Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #069_ STORY INSPIRE: Human Lie Detector: The Secret Sign Liars Can’t Hide

Transcript

#069_ STORY INSPIRE: Human Lie Detector: The Secret Sign Liars Can’t Hide · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: How long does it take someone to spot a psychopath?
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: About five seconds. So most people think a psychopath looks dangerous.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: They picture the villain in a movie, but that's not
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: how it works in real life. We've done some research
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: in my lab and we found there are certainly some
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: things that you can look for.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Have they ever done that with lying to figure out
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: if people can spot lies?
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Thousands of times. You ask people, what's the number one
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: cue that someone is lying to you? They will say
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: they can't look you in the eye, but there's no
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: research to suggest that that is true. However, there's an
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: essential tool for detecting lies, which is.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, fuck.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: I know I study dark personality traits, and I found
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: that there's four different elements, which are psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: and sadism. And what we found is that people with
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: higher levels of these traits engaged in Duchenne smiles, which
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: is the activation around the eyes. And they also used
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: a lot of hand gestures.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Where does this come from?
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Well, research suggests that abuse, cold, uncaring parenting style, but
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: also overvaluation of a child early in life may lead
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: to more narcissistic views later.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Is there any other fascinating questions you've pursued in your lab.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Yes we studied the extent to which psychopathic personality traits
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: could increase the amount of influence you have in government
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: and also there are three common mistakes people make when
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: dealing with dark personalities we'll get into this more later.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you can spot any of these dark
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: personality traits just by looking at dating profiles.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: All right so this is ryan this feels like a
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: red flag and then there's hayley that would be associated
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: with psychopathy it Okay, David is a brain surgeon. Very impressive.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: But I'm seeing narcissism.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: So I guess this begs the question, that if someone
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: has those traits you've described, can they be cured?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: So in my lab, what we found is that....
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: This is super interesting to me. My team gave me
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: this report to show me how many of you that
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: watch this show subscribe. And some of you have told us,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: according to this, that you are unsubscribed from the channel randomly. So,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: favour to ask all of you, please could you check
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: right now if you've hit the subscribe button if you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: are a regular viewer of the show and you like
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: what we do here we're approaching quite a significant landmark
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: on this show in terms of a subscriber number so
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: if there was one simple free thing that you could
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: do to help us my team everyone here to keep
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: this show free to keep it improving year over year
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: and week over week it is just to hit that
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: subscribe button and to double check if you've hit it
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: only thing i'll ever ask of you do we have
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a deal if you do it i'll tell you what
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: i'll do i'll make sure Every single week, every single month,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: we fight harder and harder and harder and harder to
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: bring you the guests and conversations that you want to hear.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I've stayed true to that promise since the very beginning
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: of the Diary of a CEO, and I will not
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: let you down. Please help us. Really appreciate it. Let's
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: get on with the show. Professor Leanne Tenbrink, at the
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: very heart of your motivations, why is it you do
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: what you do?
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: I want to make people less cynical about human nature.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: which I think might seem kind of paradoxical given what
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: I study, because I study deception and dominance and so-called
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: dark personality traits. But I think when you understand those topics,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: and also that there's something you can do about it
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: to make these interactions better, it's incredibly powerful and can
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: give us a more accurate view of the world.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: And why all the population at large so interested in
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: these subjects? Because they are. They're fascinated by it. But
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: what is underneath all of this sort of fascination and curiosity?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: What are they trying to figure out when people are
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: interested in psychopathy?
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: You know, I think one of the reasons why we
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: are so interested in psychopathy is because it's quite foreign
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: to us. So most of us move through life caring
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: about other people, having compassion for other people, telling a
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: few lies here and there but by and large being
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: very truthful and honest and kind of playing by the
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: rules and that's like the opposite of psychopathy and so
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I think when you are faced with this personality that
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: is quite the opposite of your whole experience of being
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: alive you're like what's going on and I want to
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: understand that I think there's also an element of There
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: actually is some research on like true crime specifically and
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: why people are interested in true crime tends to be
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: a largely female audience. And some of the motivations that
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: people report is like wanting to understand and wanting to avoid,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: you know, becoming a victim of these people.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Is it possible to spot someone who is a psychopath? Yes.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: How long, according to the research, does it take someone
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: to spot a psychopath?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, you can get a kernel of truth about someone's personality,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: the extent to which they're psychopathic, in about five seconds.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Explain the research to me.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, so this is research by Scott Lillenfeld and his colleagues.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: And basically what they did is they showed people... five-second, 10-second,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: and 20-second clips of these interviews where criminal offenders were
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: being interviewed by a psychologist and rated on their psychopathic
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: personality traits. And then you had random psychology student volunteer
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: for research watching five seconds of that interaction and making
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: a rating of how callous do they seem, how manipulative
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: do they seem. And they found that there is actually
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: a pretty reasonable correlation between the ratings of these, like,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: you know, naive folks who watch 5 Seconds and the
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: trained clinical psychologists who did hours-long interviews and gathered collateral information.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: And so we partnered with Scott and we got these
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: videos and we coded the, like, verbal and nonverbal behavior. Like,
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: are these people behaving differently? And what are people paying
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: attention to? And what we found is that people with
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: higher levels of these traits engaged in these what we
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: call Duchenne smiles. They're a genuine looking smile. But they, yeah,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: that's the one. Okay, so what distinguishes these two kinds
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: of smiles is the activation around the eyes. And it's
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: the creation of like crow's feet. So you kind of get,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: you know, lines in the corner.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So a genuine person will have crow's feet when they smile, theoretically, right?
