(Just to state the obvious: it is clearly not as bad as the words “coercion” and “gaslighting” would usually imply. I am endorsing the mechanism, not the magnitude-of-badness.)
I agree that hypothesis 1 could be an underlying generator of why the effect in hypothesis 2 exists.
I think I am more confident in the prediction that these sorts of statements do influence people in ways-I-don’t-endorse, than in any specific mechanism by which that happens.
Hypothesis 2 feels truer than hypothesis 1.
(Just to state the obvious: it is clearly not as bad as the words “coercion” and “gaslighting” would usually imply. I am endorsing the mechanism, not the magnitude-of-badness.)
I agree that hypothesis 1 could be an underlying generator of why the effect in hypothesis 2 exists.
I think I am more confident in the prediction that these sorts of statements do influence people in ways-I-don’t-endorse, than in any specific mechanism by which that happens.
Okay.