Axia College Material
Appendix C--'Dirty Tricks' Exercise--Week 9

Complete the table below using the information from the Course Syllabus: Week 8.

|Dirty Trick #/Name |Description/Definition |Why Chosen |***Example from: 2012 Presidential Campaign OR Recent News Story |
| | | |OR Other Situation |
|# 1- Accuse your opponent |When in the mix of arguing or the person is |I’ve experienced this |One of my ex boyfriends tried to constantly accuse me of cheating|
|of doing what he is |Feeling |in a previous |on him and we would have tons of arguments over that. Finally |
|accusing you of (or worse) |Like they’re being attacked and losing the argu- |relationship |after a while it seemed like something was really bothering me |
| |ment, the person will turn the tables and start | |about how he kept accusing and I knew I wasn’t do anything wrong |
| |accusing of the same thing when you didn’t do | |what so ever. I was able to get a chance to look through his |
| |anything wrong. The person is basically taking | |phone one day he had forgot his phone when he went to work so I |
| |the pressure off of them and putting it on to you. | |took advantage and what I saw blew my mind. There were pictures, |
| | | |text messages and even voicemails. It was devastating but it all |
| | | |made sense as to why he was accusing me on a daily basis. When he|
| | | |came home that day my bags were packed at the door and we argued |
| | | |and he tried his tricks on me again and it didn’t work for him at|
| | | |all and of course I ended the relationship. |
|#4- Appeal To Experience |Skilled manipulators, con artists, and politicians often imply that they have |Some people feel that |My children’s father has a friend and he is truly a con artist. |
| |“experience” to back them up, even when their experiences are limited, or |their position is |He lies about so many different things. No matter what he always |
| |non-existent. When coming against someone that has more experience than they do|either threatened or |made up this story about how he was in the Marines and how he |
| |they attack the individual’s experience as not representative, as biased, as |jeopardized because |ranked at different levels at a fast pace. The thing is my cousin|
| |limited, as distorted, or as subjective. |someone with more |was in the Marines and he went to Iraq to fight and everything. |
| | |experience came along |Oddly enough I wound up having a birthday party for my children |
| | |but instead looking at|last year and my childrens father friend was invited and of |
| | |is as a negative |course so was my cousin. After some time army and different |
| | |problem it could |services were being discussed and my cousin started talking about|
| | |easily be turned into |the Marines and I decided to mention that there were two Marines |
| | |something positive. |in the house not just one. My cousin started to question him and |
| | | |he couldn’t answer anything at all. He started to get defensive |
| | | |and tried to attack my cousin credibility my cousin was able to |
| | | |back up everything he said he has pictures and even medals to |
| | | |prove everything. At the end of the conversation my children |
| | | |father friend just walked out without saying a word to anyone. |
| | | |Just a huge lesson that some people meet their match one way or |
| | | |the other. |
|#- 6 Appeal to Pity |Manipulators know how to portray themselves (and their situation) in such a way|People at my job try |I had an experience where they forgot to pay me. It was amazing |
| |as to make people feel sorry for them or at least gain their sympathy, |to do this and like to|when it happened I really was in disbelief when it happened and |
| |especially when they don’t want to take responsibility for something they have |blame other people for|the lady said that because she called out that day and that’s how|
| |done. |their mishaps or blame|the mistake had happened. She didn’t even apologize for the |
| | |their illness like the|mistake. She couldn’t even own up to it. She had the nerve to |
| | |flu or having a minor |blame a headache on her mistake. She then said that people make |
| | |cold or something. |mistakes all my response was I hope you don’t make the same |
| | | |mistake again. I told her if something like this happens again to|
| | | |me I will go to the Vice President of the company. She said she |
| | | |understood and assured me she won’t make that my mistake again. |
| | | | |
|#2 – Accuse him of sliding |Slippery soap is used when a person implies that if someone does one thing, it |Had a friend that was |My one friend she was always making it known how negative things |