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Theoretically.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Again, there can be Botox and all kinds of things
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: getting in the way of this, but okay. So it's
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: in the eyes.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's totally in the eyes. Whereas a non-Duchenne smile,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: you know, you have the same kind of upturned lips
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: and maybe you're showing your teeth, you got a big grin,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: but no activation around the eyes. So you don't get
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: those crow's feet. People who are high in these psychopathic
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: personality traits, they were showing these kinds of like, you know,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: very happy looking smiles. as they were saying really hostile things.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: So they were using like happy expressions, hostile language at
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: the same time. So you get this kind of like
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: weird emotional presentation. They also used a lot of hand gestures.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: We call them illustrators. Those seem to be things that just,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: you know, random observers paid attention to and used to
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: help guide their judgments, which of course is like such
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: little information to go on. But it does suggest that,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: you know, you can get a sense of someone relatively
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: quickly but again personality is something that exists across time
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: and context so you're going to get better data the
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: more data that you have across those different times and places.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I've got two more facial expressions.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Here so this is sadness so some of the research
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: that i've done has actually looked at people who've gone
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: on tv and asked for help trying to find their
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: missing loved one and in some proportion of those cases
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: they were actually guilty of killing that person So they
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: are like falsely pleading for help for someone they know
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: is never coming back.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Isn't this your PhD?
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: This is my PhD, yeah.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: What was your PhD in?
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: In psychology, but I was in a more like forensic
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: context at that time. So I was studying behavioral cues
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: to emotional high stakes deception.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: I.e. trying to spot someone who was, say, in the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: media saying, I can't find my wife, please help me.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: A thousand percent.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: But they had killed their own wife. Yes. Yeah.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: So I was comparing a bunch of those cases to
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: a bunch of cases where people genuinely had no idea
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: where their missing loved one had gone. And they were,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: you know, desperately pleading to have them home. And this
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: is one of the differences that we saw in that
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: set of videos where like, maybe you can try to
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: do this with me, Stephen. Are you up for it?
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I'm up for it. I'm always up for everything. Okay.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: So in genuine sadness, you get the like downturn lip corners.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: So you did that pretty easily. What tends to be
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: more difficult is this combination in the eyebrows. So just
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: your inner eyebrows comes upward and together. Oh, you're pretty good.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Nicely done.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: It was hard.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: So what we saw in the people who were lying
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: was more like surprise. So like they were able to
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: kind of pull the lip corners down. But instead of
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: like the inner eyebrows going upward and together, the whole
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: inner and outer eyebrows would go up, but not together.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: And you could predictably tell from footage if someone had
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: done it or not. Like was there correlation?
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so we were able to use four different cues,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: so two verbal and two nonverbal, to predict with about
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: 90% accuracy who was lying and who was telling the truth.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Caveat to that. We tried to replicate that more recently,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: and we found much more modest effects. But we did
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: find consistencies, especially with the verbal stuff. And there it
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: was the number of words that people used. as well
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: as tentative words. So liars would tend to say things like,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: if you see this, come home, or call, or whatever.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: It was kind of like... a little vague about what
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: this person should do if they saw it. Saying things like,
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: it wasn't like an argument per se that we were having.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: So they kind of left a lot of like gray
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: area in the things that they were saying. Whereas the
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: truthful people were like, when you see this, call me.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: They were more sort of high conviction and precise.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. Yeah.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Hmm. And I think down there we have some cards
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: that say three signs someone is lying.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: So one cue to deception is sparse or ambiguous information.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: So the most consistent effect we have that differentiates people
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: who are telling the truth from people who are lying
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: is the amount of detail that they give. So people
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: who are lying tend to give fewer details.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Interesting. I thought it was the opposite.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I hear this a lot where people are like, no,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: but liars will like, you know, natter on and on
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: and on. That's not what we find in the research whatsoever, especially,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: especially when people don't have time to prepare. So whenever
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: people have time to prepare, they can start to look
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: pretty much like a truth teller on the amount of
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: information they have. But if you get someone on the spot,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: the truth teller just has to like say, remember what
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: happened and like spit it out and tell you, right?
