The Ethics Line

Five moves to recognize and refuse:

• Gaslighting: making you doubt what you clearly saw or remember
• Love bombing: flooding you with praise to create dependence
• False scarcity: inventing urgency or shortages that are not real
• Guilt induction: manufacturing a debt you never actually owed
• Moving goalposts: changing the rules so you can never quite satisfy them

All five do one thing: they shrink your freedom to choose. Ethical influence does the opposite.