Psychological manipulation runs rampant through our society. People often try to get us to feel, think, say, or do things that are in their best interests by making us feel like those things are in our best interest. We find it in politics, business, the media, and in social situations.

President Bush is a great manipulator: He's full of pithy slogans designed to make us feel the way he wants us to feel. He doesn't want us to "Cut and run," but he does want us to "Stay the course," "Support the troops," "Win the Peace," "Finish the job," and "Accomplish the mission." When people in authority, like the president, vice-president, cabinet members, congressmen, senators, and pundits repeat easy-to-remember catchphrases in different environments, our minds soon begin to remember them as truth. They are an induced regression back to childhood, where authority figures in our lives repeated what we should and shouldn't do ad infinitum.

Big corporations are also big manipulators. They manipulate employees, suppliers, and customers. Big corporations are different than others because their size gives them so much more clout. Bigger employers mean greater bargaining power because employees have fewer alternatives. Most often, they have many more people they can hire for our position than we have employers to choose from in the location and at the salary that we want. Large corporations are a big prize for suppliers that are vying for their business and both sides know it. As a result of their size, they most often have a much greater amount of bargaining power than the companies selling to them. Large corporations also are part of an oligopoly as a result of their size. They have many times gobbled up competitors over the years, and spent millions on advertising and the building of their brand names to allow them to command premium prices for their products and services in the marketplace. The better a brand is known and the stronger position it has in our minds, the more leverage a company has over us.

Television is a great tool for manipulation. Being a passive medium, it can lull us into accepting messages that we wouldn't otherwise accept. When we watch television, most of us are looking to be entertained rather than be actively engaged in what we are doing. We are relaxing and we are absorbing. When we are in that state, we are prone to having messages imprinted into us. It happens most often when we are presented with messages that have meaning to us, which cause us to experience emotions, and are expressed clearly and repeatedly.

Advertising is everywhere we turn. When we watch programs on television, the characters use brand name content. We see iPods and BMWs and Pepsi logos. When we get into a car, we see ads on billboards and busses and taxis. When we go shopping, it's on shopping carts and promotional displays. When we go to a baseball game, it's on scoreboards and outfield walls. When advertising is as pervasive as it has become, we tend to accept it, along with the rest of our environment.

The Internet provides a tremendous opportunity for manipulators. E-mails come to us with our names in the subject lines from people we don't know. Those subject lines appeal to our curiosity without telling us what's in the message. If we're looking into a home-based business, the sellers often won't even tell us what the product is or does unless we agree to hear an entire presentation. They need time to get us excited about what they're offering.

Manipulation also pervades our people relationships. The people closest to us often try to tell us what to think. They push our buttons to gain a sense of power. They're overly nice when they feel they have to be and not nice enough when they're feeling secure.

The world is full of people trying to influence us. The problem comes when they push too hard and use manipulative tools to help them get what they want. Powerful people and powerful organizations have a platform and bargaining power that already give them an advantage. Then, they get their messages into our heads by making them meaningful and emotional, and making them clear and frequent. Our friends and family use the same techniques.

The key to dealing with manipulation is to recognize it. Once we recognize that someone is using a technique, we can deal with it more appropriately.