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: And you can even ask for more information, like tell
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: me more about that. And they can come up with
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: more information about that because they were there, right? The
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: person who is lying has a much harder task. We
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: call this, they have increased cognitive load, which means that
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: like they need to come up with details on the spot.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: They need to not contradict themselves they need to make
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: sure they remember it for the next time they need
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: to tell this lie they also need to try to
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: imagine like what do you know already and how do
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: i not contradict or essentially step in it right whenever
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: i'm trying to explain what actually didn't happen they must.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Have higher like blood pressure anyway just from knowing that
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: they're not telling the truth and that must make your
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: cortisol spike to know that you're like.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've done some research in my lab to show
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: that people who are lying tend to have an increased
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: cortisol reactivity relative to people who are telling the truth.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: You know, on this one, the reason why I was
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: surprised to hear it is because I'm a big true
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: crime fan, like I just asked. And I often watch
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: the interrogation videos. And I thought I heard before that
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: when they're interviewing someone who is guilty... they will give
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: lots of like irrelevant detail on other parts of it.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: I was watching the Jesse Smollett interview he did on TV. Again,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: he had time to prepare. So maybe that's the caveat.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: And he really described a bunch of pointless stuff. He
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: was like talking to the journalist. He was like, you know,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: and then I landed and I called my manager who
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: was in Australia because my manager is on tour with
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: someone else. And then even when he talked about going
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: to Subway and getting the Subway wrap, he mentioned that
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: it was like a tuna wrap. so like the the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: details he was sure on and that were probably true
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: he seemed to really expand out and then when it
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: gets into the other stuff which is where the the
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: bulk of the lies took place allegedly it was quite vague.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah so we call that embedded lies right so
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: like he's giving lots of detail where it's truthful yeah
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: and then almost no detail where it's a lie right
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: and then lots of detail where it's truthful so you
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: can You can also kind of like compare someone's like baseline.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Like do they tend to give lots of detail? Do
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: they tend to be sparse on information? You can look
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: for kind of deviations. And so if you notice that
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: like someone tells you a really long story, there's tons
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: of detail about all these other things. And then in
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: this part of the story, there's like very little information,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: very sparse or ambiguous information, right? That can be a
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: red flag. And I think what's important to remember is
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: that there is no Pinocchio's nose. There's no like one cue.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: And so what you're looking for is just like these
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: subtle cues that are like red flags and encourage you
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: to follow up, ask more questions, dig in to that
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: topic a little bit further.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: You know, in the same way they did the research
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: to figure out if members of the public could just
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: on the surface tell if someone was a psychopath in 5,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: 10 or 20 seconds. Have they ever done that with
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: lying to figure out if people can spot liars?
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Literally thousands of times. Really? Yeah. So in my lab,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: we've actually had them steal a $ 100 bill from a room.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: And then we had someone come in and essentially interrogate them.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: And everyone had to deny it, right? So the people
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: who took it were lying. And the people who did
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: not take it were telling the truth. And we put
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: $ 100 on the line, right? So if you're able to
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: convince this person that you didn't take it when you
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: actually did, you can keep that at Benjamin's. And then
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: we showed these videos to other people, right? People are
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: not very good at detecting these lies or really any
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: kind of lies. On average, people perform at about 54% accuracy.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Like if I gave you 12 videos, six are liars,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: six are truth tellers, you'll get like six or seven, right?
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: What if someone is trained? Do the stats increase?
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: So... They can increase a little bit.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: What is better actually is learning how to ask better questions.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, really? Yeah.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: So instead of just being like, here's a video of
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: someone lying or telling the truth, like that's all you get.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: And just like, look at that and tell me if
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: they're lying or telling the truth. Good lie detectors ask
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: for more information or they ask unanticipated questions. Where people
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: haven't prepared for them. And then those cues of deception,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: that like sparse information, that like sense that they're thinking
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: really hard is really going to kind of go off
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: the charts. And so learning how to ask good questions
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: is actually a really kind of essential tool for detecting lies.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're going to have to go into that
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: rabbit hole. I've got to be careful here because people
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: are going to take this out of context. Say that
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I suspect my partner is cheating on me.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: And I sit them down and I go, babe, listen,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: are you cheating on me? And they go, no, absolutely not.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: What would be a good question to ask to ascertain
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: if they are actually cheating on me?
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: So I think where you first made a mistake is
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: you asked a closed-ended question. You're like, are you cheating
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: on me? No. You didn't even give them an opportunity
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: to have to come up with something more difficult, right?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: If....
