What are opportunistic people like? 5 aspects in common

Opportunistic people are a constant in all areas of life: work, affective relationships, the political sphere... However, that does not mean that we cannot identify them (or discover one in ourselves) to try to make their influence not become harmful.

Of course, for that, you must first know the characteristics of opportunistic people, the way in which they act. What follows are its main features.

Typical characteristics of opportunistic people

These are not characteristics that are part of the immutable personality of those who present them: everyone can change.

But nevertheless, they do reveal that they have learned to adapt to situations for personal gain at the expense of others and of the commitments or links established in the past. Opportunistic people do not have to present all these characteristics at the same time, but as a whole they serve to have an "archetype" of this class of individuals.

1. They may have psychopathic features

A part of opportunistic people may present psychopathic traits

. The reason for this is that people who have this characteristic do not experience empathy and have the ability to offer a seductive and charismatic facet that allows them to manipulate other people to perform actions that they believe they do on their own initiative.

People with psychopathic features are cold and calculatingAlthough they rarely let others realize it, they are ruthless, though not necessarily through direct violence.

The key to their ability to manipulate others is the absence of guilt and empathy and their ability to be charming people. In the business world, they also tend to occupy positions of high responsibility: their proportion in the high positions of the organization chart could be of 1 in 5 individuals.

2. They surround themselves with influential people

Those who are opportunists know that the people with the most power are nodes of relationships, people who know (or have access to) many areas of business with potential. That is why from a position of friendship (real or pretended) they can see an overview of the different opportunities that are presented to them to grow.

Something similar happens beyond working life; Opportunistic people try to keep in touch with influential and well-imaged people to benefit from the advantages of being close to where others fix their attention and cultivating good public image.

3. They look for the weakest link in the chain

This is a characteristic that is linked to the previous one. Opportunistic people they observe a network of relationships in which they would like to gain power and focus their attention both in its most influential members and in those individuals who, despite being in a situation of power, may weaken and lose relevance in the future.

This allows the opportunist to be ready to take on the roles of this forgotten person.

4. They take advantage of emotional blackmail

Opportunistic people play a lot at injecting certain doses of guilt into people who are prone to quickly assume guilt that does not really correspond to them. In this way, it may be the case that a business owner makes his employees believe that keeping them in his jobs is a sacrifice, as if do a favor by hiring them, or have an ex-partner fake or exaggerate her discomfort from the breakup so that the other person thinks she is responsible for the suffering this.

The most interesting thing about this type of process by which opportunistic people become manipulative, emotionally extorting others they are the ways in which they make the rest internalize a discourse based on guilt simply by implying things, without actually explaining it directly. This is a way of getting others to embrace beliefs that coldly analyzed would seem absurd.

5. They play with the gender roles that favor them

The gender roles they are a good alibi for many opportunistic people. A man can lead her wife to believe that he has decision-making power for her if he implies that he is responsible for her safety, being physically more stronger than her, and that is why the indications he gives about where not to go at certain times must be followed or what type of premises should not be entered must be in a row.

Another very fine mode of manipulation is Acting like someone who's going on a first date with us will pay for both of our dinner. In this way, the other person is put in the dilemma of whether to become someone outlandish who does not follow customs or someone who assumes that his value as a person is not enough to be on the date, which leads him to assume a position of submission in certain scopes.

Of course, manipulative people will only play the card of gender roles in the contexts in which they favor them, and not in others. In this way, the man who wants his wife to assume her condition of helpless person who must be protected will not hesitate to ignore the male role if he wants the wife to be the one who works the most to maintain an income level that allows buying things for the House.