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at times
aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde” (Stevenson 74).

Joseph is admitting that he was overcame by a unknown being inside himself that was
manipulating him to not care about the risks ahead. This is displayed when Joseph hears about
Madeline's death, he explains, “He didn’t know what was coming over him, but it was huge and
terrible and strong. It was inside him and outside him, and it was already starting to scream, and
it was getting louder and his head was getting louder and his brain was getting louder and he
threw water in his face but he couldn’t stop it he couldn’t stop it he couldn’t stop it he couldn’t
stop it. When Manny Toole came in, he said Joseph looked like he needed something bad and he
could have these if he wanted them, and he held out his hand and there were two yellow pills.
Joseph took them both and splashed water into his mouth and the whole world exploded and he
staggered into one of the stalls and shattered there until one of the teachers found him.” (Schmidt
82)

In this instance manipulation, or nudging, is being used for good. Madeleine was such an
important person in Joseph’s life, all she wanted for him was for him to be happy. When
explaining this Joseph conveys, “That summer, Joseph came every day--except the weekends,
when Madeleine’s parents were home. When Madeleine’s parents were home. They watched
movies, they played tennis on clay courts, they walked long walks through the back acreage, and
they swam in the pool. She laughed and sometimes he laughed too. She never asked him why his
face looked so beat up. He didn’t tell her what his father was doing to him because he wasn’t
around anymore to carry tools.” (Stevenson 70)
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Work cited
Brambilla, Marco, and Paolo Riva. “Predicting Pleasure at Others’ Misfortune: Morality Trumps

Sociability and Competence in Driving Deservingness and Schadenfreude.” ​Motivation

and Emotion,​ vol. 41, no. 2, 2016, pp. 243–253.

Brenner , Abigail. “9 Classic Traits of Manipulative People.” ​Psychology Today​, Sussex

Publishers, 27 Oct. 2016,

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-flux/201610/9-classic-traits-manipulative-people​.

Sarkissian, Hagop. “Situationism, Manipulation, and Objective Self-Awareness.” ​Ethical Theory

and Moral Practice​, vol. 20, no. 3, 2017, pp. 489–493.

Schmidt, Gary D. ​Orbiting Jupiter​. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. ​Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories​. Pan

Macmillan, 2017.