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: You were like, okay, well, I think last Friday night
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: you said you had to work late, but I don't
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: really believe that. I think you were out with someone else.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: You would say, tell me about, you know, work on
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Friday night. And so then you're asking an open-ended question.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's role play. Okay. Okay. You're the one that
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: suspects I'm cheating. Okay. And last Friday night I was
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: up to something. So that's the context. Let's do this.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Okay. I know you had to work late on Friday night.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: What were you working on?
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah it's a big big investment deal that we're working
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: on with a couple of uh the colleagues we had
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: to get a deck together so i was yeah i
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: stayed till what three a.m in the morning or something
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: crazy like that and i ended up falling asleep on
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: my desk and yeah that's a long one anyway what's
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: for what we're doing today what's for dinner.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Okay a red flag flying up so i would ask
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: more questions i would be like oh like what what
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: client were you working on this for? What's the deck about?
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're doing an investment deal with Google. So
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: it's Google's, yeah, it's Google.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I could ask you like, okay, tell me about like
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: what was in the deck, right? And you give me
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: a little bit kind of sketchy information. A great question
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: to have in your back pocket is just tell me
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: more about that. Like you don't even have to like
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: try very hard to figure out like, where am I
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: going to stump them, right? If you just ask, tell
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: me more about that, At some point, the liar is
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: going to have a lot more trouble coming up with
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: additional details than the truth teller. The truth teller is
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: going to be like, oh, well, this is what the
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: project was about. Like, it was actually super annoying because
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: I couldn't get the font on the you know, on
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: the slide deck to stay on the slide, whatever. Like
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: you as a truth teller, you were there and you
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: know all those annoying little things that maybe you didn't
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: include in the, you know, first version of the story.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: But if someone asks you for more detail, you could
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: go into more detail. Whereas the person who's lying, who's
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: making this up, that's much more difficult for them to
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: do because that didn't actually happen.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So they're going to be somewhat vague.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, vague. And the details are going to be really
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: difficult to verify.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: So....
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: If they do give you some details, it might be
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: like the things that you don't know the co-workers that
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: you're working with, right? Oh, it's the new guy at work. Like,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: you don't know him. So in general, liars tend to
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: give fewer verifiable details. And there's this actually really fascinating
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: study that, you know, sometimes we're like, we're trying to
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: like dissect, right? Someone's behavior. We're trying, we're, paying attention
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: to their words. We're paying attention like, oh, are they
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: fidgeting or something, which is actually not a good cue
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: to deception. We're looking at their eye contact, also not
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: a good cue to deception. And we are trying to
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: like create this crazy algorithm in our head, like adding
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: up all of these different behaviors to try to determine
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: whether I think you're lying or telling the truth. Actually,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: research suggests that if you just ask how verifiable was
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: that statement, that's a better strategy for trying to accurately
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: detect lies than Trying to use all of these other
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: cues that actually don't work.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: I if you ask yourself yes how verifiable is the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: excuse this person i think his line gave me yes exactly.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I think the broader finding is just that it is
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: better to focus on one cue that works than to
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: try to put together all of these like little cues
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: that mostly don't.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Work at all okay yeah and the third one there.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: The third one, you know, we've kind of touched on,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: but it's just visible cognitive effort. So all of this stuff,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: you know, the details that people need to come up
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: with is really hard to do, right? And they might
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: be speaking really slowly. They might be using lots of
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: ums and ahs and errs. They might be kind of
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: like furrowing their brow trying to figure things out. Again,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: it's important to remember that like you could pause for
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: a million different reasons that are not deception related, right?
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: You could just be trying to remember something. You could
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: be furrowing your brow because, I don't know, your forehead's itchy, whatever.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: So none of these are Pinocchio's nose, but they are
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: reliably associated with deception.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: What about body language? People always talk about body language.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: People put a lot of stock into body language, particularly
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: into like gaze aversion. So if you go around the
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: world and you ask people, what's the number one cue
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: that someone is lying to you? They will say, sketchy
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: eye contact. And there's no research to suggest that that
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: is true. And if you think about it for like
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: a hot second, it makes so much sense, right? Because
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: I sometimes tell a lie. You sometimes tell a lie.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: We all know the stereotype that liars can't look you
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: in the eye. So if I want you to believe me,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to make sure I control my eye contact.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: And that's something that's well under our control.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: And there's neurodivergence and things like that, which means that
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: some people who have sort of certain neurodiversities struggle with
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: eye contact, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're lying. Exactly.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: So there's some emerging research to suggest that people who
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: are on the autism spectrum are perceived as lying more
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: when they're actually telling the truth. And that's because of
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: this eye contact thing, which people are using as a
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: cue to deception, but in fact is unrelated to deception.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's also like cultural differences, right? In some cultures,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: it's more respectful, like not to look at you in
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: the eye. And so that can also lead to kind
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: of errors in our judgment.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: And there's this sort of dark personality trait thing I
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: hear a lot. Is it a triad?
