Gaslighters Target Our Brains' Dependence on Others

Key points

Gaslighting is usually limited to a perpetrator and target, but it can influence group dynamics.

Research shows we depend on others to co-create a sense of reality, and this puts us at risk for manipulation.

Our collective construction of reality opens the door to individual and group gaslighting.

Understanding how manipulation impacts organizational psychology highlights the danger of gaslighting.

In 2025, researchers Willis Klein, Suzanne Wood, and Jennifer Bartz published findings on how gaslighters use the brain’s dependence on relationships to upend the way we co-create reality. We depend on others to “verify our self-views and our experience of the world,” but when we connect with emotional abusers, specifically gaslighters, for the building of our shared reality, we