Using Evaluation in Manipulation
- id: 1765707667
- Date: Dec. 14, 2025, 10:26 a.m.
- Author: Donald F. Elger
Goals
- Explain how evaluation is used to manipulate.
- Recognize this and respond to it effectively.
- Get high positive payoffs from manipulation avoidance.
What?
Evaluation can be used not only to guide good decisions. But it can also be used to manipulate. Rather than changing facts, manipulation often works by controlling the standards used to judge what is desirable.
Manipulation frequently operates at the evaluation level rather than the factual level.
By selecting, hiding, or distorting standards, a manipulator can steer conclusions while appearing rational and reasonable.
Why Evaluation Is Effective for Manipulation
Evaluation feels legitimate because it resembles careful judgment rather than persuasion or coercion.
When standards are unstated or poorly examined, people often accept the conclusion without questioning how it was reached.
This allows influence without obvious falsehoods.
Common Manipulation Patterns Using Evaluation
- Impossible Standards
- Setting a standard that no real option can meet, such as perfection or zero risk.
- Effect
- Guarantees failure and is used to justify total rejection rather than improvement or comparison.
- Asymmetric Standards
- Applying strict standards to options the speaker opposes and loose or vague standards to favored options.
- Effect
- Makes one option appear obviously superior without fair comparison.
- Hidden Standards
- Making evaluative claims without stating the criteria being used.
- Effect
- Prevents inspection, debate, or correction of the evaluation.
- Fear-Weighted Standards
- Treating small risks as decisive while ignoring benefits and tradeoffs.
- Effect
- Skews desirability judgments by amplifying fear rather than proportional impact.
- Category Errors
- Applying the wrong kind of standard to the thing being evaluated.
- Effect
- Creates apparent failure even when the thing is performing appropriately for its category.
Why This Matters
Distorted evaluation leads to poor decisions even when factual information is mostly correct.
People can be manipulated into rejecting useful systems, products, or institutions not because they are bad, but because they are judged against unreasonable or inconsistent standards.
Manipulation often succeeds by changing what people find desirable rather than what they believe is true.
A Critical Thinking Response
Good critical thinkers do not stop at conclusions. They examine the evaluation process itself.
- Key Questions to Ask
- What standard is being used?
- Is the standard reasonable for this context?
- Is the same standard applied to all alternatives?
- Are tradeoffs and constraints acknowledged?
- Is the evaluation about degree or treated as pass or fail?
Takeaway
Evaluation is a powerful tool. Used well, it guides better decisions. Used poorly or dishonestly, it becomes one of the most effective tools of manipulation.
Learning to inspect standards is essential for resisting manipulation.