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: It was a triad. Now we've got a tetrad.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Okay. So is that what this is? Yes. Okay. So
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: if you want to reveal what each of those is
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: one at a time.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Psychopathy, for example.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: What is psychopathy?
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Psychopathy is a constellation that is a set of personality traits.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: So it's not just one thing. Having kind of a
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: superficial charm. They're quite manipulative. And they tend to be
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: pretty grandiose. So they've got a pretty inflated view of themselves.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: There's also emotional components. So they tend to have pretty
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: shallow emotional experiences. A lack of remorse and guilt for
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: harming other people. And they tend not to take responsibility
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: for their own actions. In addition, they tend to be
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: pretty impulsive. So they are kind of living life by
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: the seat of their pants. And they're not really, you know,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: planning far out into the future. And so they might,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: you know, kind of mooch off of family members or
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: a romantic partner. And then lastly, they tend to break
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of rules. So this might be just like
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: workplace rules or social norms, but psychopathy has largely been
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: studied in criminal populations. So this could also be laws.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: The other three of the so-called dark tetrad share some elements,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: but also have some unique flavors. So the next one
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: we've got here is Machiavellianism. And that is named after
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote The Prince, which is a kind
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: of how-to manual to gain and wield power effectively. So
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: as a personality trait, they tend to be pretty cynical
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: about other people. They tell a lot of lies and
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: they try to manipulate people. But it's more like three-dimensional chess.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: They might learn a little tidbit about you, Stephen. They'll
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: be like, you know what? I could use that against
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: him later. I'm just going to like put that in
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: my back pocket. And, you know, when I need to
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: manipulate or like blackmail you in the future, right, they'll
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: have that available to them. So this is, they're very
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: interested in power, which of course is where the name
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: comes from. Next one is narcissism. You know, that's one
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: that people know pretty well, right? So these are people
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: who tend to be very entitled and they're very willing
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: to exploit other people in order to get what they
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: think they deserve, right? So it's like very relentless kind
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: of self-focus.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: This word has been used quite a lot in culture.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: It's thrown around all the time. Constantly, yes. What's your
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: view of that?
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, narcissism, like all of these traits, exists on
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: a continuum.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: So you or anyone else, myself, could take a measure,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: a self-report measure of the extent to which I have
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: these traits, right? And you can land anywhere from very
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: low to very high narcissism. Now, some of these traits,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: narcissism being one of them, actually has a, there's a
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: personality disorder diagnosis at the incredibly high end, right? So
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: this appears in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which is
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: basically like a list of different mental disorders. You could
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: go to a psychologist or psychiatrist. They could assess you
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: and diagnose you if you have like extreme levels of narcissism.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: But like people land everywhere, right? So I think part
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: of the problem is that people say, oh, she's a narcissist, right?
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: He's a narcissist. Are they a narcissist or a psychopath?
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: And they make this kind of very binary distinction there, right?
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: I guess I have qualms with those words for a
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: couple of different reasons. You know, these exist on a continuum.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: There's no clear like Moment where it becomes you are
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: a narcissist versus not a narcissist. And so as with
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: all of these other traits, it's a bit of a mouthful.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: But I think it's more accurate to say they have
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: relatively high levels of narcissism or psychopathy or whatever the
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: case is.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: And you said that there's two main types of narcissists.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so increasingly, personality psychologists are identifying this kind of
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: vulnerable type and a grandiose type. And so grandiose is
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: like one that we all know well, where it's like
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: they've got this ego. It's huge. It like cannot be popped, right?
