Thinking about intimidation is hard enough, let alone talking about feelings of being intimidating and intimidated by one another, in pairs or even groups. Intimidation has public and private faces, mirroring the internal divisions that threat creates within our own minds. And some people are more easily intimidated, all other factors being equal.

Hear me roar

On one hand there may be a rush of pleasure, sense of power. And yet at the same time, there can be pangs of piercing regret and shame over losing control. We recognize that if others are scared of us ? if others expect that we may unexpectedly hurt them, or pressure them in unwelcome and distressing ways ? we leave ourselves in a very lonely place, regardless of whether they stick around or not. If they stick around, we may feel relief and guilt; if they leave, we may feel relief and grief.

Being of the animal kingdom, it's wired into us to use a variety of displays of power in order to ensure our safety and status in the pack and further our goals. Not everyone is an apex predator or an alpha dog. But we are all tuned into where we stand with one another, with scant exceptions. Would you rather be timid, or intimidating?

For some people, there's no problem if they feel that they're intimidating. They may really want to be intimidating, a different beast entirely from those who are intimidating without meaning to or realizing it. When people are inadvertently intimidating and have ambivalent feelings about the feedback they get, it is a more interesting situation to think about than when people are singularly being bullies, because inadvertent intimidation, the subject of the rest of this piece, suggests an unrecognized division within oneself, a Dr. Jekyll and Mr./Ms Hyde doubling driven by mutual unrecognition. And gender plays into intimidation of course. For example, research (Bolino and Turnley, 2003) found that managers rated female employees are less likable when the ladies were perceived as intimidating, but for the gentlemen, intimidation did not influence likeability. Not only that, but male employees who used intimidation were also deemed better performers, an effect not enjoyed by women.

Intimidated, intimidating, intimidation

To add complexity to the discussion, sometimes people, of course, are perceived as being intimidating when in fact they really feel an entirely different way?on the inside, vulnerable or scared in some way. When that happens there is a big disconnect between the feedback we get from other people. The ?Me? I see through what others show me through their fearful words and behaviors is not the ?Me? I hold in my mind?s eye. We have trouble holding these two identities together. Our psychological containment fails, and we rely on defensive behavior to maintain equilibrium if we are unable to make constructive use of such feedback (which is usually not given in an easy-to-take-in-way as the other person is speaking from a position of threat).

It's not unusual for this kind of disconnect to happen, and inadvertent intimidation comes up in several different ways, which are informative to spell out. If anyone has been in effective therapy for long enough or has the good fortune of being able to be self-reflective in constructive ways without therapy, we have a pretty good idea of the discrepancy between different versions of ourselves in the eyes of others and those versions of ourselves we can grasp internally. The more coherent our sense of self is, regardless of how multifaceted, the more in-line is who we see ourselves to be with how others appear to know us.

With this in mind and with therapeutic whimsy as a form of whistling in the graveyard, let?s look at a few different ways that people may be unwittingly intimidating. From hiding oneself and creating a sense of apprehension in the other, to exercising a cold, penetrating intellect without seeming to understand how this may make others feel, to wielding status and power as a matter of habit, to avoiding competition and leading others to feel valueless, to being unaware of the impact of great beauty or charisma, to being vague and mystifying and creating confusion?and perhaps other ways I haven?t considered?we can seriously alienate others by intimidating them without even realizing it is happening, blindsided by the unintended consequences of own actions.