Home/Guidance material for university and general education teachers/Constructivist Treatment of Political Values and Identities in the Educational Process/Exercises/What is manipulation about?

What is manipulation about?

Main subject: Civics, Social science

Key words: Manipulation, Social behaviour, Decision-making, Argumentation


Main questions to be reflected on:

  1. What does it mean that someone is manipulated or that somebody manipulates?
  2. Is manipulation an inherently evil kind of social behaviour?
  3. How can I recognize that I am manipulating someone or that I am being manipulated?


Teaching methods:

  • movie analysis
  • individual work
  • teamwork
  • discussion
  • writing
  • case study


Time: 45 minutes

Teaching aids: worksheet, writing implements, video extracts (see links below)

 

Links:


Main aim of this exercise:

This activity focuses on the consideration of manipulative behaviour as an inherent though unfavourable part of social life that every human being is capable of and needs to understand. In this regard, the material called “Famous heroes as manipulators” endeavours to suggest that there is neither a universal nor clear-cut definition of acceptable ways to persuade or, on the contrary, inappropriate manipulative techniques, since the delimitation of suitable and unsuitable acts is dependent on the variable contexts of their use. To demonstrate this quandary, students are provided with several extracts from famous movies that most students are expected to know and whose main characters they may identify with. The selection of the movies might, of course, vary depending on the particular context and purpose of each teacher, but in the initial setting, excerpts from these movies have been selected:

  1.   The removal of the chancellor scene” from the first episode of Star Wars, in which Queen Amidala initiates the process of removing the current chancellor and thus unwittingly brings the dark side to power (Lucas, 1999);
  2. “The restarting of the reactor scene” from the series Chernobyl in which the shift manager blackmails his subordinates (Renck, 2019);
  3. “The roof scene” from the movie The Shawshank Redemption in which the main character, Andy Dufresne, manages to persuade the chief warder to carry out a mutually beneficial though illegal transaction (Darabont, 1994);
  4. “The Cossack democracy” from the Polish historical movie Fire and Sword, in which the Cossack leader Bohdan Khmelnytsky decides on the fate of his subordinates (Wajda, 1999).
  5. “The trial scene” from the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in which Albus Dumbledore convinces the wizard jury not to sentence Harry for breaking a law (Yates, 2007);

Students are then told to distinguish good and bad characters in each of the excerpts and to support their decisions with reasonable argumentation; moreover, they are also supposed to think about the possible connection between all the excerpts with regard to the presented social behaviour. After the presentation, students comment on all the characters in the particular excerpts one by one and observe whether they are able to reach a consensus or not, which is complicated by the fact that some of them might be very well aware of the entire plots of the chosen movies whereas some of them might not. Having seen all the excerpts, students are invited to formulate what the link between all the situations is and they are expected to focus on the fact that in all cases, some kind of successful process of convincing takes place. On the basis of this revelation, students should identify the particular examples of this persuasion and also decide whether they assess them as acceptable or inappropriate ways of manipulation. Of course, individual observations will probably differ, because of possible reasons, such as various interpretations of good and bad characters, the level of knowledge of the plots or willingness to accept the principle of “the ends justify the means” etc. might be dissimilarly significant for each student. On the basis of such reasoning, students should realize that the evaluation of nearly the same behaviour might vary completely depending on the particular context and on the personal affiliation to particular characters, groups or identities. To sum up, the complex of such activities therefore enhances a desirable understanding of social values and deeds as something which cannot be judged once and for all and which also requires the taking of historical, cultural as well as minority points of view into account.

 

Teacher’s Instructions

Each student will be handed the worksheet (see below) where he distinguishes “good” characters from the “bad ones” in each video excerpt.

When all students are equipped with the worksheet, the teacher will tell them the instructions: “Now we are going to watch 5 excerpts from famous movies one by one. You are supposed to watch them carefully and in each case to decide which characters you consider as good ones and which as bad ones. You should also be able to explain your evaluation of all these characters with the help of rational argumentation.”

Subsequently, the teacher will play the first excerpt (video 1) and after watching it they will stop it to allow students enough time to reflect on each excerpt and to write down their solutions (i.e. the division of characters with their argumentation). When all students are ready, the teacher carries on playing the following excerpts (2–5) with the necessary break after each excerpt.

After the last video excerpt, the discussion will start when all students are invited to present their interpretations. Of course, the disputes might occur based both on different visions of moral behaviour as well as on the differences between students who know the general contexts of the movies and the ones that have seen the movies for the first time. However, such differences should be positively used for the demonstration of the typical trait of social reality, where the interpretation of particular behaviours is inherently dependent on distinguished level of knowledge of peculiar or more general context (i.e. our evaluation of certain people and their ways of behaviour raises from our variable awareness of their past, intentions, background etc.)

When all characters have been analysed and commented upon, the teacher can ask the final question: “What do all these video excerpts have in common?” Of course, students’ reactions might vary, but they are supposed to be able to reflect on the basic character of social behaviour which is present in all cases, i.e. the fact that the individual characters use manipulative techniques in the particular situations to persuade the others of the possible solution to the dilemmas that are at stake in each case.

When the manipulation is identified as the common trait of all excerpts, the analysis of this social phenomenon should follow:

The teacher will present the fundamental attributes of manipulative behaviour with the help of these analytical educational links:

On the basis of this reflection of manipulative behaviour, students should be able to:

  • formulate the basic universal definition of manipulation
  • decide whether they assess manipulative behaviour as something inherently evil
  • what are the essential traits of manipulative behaviour and how to react to it
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