Chapter 30 Exercises: Manipulation and Coercion — Where Influence Becomes Abuse

Before beginning: These exercises engage with difficult material. Your instructor has reviewed the content note at the start of Chapter 30. If any exercise raises personal concerns, you are not required to complete it without support. Support resources are listed at the end of Chapter 30's index.

Exercise 30.1 — The Spectrum Mapping Activity (Individual, 30 minutes)

The chapter describes a continuum from legitimate influence to coercion. Mapping scenarios on this spectrum requires applying the defining criteria: does the behavior bypass rational agency? Would the target object if they understood what was happening? Does it exploit vulnerabilities?

Your task: For each of the following brief scenarios, (a) identify where on the spectrum it falls, (b) identify which criterion or criteria led you there, and (c) identify any ambiguities.

Scenario A: Before having a difficult conversation with her partner, Maya waits until they have both eaten a good meal and are rested, because she knows her partner communicates better in those conditions.

Scenario B: Darius tells his partner he is fine when he is not, because he doesn't want to start a conflict. His partner later makes a decision based on the assumption that Darius is fine.

Scenario C: Serena's partner consistently reminds her of favors he has done for her when she raises concerns about his behavior, until she feels that expressing a concern will be met with an accounting of what she owes him.

Scenario D: After Marcus mentions a new colleague at work, his partner spends the next week making pointed comments about the colleague's appearance and being noticeably cooler toward Marcus, without ever directly addressing the concern.

Scenario E: A partner monitors the other's location through a shared app they both agreed to use, and occasionally asks "I saw you were near her neighborhood — what were you doing there?"

Discussion: Which scenarios were hardest to place? What made them ambiguous?

Exercise 30.2 — Tactic Identification (Small Group, 45 minutes)

The chapter described six specific manipulation tactics: love bombing, gaslighting, isolation, intermittent reinforcement, triangulation, and DARVO.

Your task: 1. Working in groups of 3–4, read the extended scenario your instructor will provide. 2. Identify all manipulation tactics present in the scenario, citing specific behaviors as evidence. 3. For each tactic, explain the psychological mechanism through which it operates. 4. Identify what a caring response to the person being targeted would look like — not advice, but what you would want them to know.

Note: The goal is analytical precision. This is not a competitive exercise — "finding more tactics" is not the goal. The goal is accurate identification with explanation.

Exercise 30.3 — Applying Stark's Framework (Pairs, 45 minutes)

Evan Stark's coercive control framework directs attention to courses of conduct — patterns over time — rather than discrete incidents.

Your task: 1. With a partner, read the two brief relationship descriptions your instructor will provide. 2. For each, evaluate: (a) Are there indicators of coercive control as Stark defines it? (b) Would a focus on discrete incidents capture the harm? (c) What additional information would you want? 3. Apply Stark's four dimensions — deprivation of liberty/autonomy, exploitation, degradation, state of fear/subjugation — to each case.

Discussion question: Stark's framework was developed primarily from his work with heterosexual female victims. How would you apply it to a same-sex relationship? To a relationship in which a man is the victim? What adjustments, if any, would the framework require?

Exercise 30.4 — The "Why Don't They Leave" Problem (Class Discussion, 30 minutes)

The chapter analyzes why people remain in coercive relationships and critiques the question "why don't they just leave?" as analytically and ethically misdirected.

Class discussion questions: 1. Before reading this chapter, what were your instinctive answers to "why don't they leave"? How has the chapter changed or complicated them? 2. The chapter identifies multiple factors: trauma bonding, cognitive dissonance, material constraints, children, fear of escalation, social/cultural factors. Which factor do you think is most poorly understood by the general public? Why? 3. The chapter argues that analytical attention should shift from the victim's choices to the perpetrator's behavior and the system's failures. What specific changes in how we discuss these situations would this shift require?

Instructors: Facilitate this discussion with attention to the likelihood that some students have personal experience with this material. Center listening and nuance rather than debate.

Exercise 30.5 — Digital Coercion Analysis (Individual, 30–40 minutes)

The chapter's section on digital coercion identifies several forms: location tracking, account monitoring, NCII threats, and post-separation harassment.

Your task: 1. Consider the following proposed technology policies: - A dating app that warns users when they report patterns of message volume or escalation that statistically correlate with coercive contact - A smartphone operating system feature that requires explicit re-consent every six months for any installed monitoring application - A legal framework that treats the installation of tracking software on a partner's device without consent as criminal coercive control 2. For each policy, evaluate: the likely benefits, the likely limitations or unintended consequences, and who would be most helped and most affected. 3. Write 250–300 words evaluating which proposal you find most promising and why.

Your task: 1. Read the Case Study 30.2 on the UK Coercive Control Act (the Serious Crime Act 2015 provision on coercive or controlling behavior). 2. Research: Has your state or a nearby state introduced or passed coercive control legislation? (Your instructor can provide guidance on databases to use.) 3. Write a 400–500 word analysis comparing the UK approach to your jurisdiction's approach, addressing: (a) What does each framework recognize as harm? (b) What evidentiary challenges does each create? (c) What gap, if any, does your jurisdiction's approach leave unaddressed?

These exercises should be approached with both analytical rigor and human care. The goal of naming manipulation tactics is recognition, not suspicion of all intimacy. Close relationships involve influence; the difference between influence and manipulation is the difference between engagement and exploitation of another person's autonomy.