3 key drivers of gaslighting

A 2024 study of research into gaslighting, dating back to 1981, used that data to create a hypothesis about where the impulse to gaslight comes from. The researchers ran an experiment to test their hypothesis on the drivers of present-day gaslighting behaviours.

While the researchers’ focus was on emerging adulthood and romantic relationships, the categories they used and the impulses to gaslight apply in equally enlightening ways to workplace gaslighting.

It’s useful to know why someone is gaslighting you in both personal and professional relationships. It’s also helpful for the perpetrator to understand what drives them to act in this harmful way. Gaslighting in the workplace can be just as devastating, if not more so, because the employee risks their position, livelihood, and career in walking away from the gaslighter.

In the early 1980s, psychologists defined gaslighting as a “peculiar type of violence characterized by manipulation strategies intended to control and alter the partner’s sensations, thoughts, actions, affective state, and even self-perception and reality-testing.” A gaslighting professional can also use “manipulation strategies” that impact another employee’s feelings, thoughts, actions, sense of self and understanding of reality.

In 2007, researcher Robin Stern focused on the perpetrator’s intention to“psychologically subjugate another individual.” The techniques to take control of a target ranged from active assaulting to more passive minimizing and denying. Both physically aggressive and emotionally neglectful behaviours constitute what Stern describes as “a form of psychological violence” that altered the target’s “thoughts, perceptions, actions, and affects.”

Three types of gaslighting

Stern’s research identified three categories of gaslighters that use excessive kindness, cruelty, or disguise in order to take control of others’ self-regard, relationship to others, and relationship to reality. If we apply it to the workplace, the first category acts like a “false mentor.” The controlling is done through “flattery and pandering” that make the target “feel special.”

In abuse cultures, this category describes the relationship between the bully and the favourites. The bully favours some who benefit from the bully’s “dysfunctional behaviours” and this entraps them “in a distorted reality.” They fawn over the one who is bullying and gaslighting.

The second category is the “false moralist.” The good deeds this gaslighter does are “directed at satisfying his/her narcissistic needs and preserving his/her positive self-image.” The good deeds act as distractors when abusive conduct is reported. The good deeds are intentional ways to dress the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Because they appear good, it’s difficult to believe they also do harm.

The third category at work uses intimidation in order to express “his/her aggression in a direct form, addressing harsh, reiterated and frequent criticisms and disapproval to the gaslightee.” We can call this the “tough-love leader.” When you question their maltreatment of targets, which is frequently exacerbated by their kindness to favourites, you are told that the harshness and humiliation are meant to “motivate” and improve performance. Both groups are being gaslit and both serve to increase the gaslighter’s puppet-master status.

Why do gaslighters behave this way?

The 2024 experiment found three driving forces in particular that led an individual to gaslight others. Their data revealed three severe risk factors for gaslighting: separation insecurity, irresponsibility, and distractibility. The “false moralist” category does not appear driven in the same way, which suggests this aspect of gaslighting may be used by the other two categories to confuse and cover up what’s going on.

Separation Insecurity. While the gaslighter – especially the tough-love leader category – threatens the target with penalties or job-loss, in fact, the experiment showed their motivation or drivers came from “separation insecurity.” They found that these gaslighters suffered from “narcissistic vulnerability, a sense of unbearable loneliness, a terrible fear of being rejected.”

Psychologists Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, along with neuroscientist Simon Baron-Cohen, correlate abusive behaviours like intimidating, threatening, manipulating and gaslighting with abuse and neglect. In the workplace, we need to become clearsighted about whether or not tough-love is actually a coverup for past trauma that is unresolved.

Distractibility. The tough-love leader gaslighter is “openly aggressive and sharply critical” towards targets. They can manifest emotionally or physically violent behaviours including “contempt, denigration, threats or psychological punishment, which are usually implemented unexpectedly and incoherently.” The researchers posit that distractibility, which is a difficulty in concentrating on a task and in maintaining a goal-focused behaviour “could explain the suddenness” of the tough-love leader’s gaslighting behaviours and, “consequently, the related sense of hopelessness in gaslightees.”

In the workplace, unpredictable, aggressive, humiliating behaviours should not be normalized. The resulting hopelessness in targets needs to be addressed in trauma-informed ways. Likewise, those who act in harmful, targeting, and unpredictable ways need to be assessed for vulnerability, loneliness, and fear of rejection.

Irresponsibility. The false mentor gaslighter suffers from irresponsibility that the researchers describe as “having a tendency to consistently disregard obligations.” They note that “individuals with a high level of irresponsibility show a severe lack of respect for agreements and promises and are prone to fail to honour their commitments.” Irresponsibility is consistent with the false mentor as “someone who is narcissistically self-centered: he/she has a lack of empathy and does not take into consideration the effects of his/her own behaviours on others.”

Early detection and resistance

Workplace training on what to watch for in terms of gaslighting behaviours could highlight three patterns that should educate and empower employees. Workplace abuse leans on three key behaviours — fear, humiliation, and favouritism — and gaslighting behaviours correspond. The false-mentor has favourites who receive unearned benefits, flattery, and special treatment. The tough-love leader blatantly humiliates and threatens the non-favourites.

All targets have their reality distorted believing that the gaslighter has their best interests at heart when in fact, the gaslighter is driven by separation insecurity, distractibility, and irresponsibility. All should be watching for these three behaviour patterns, rather than becoming fearful favourites or hopeless targets. It’s not healthy to provide unearned benefits to secure connection and it’s not healthy to be unpredictable and aggressive. These are red flags that should be addressed instantly and not normalized. Finally, the false moralist – whom history documents in cults — should be watched. They cover up abuse to the minority with good deeds to the majority. It’s a red flag.