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: It's like they get this negative feedback and it's like
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: nothing gets through to them. And they always think they
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: should be the one in charge, etc. For those individuals,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: they tend to get very angry. angry with a particular
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: kind of threat to their ego. And that is like
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: a failure to achieve. Like they wanted this promotion at work.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: They didn't get it. Vulnerable individuals actually have kind of
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: a very fragile ego.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: So it can be popped very easily, essentially. So if
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: they get negative feedback from people, maybe they get like
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: socially rejected. that's when they become quite angry. That's more
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: of a trigger for them.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: And is it you using the word angry as the
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: outcome of both those types of narcissists? But I guess
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: one would assume that maybe just from the wording that
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: a vulnerable narcissist would get more upset or more self-critical
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: or something like that.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: The research at least was focused on anger in response
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: to these kinds of threats to their ego. Okay. But
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: certainly emotional, you know, like combative.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, combative.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: This is when you're going to get like a really
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: negative response. Like someone who is relatively low on narcissism
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: of both kinds, you know, could take that kind of
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: feedback that like, no, I don't think a second date
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: is really for us, right? Like someone with vulnerable narcissism
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: is going to respond badly.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Do you know why I asked the question? It's just
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine because of a conversation I was
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: having the other day where we were interviewing someone. Mm-hmm.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: And during the interview process, they were very quick to say,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: to claim credit for like all of the things the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: company they worked at had done. And they were also
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: very quick to say that they were like good at everything.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Even as I walked out the room with them and
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I said, oh, can you, can I message you on
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: this particular app? They said, I'm amazing at that app. Again,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I'm anonymizing. So a lot of this is slightly changed.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: And I walked out of the room weirdly having interviewed
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of people over the years. thinking to myself,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: they were so lovely, but it felt to me like
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: it was more coming from a place of insecurity. And
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: when you look at their story, it's a story of
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: someone who has been continually counted out, overlooked for opportunities,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: and almost has a bit of a chip on their
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: shoulder to try and prove themselves. Now, another person, I think,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: would look at that same pattern of behavior and say, oh,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: that person's a narcissist. So when I had vulnerable narcissist
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: versus the sort of grandiose one, I was wondering if
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the is at all linked what i'm saying like.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: For vulnerable narcissism the reason that they would respond so
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: poorly to this kind of rejection is that they need
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: kind of constant admiration and positive feedback from other people
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: to keep their ego going.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I called this person's former employer to get a reference,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: and they said about him that one of the quotes was,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: he always needs a gold star. What's the difference between
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: deep insecurity and narcissism in this regard?
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: The deep insecurity, it would need to be coupled with
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: these entitlement issues. Like, there's still a grandiose sense of self.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: It's just that it is quite fragile. So they're like,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: they think they're really good and they're willing to exploit
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: other people to get what they think they deserve. And
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: they may feel like they've been victimized, right? And that's
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: why they haven't gotten all of the accolades that they
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: think they deserve. Now, I think kind of regardless of
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: where this person, you know, sits on this continuum, you know,
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: they might still have like incredible skills. They might have
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: the abilities that you're looking for. And so is this
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: something you can manage or is this going to create problems?
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't get any sense that they were entitled or
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: that they would use other people to their advantage. I
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: got the impression that people would generally like them and
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: that they weren't entitled at all, but they still had
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: these sort of self-promotional traits. And I think in society,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the minute someone's like overly self-promotional, we run to the
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: sort of narcissist category versus- It could be other things,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I'm presuming. Yes.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think in that situation, right, you need
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: to be quite mindful of the situation as well, right? So, like,
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: our behavior is kind of a combination of both our
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: personality and the situation that we're in. And so, if
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: you're at a job interview, like, your whole goal is
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: to show people, like, I can do this job. I've
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: got the skills that you need. And so... In a
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: job interview, we might kind of come across as like
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: a more confident, more, you know, we're presenting ourselves in
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: the best possible light. But I think we're very quick
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: to rush to a personality assessment. It's called the fundamental
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: attribution error. So it's like when I see someone behave
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: in a particular way, like they're maybe being self-promoting, saying
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: all the things that they can do really well. I
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: could be like, oh, that's narcissistic, right? That's a personality trait.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: And we tend to be more likely to do that
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: to others. But if I was in their shoes, I
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: would be like, I was just trying to show Steven
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: what I could do. It's the situation that made me
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: act kind of bigger than my britches, right? So we
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: need to also be aware of the situation can impact
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: our behavior. And so we want to be not too
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: quick to make a personality attribution where the situation could
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: explain that. And that's maybe a really important point to
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: make here is that personality is a consistent pattern of thinking, feeling,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: and behaving over time and across contexts. So if you've
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: only got one interaction with this person, you've only got
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: one interaction with this person. You probably get a sense
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: of their personality, but you might see them out with
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: their friends or with their family and they might not
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: be kind of so boastful, right? And that might suggest
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: that this is really the situation talking, not the personality.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: And what are the gender differences in narcissism in terms
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: of both different types of narcissism? You mentioned vulnerable narcissism
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: and also grandiose narcissism. And then I guess there might
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: be some other gender differences in our ability to like
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: spot these behaviors.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: So when it comes to all of these traits that
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: we're talking about, men tend to score somewhat higher than women.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: And that's a quite a consistent finding. That is not
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: to say that women cannot score like very high on
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: these traits. There are certainly cases and there's quite a
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: bit of overlap. But on average, you know, the averages
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: for men tend to be higher than the averages for women.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: And there's a fourth brick.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: That's the newest and latest one, which is sadism. When
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: you hear sadism, you might jump to like pretty extreme.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking of like the devil and stuff. Yeah.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, I first started studying sadistic behavior in the
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: context of like sexual homicides. Like I was reading through
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: these descriptions of criminal behavior and I was looking for
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: signs of sadistic treatment of the victim. So it's like,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: it can get incredibly extreme, right? And that's probably where
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: our mind goes, but there's also like kind of more
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: everyday versions. One good example is like online trolling. So
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: we know that people who are relatively high in sadism
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: tend to, they take pleasure in other people's pain, right?
