Intimidation

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Intimidation is an attempt to [fear/frighten/negatively influence] or overawe by speaking or acting in a dominating manner, often with the goal of making a person or people do what the intimidator wants. It is a maladaptive outgrowth of normal competitive urge for interrelational dominance generally seen in animals, but which is more completely modulated by social forces in humans.^{[citation needed]}

Like all behavioral traits it exists in greater or lesser manifestation in each individual person over time, but may be a more significant compensatory behavior for some as opposed to others. Behavioral theorists often see intimidation in children as a consequence of being intimidated by others, including parents, authority figures, playmates and siblings.^{[citation needed]}

Intimidation may be employed consciously or unconsciously, and a percentage of people who employ it consciously may do so as the result of rationalized notions of its appropriateness, utility or self-empowerment.

Intimidation may be manifested in such manner as physical threat, glowering countenance, emotional manipulation, verbal abuse, purposeful embarrassment and/or actual physical assault.