Who is easily manipulated?
This is a question that has real interest to me as a practicing dentist.
Because doctors have the easiest time manipulating patients and good doctors know that they have to fight the temptation to do it.
I'm defining manipulation as working to spread an idea or generate an action that is not in a person's long-term best interest.
Let's look at how people are manipulated.
The easiest people to manipulate are those that don't demand a lot of information, are open to messages from authority figures and are willing to make decisions on a hunch, particularly if there's a promise of short-term gains.
There are habits and activities that leave people open to manipulation. I'm not saying they are wrong or right, just pointing out that these behaviors make you open to being manipulated. Here are a few general categories of behaviors that manipulators seek out:
* Believing something because you heard someone say it on a news show on cable TV.
* Being a child (or acting like one).
* Repeating a mantra heard from a figurehead or leader of a tribe without considering whether it's true.
* Trying to find a short cut to lose weight, make money or achieve some other long-term goal.
* Ignoring the scientific method and embracing unexamined traditional methods instead.
* Inability to tolerate fear and uncertainty.
* Focus on now at the expense of the long term.
* Allowing the clothes or appearance of the messenger (a uniform, a suit and tie, a hat, body type, etc.) to influence your perception of the information he delivers (add gender, fame, age and race to this too).
* Reliance on repetition and frequency to decide what's true.
* Desire to stick with previously made decisions because cognitive dissonance is strong. Cognitive dissonance is what happens when what you believe is contradicted by new information. Research shows that, when confronted with challenging new information, many people seek to preserve their current understanding of the world by rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding the new information.
It's interesting to note that AM radio used to be filled with ads for second mortgages. And now? Gold. Manipulators are tuned in to what people can be scared into or easily convinced of.
Manipulating people using modern techniques is astonishingly easy (if the manipulator has few morals). You only make it easier when you permit people and organizations that want to take advantage of you to do so by allowing them to use your good nature and your natural instincts against you. It happens every day in Washington DC, online, on TV and in your local community institutions.
What does this have to do with dentistry?
A lot. Because the worst kind of dental practice is one which tries to "sell" dentistry to patients by scaring them, not supplying information, not sharing knowledge, and basically recommending treatment because it's good for the dentist, and maybe not the right thing for the patient.
Yes, of course it happens. All the time. It makes me angry when I see it or hear of it.
Look back over the list of characteristics of people who are easily manipulated. Do you see yourself anywhere in that list?
In our office we strive to share full and complete information and we respect your right to your own personhood.
That's one reason why we have a blog and a web site that has huge amounts of information.
We talk about this all the time in our office; we actually have meetings about it, and each of us watches to see that we don't fall into the trap.
Doctors have a special obligation to their patients. We take that very seriously.