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: And so you could do that in incredibly like gruesome,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: horrifying ways, or you could just be like pushing people's
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: buttons online, trying to get people upset. They all share-
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: kind of three things. They are callous, so they don't
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: care about other people. They don't care about your feelings
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: or your outcomes. They're manipulative, so they're willing to lie
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: and cheat to get what they want. And they're hostile
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: toward other people. So that's kind of like the core
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: of all of these traits. That's what they share.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Facades. Are they good at hiding it?
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Yes. In fact, some of the earliest descriptions of psychopathy
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: in particular described it as like a mask of sanity.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: And so it's like they can seem quite kind of
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: normal on the surface, but if you kind of get
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: a look underneath the hood, you see that they're not
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: running the same kind of operating system that you are.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: What is the inverse of all this stuff? Because we've
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: pointed at the traits, and a lot of those are
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: things people understand, but there's also some misconceptions. There's also
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: the opposite, which is like, People think narcissists or psychopaths
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: can't hold eye contact is one of the ones you
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: hear all the time. What are some of these ones
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: that through your research you've been able to debunk as
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: not being true?
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: So I think one of the biggest ones is that
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: all people with high levels of psychopathy are violent. And
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: that's absolutely not the case.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: It kind of links to your tweet here. Yeah.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: So most people think a psychopath looks dangerous. They picture
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: the villain in a movie, but that's not how it
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: works in real life. So you probably noticed that like
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: in that description that I gave you, kind of a
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: long-winded description of psychopathy with all those four different elements,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: I did say that there was rule-breaking, right? And sometimes
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: that's criminal rule-breaking. So that could be violent behavior, but
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: it's not necessarily so. So psychopathy is like a risk
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: factor for violent behavior, but there's plenty of people who
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: would score relatively highly and never engage in violent behavior.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: They might break rules in other ways, right? So- I
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: think whenever we hear the word psychopathy, what comes to
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: mind is like a Ted Bundy, right? Ted Bundy type character.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: He reportedly scored, I think it's 39 out of 40
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: or something on the psychopathy checklist revised, which is a
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: measure that psychologists will use to assess how psychopathic someone is.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: So yeah, he's a bit of a poster boy for psychopathy.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: for those traits, but certainly people can score highly without being,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: you know, a serial murderer.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: In terms of the amount of the population that have
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: one of these dark personality traits, what are the numbers?
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: How common is it?
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: So this is a complicated question because as I told you,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: you know, all these traits exist on a continuum. So
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: The proportion of people that we say are high on
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: these traits depends on where you put that cut point, right?
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: If we're talking about psychopathy and clinical levels, that means
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: a score of 30 out of 40 on the psychopathy
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: checklist revised or higher. That's about 1% of the population.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Narcissistic personality disorder. So again, very extreme levels of those traits,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: enough to warrant a diagnosis. That would be 2% to 5%.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: We don't have clinical cutoffs for sadism and Machiavellianism. What
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: we do have is a ton of data of people
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: who have completed self-report questionnaires. So like one way that
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: you can kind of get a sense of how many
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: people are high on these traits is by looking at
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: the proportion of people who on average agree with the items.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Like if I say, I am a born leader, to
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: what extent do you agree with that? That's a, narcissism item.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: If you say, yeah, I agree with that. To what
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: extent do you say, you like to see other people
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: get hurt? Say it doesn't trade. Yeah, I agree with that, right?
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: So if you just look at the people who on
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: average agree with the items that we use to self-report,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: assess these traits, it's about 10% of the population.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: And where does this come from? Does this come from
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: childhood trauma? When you think about some of these you know,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: these individuals you have on these photos in front of
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: you here, where do you think their antisocial or dark
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: triad or dark personality behavior stems from? Is it something
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: that happened in their childhood? Is it genetics? Is it
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: something else?
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: The answer is both. So the research suggests that with
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: respect to psychopathy, narcissism, quite similar, the variation in someone's
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: score on that personality trait is about 50% genetic and
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: about 50% environmental experiences. And so, you know, it can
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: in some ways make us realize that these people didn't
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: ask to be this way because, I mean, you don't
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: get to choose your parents, so you don't get to
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: choose your genetics. And then when it comes to those
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: environmental experiences, often they're like early life experiences and not
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: good ones. So research suggests that, you know, abuse, really
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: kind of cold, uncaring parenting style early in life can
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: increase the likelihood that someone will have higher levels of
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: these traits later in life. For narcissism, another variable is
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: like overvaluation of a child early in life may lead
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: to more narcissistic views later.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: What does that mean, over-evaluation?
