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We have all experienced the usual resident ‘winder upper’ that workplace or family village idiot, the one that loves engaging in what’s called micro dosing hostility at your embracement, and they think it’s really, really funny!

Another way of describing it is the family or workplace joker who cannot leave a peaceful moment alone without poking and prodding you with a stick and fabricating a drama and a crisis, all in the name of Joviality – but its only harmless fun they claim!

Here is an example:

Watch out watch out, there’s a massive spider on your head. It’s crawling on your shoulder and they shout it suddenly and abruptly out of nowhere. And then they watch you leap and jump around.

Waving your hands like you were trying to fly. And you enter into horror, brushing the hell out of your head or shoulders and watching them slide into self-satisfied laughter. And then they say only kidding and then they tell you that you should see your face. Now that was hysterical, I nearly wet myself!

To the average observer, this is just high-spirited jinx, a little light banter, just adjusting the safety valve, letting a bit of steam off. Nothing more than that. You’re taking it the wrong way. You need to relax a little bit more, but when the shoe is on the other foot, they also won’t like it.

To anyone with an analytical vigilant mind. This behaviour is exhausting when it takes place daily. Yes, now and again is okay, it’s all part and parcel of getting on in the workplace or family unit.

This is the hallmark of that annoying domestic village idiot—that person who capitalises on your confusion and because it just workplace banter or family fun, it’s OK to do it.

Persistent pranking

When this dynamic runs daily, and its persistent. It starts to appear to be just harmless play. Nothing more than that, but it is turning slowly into something insidious and the persistence of the person doing it is the tell.

This non-stop persistent pranking and playing, is a stagnant cocktail of unexpressed hostility, emotional cowardice, and a strong need, if not a desperate need for a psychological dominant position either in the family unit or in the workplace.

Oh, but it’s only fun and harmless banter everyone keeps saying you should lighten up. You’re taking it to heart. He/she doesn’t mean anything by it.

To understand the inner mind of the chronic winder upper, we have to remove the armour of their phrase, the one they always use, especially when you become angry, defensive, or rattled.

They always say, but I was only joking, I didn’t mean anything. This phrase is the ultimate psychological shield that they are using because it allows that person to microdose their aggression and intimidation without ever having to take any accountability for the upset, they are causing.

Hostility as humour!

They are presenting their hostility, as humour. The perpetrator creates a win, win scenario for their own feelings and ego. And you become their target. That target – produces laughs between you and them in their mind and the audience and the observers around and this is how that person, the village idiot, the prankster, successfully establishes dominance in the space around you.

If you get upset or ask them to stop, the story is instantly flipped and that you, the victim, is far too sensitive, far too touchy. You can’t take a joke. I didn’t mean anything. This aggression remains invisible, gaslighting you into questioning your own space and your own territory in your own home or workplace.

The psychology of the village idiot!

What’s really going on beneath the surface of these seemingly well-presented gentle pranks lurks a very deep defence against true emotional vulnerability in them.

Genuine intimacy requires emotional authenticity and honesty, and the risk of being seen for their fragile inner mind, which I call the ego and that level of exposure is a threat to them. So, the constant joking and winding up people, acts as a manic defence system. And by keeping the workplace or household environment somewhat chaotic and unpredictable, even hyperactive about what they will do next, that person successfully orchestrates a smoking screen and they ensure that the emotional tone of that space is always dictated by them, which prevents a quiet, decent, authentic emotional connection from taking place. That person cannot handle the weight of real relationship dynamics, so they replace them with this performative display for all to see.

Why do they need a reaction?

It is humiliation that is fuelling this behaviour through projection. And the question we have to ask is because they’re doing it every day and maybe several times a day, it is now clearly an issue. If it was being done once a week, then maybe you need to lighten up a bit.

But why do they need that reaction so bad. If you think about it, just observing another person’s sudden fright, confusion, or their emotional dysregulation is supplying them with a rush of psychological power, BUZZ or JOY in that moment.

Does this person live with feelings of powerlessness, inadequacy, or is unfulfilled in other areas of their life and that you, pleasant as you may be, becomes there easy and captive target for a subclinical power trip. And no one even knows why they’re doing it, including themselves. They’re just doing it because it feels like fun, it feels good to them.

It is a supple form of mild level humiliation and it’s disguised as playfulness and affection and by keeping you or the target permanently off balance, always looking over your shoulder, hyper vigilant and waiting for the next metaphorical boot to drop. That person maintains a level of control over your emotional thermostat in your own space, and you have no power or control over it. Because they are calling the show and you are IT!

The long-term effects!

The longer-term effects for some people, not all. And I emphasise some people, working in a workplace environment or living in a family and growing up under this relentless psychological snipping away at you is profound. People who are constantly targeted by this sort of material start to take a second look at comedy and what comedy and obtaining reactions at people’s emotional expense starts to look like. These people who are constantly targeted develop an overstimulated nervous system in the family or workplace space.

Living and working with people who were supposed to be your work colleagues, friends or family members there to support and assist you or protect you even, are actually the ones who will trick and deceive you for simple harmless amusement to meet their own needs. This creates a deep and an internalised hyper vigilance, unsure when the next hit is coming and if this persists over a long period of time it can lead to either implosion or a serious explosion and conflict.

Pranksters on videos, online or public, hidden camera shows, recognise the underlying mechanism straight away. And they do so skilfully to express a dysfunctional deep need to control and demean other people.

Psychology research

This behaviour has been heavily and deeply case studied by psychologists in the area of unresolved subconscious mind conflicts. The pranksters or the village idiot behaviour is a leaked broadcast and advertisement to the world about their own unresolved intimidation and humiliation, potentially all wrapped up in a joke and smile delivered by someone, who is too cowardly to state their real grievances or their needs directly.

By pulling back the curtain on this behaviour you can stop validating the – just kidding defensive behaviour and start calling it for what it is – a desperate ongoing need, a slow creeping and developing aggressive plea and control for power, over the very emotional area or parts of your nervous system that has been damaged in them.

If you want to dive deeper into how these supple power struggles develop and manifest in your everyday life and how to handle them better, you can explore these concepts further by studying relationship psychology dynamics to learn how to identify the toxic behaviours and increase your own personal boundaries and stop it in its tracks.

Why psychologists can predict behaviour well!

If a person is repeatedly provoking and prompting others in a fun type way for a startled or, frightened, response and enjoys the emotional responses and reactions they get. Or they make it worse when they’re ignored or when everyone stops reacting. Then the conclusion has to be obtained from that behaviour as some form of psychological reward is very strong.

Professional psychology is based on direct observation over a period of time, possibly decades. And that human beings repeatedly reveal their inside world through the outside observable empirical behaviour. At the same time, psychology recognises that everybody is unique and individual and the underlying emotional drivers behind that observable external behaviour is most of the time shockingly consistent. Therefore fear, anger, rage, shame, insecurity, attention seeking, status seeking, validation seeking, resentments, pride and self-protection, belonging, perversion, guilt, all tend to express themselves in verifiably recognisable ways across thousands and even millions of individuals all doing the same thing. And yet each individual is a unique fingerprint as to why they do it.

In a nutshell

Subconscious aggression and intimidation, I am just kidding, I was only playing defence is the ultimate armour for passive aggression.

This allows the perpetrator to microdose hostility, dominance, or intimidation without taking accountability. If you the victim gets upset, that person flips the story, you are too sensitive, you are too touchy thus rendering their aggression invisible.

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