|down a slippery slope |will inevitably lead to a domino effect of negative things that in the end will|always like that so |could get anytime I would try to have a positive outlook on a |
| |result in something terrible. |from personal |situation and she would always have a negative come back to shut |
| | |experience from |my positive thoughts down completely. After sometime we just |
| | |dealing with that. |stopped being friends with one another I just couldn’t deal with |
| | | |the fact that every time she had a negative feedback to the |
| | | |situation. I figured out that she does this to get sympathy from |
| | | |people and have people on her side and at times it seemed like it|
| | | |was a game to her. It was unbearable, either way I wished her |
| | | |the best and as far as I know she’s still like that. |
|#40- Tell Big Lies |Skilled manipulators are focused on what you can get people to believe, not on |Know people who tell |There is a guy at my job where he lies about his relationship and|
| |what is true or false. They know that the human mind does not naturally seek |lies big or small for |lies about where he lives and everything it’s so sad and what |
| |the truth; it seeks comfort , security, personal confirmation and vested |no reason at all what |makes it worse is people believe him even when his lie blows up |
| |interest. |so ever. |in his face. He’s just trying to see how far he can go with his |
| | | |stories and see if people will believe him. Another guy I know he|
| | | |lies about his money status, lies about the fact that he has a |
| | | |second house and just makes it seem like he has the best life in |
| | | |the world to make it seem that way for what reason I don’t know. |
| | | |I think it ridiculous because I personally don’t care how someone|
| | | |is living or how much money the person makes. More important |
| | | |things going on in life then worrying about someone else’s life. |
| | | | |
|#42 – Throw in a Red |Manipulators divert from the issue by focusing on what is irrelevant (but |Chose this because |When it comes to throwing in a red herring that’s usually a way |
|Herring |emotionally loaded). |there were shows that |where people draw the attention from them and don’t realize |
| | |I’ve seen such as |that’s what being done sometimes. I’ve seen detectives on tv |
| | |detectives on tv shows|shows such as Law and Order where they may ask a question that |
| | |show when questioning |has nothing to do with the case when they’re trying to solve a |
| | |they throw in a red |murder or rape or both. Where they can ask a question that |
| | |herring every now and |doesn’t pertain to the case at hand. |
| | |then. | |
|#44 – Double Standards |One standard for us. Another standard for someone else |Some people think this|You still see situations where it’s ok for us to do it but if |
| | |way all the time |someone else says or does it it’s a problem. For example the way |
| | | |people are handling then topic of what race can say to another, |
| | | |such as black people are allowed to say the N word to one another|
| | | |but if it were a white person that means it’s a problem and |
| | | |that’s not right and there is always a double standard. |
|#43- Throw in some |Manipulators quote statistics in their favor, even if the source is |Sales Reps tend to do |My husband had a life insurance sales men stop by and he threw so|
|statistics |questionable. |this a lot from what |many statistics at us and its so aggravating when they do that |
| | |I’ve noticed and from |because it’s a sales tactic and we didn’t buy anything at all |
| | |personal experience |because like many sales men he was very pushy and couldn’t even |
| | | |leave me any information to even look over. |
| | | | |
|#10- Attack the person |Manipulators ignore the arguments and they instead find a way to personally |Seen it done in |They did this in the most recent elections where Romney kept |
| |attack the reasoner. |politics |trying to attack Obama where he felt he didn’t have the country |
| | | |best interest at heart and that he was destroying America and not|
| | | |doing what he’s suppose to do. He just attacked Obama constantly |
| | | |instead of talking about the facts and telling what he would do |
| | | |for the interest of the people. |
|#18- Deny or Defend |Manipulators know one looks bad when appearing to be inconsistent, saying one | |You can see that with cops interrogations where sometimes there |
|Inconsistencies |thing and doing another or sometimes supporting X and sometimes attacking it. | |may be loop holes in some ones story as to what may have happened|
| | | |and how everything may have come about to solve the case or if it|
| | | |will lead the cops in the right direction. |