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: So there's one study. It was a longitudinal study, and
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: they asked parents the extent to which they told their kids,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: you're special, you're better than other kids. And the more
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: the kids got that kind of feedback, the more likely
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: they were to be more narcissistic later down the road.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: They thought they were exceptional. They thought they were entitled
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: to things that other people were not entitled to. And
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: that's different then self-esteem. We want our kids to have
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: high self-esteem. We want them to know that they are,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: you know, cared for and worthy. That comes from something different.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: That comes from like a warm, responsive parenting styles.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: In that study, I was thinking about causation. And I
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: was wondering if the parents themselves had a genetic disposition
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: to be narcissistic, is it conceivable that they then spoke
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: highly to their children? And actually, maybe it wasn't the
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: nurturing part. It was their nature, i.e., that child also
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: shared the genetics as the parent who had the proclivity
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: to tell them that they were the most amazing thing ever.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Totally. I mean, mostly I think about this in the
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: context of psychopathy, where sometimes you've got a perfect storm, right?
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: So you might have a parent who has really high
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: levels of these traits, so they're passing on that potential
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: genetic risk factor. But if you've got someone, a parent
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: in your household who is callous, manipulative, impulsive... it's going
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: to be very difficult to maintain like a pretty stable
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: home life for that child. And so they might end
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: up experiencing, you know, some of those like abuse and
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: cold kind of parenting styles that are also environmental risk
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: factors for developing psychopathy later in life. So they kind
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: of get like a double whammy.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: From all the research you've done and all the studying
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: of these dark personality traits you've done and self-esteem and
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: everything in between, is there any way to increase one's
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: probability of being a good parent? From everything you've seen,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: what is the right approach? I know that's a difficult
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: thing to say because kids are all different.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, warm and responsive parenting. When you look at
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: treatment for kids who are showing early warning signs of
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: these callous and unemotional traits, that's the treatment that And actually,
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: that's kind of like the silver lining in this whole,
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: you know, kind of dark research area is that early
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: intervention with kids really can help reduce the likelihood of
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: them developing high levels of psychopathic traits as they grow older.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: And usually it's like it's training parents. You know, it's
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: not like a kid comes in and talks to a
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: therapist like once a week and then we're good.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Right. It's it's more.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Training parents about how to respond in ways that don't
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: like escalate, create these kind of like dominance contests when
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: the kid acts out, but also to reinforce and kind
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: of model this warm and responsiveness. But what's fascinating about
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: psychopathy and callous and unemotional traits in kids is is
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: that they tend to be not very responsive to punishment.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: They're very responsive to rewards. So if you see kids
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: doing something kind or helpful, the parent-child interaction training teaches
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: parents to repeat what they said. Say, that was a
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: very kind thing to say. Just like repeating, showing, responding
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: to them, paying attention to their behavior when they do
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: something good or kind. reinforcing it and giving that attention
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: to increase the likelihood that you see it in the future.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: And so the inverse of that in terms of a
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: bad way to respond to a child that might lead
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: to some of these dark personality traits in the future
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: would be?
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: A cold and unresponsive parenting, getting angry, getting frustrated with them.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, physically harming them, that's child abuse is associated
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: with increased likelihood of developing these traits over time.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: You mentioned dominating in terms of dominating conversation, trying to
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: outdo them.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean, and this is something that I
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: think is not exclusive to parenting kids with CU traits,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: but sometimes, you know, if a kid is having a tantrum,
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: you'll like, you'll see a parent saying like, no, you
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: can't have that. And then they'll like, you know, increase
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: the tantrum level and like, no, you can't have that.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: But then once it gets to a certain point, you
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: like give in, right? What that teaches is that you
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: just need to escalate your behavior. You need to continue
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: to like dominate your parent, like kick it up a notch,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: kick it up a notch, and then at some point
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: you're going to win as a kid. So that kind
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: of parenting is not going to extinguish the negative behavior
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: very effectively.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: And there's a brain scan there in front of you.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: What is that brain scan?
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: This is a scan of functional MRI. So what they're
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: pointing out there is is the prefrontal cortex. So research
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: suggests that people who have high levels of psychopathy tend
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: to have less active and less connected prefrontal cortex. That's
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: associated with impulse control. It's also associated with kind of
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: moral reasoning, moral thinking. If their, you know, brains are
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: less active during the same moral or impulse control task
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: in those regions, they're this might help us to explain
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: why they're more likely to behave impulsively, to not be
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: empathetic to other people. There's also the amygdala, which I
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: don't think you can see on here, and it's on
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: the inside.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: You can open it up.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Let's see. So other research on psychopathy suggests that the amygdala,
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: which is deep within our brain, is also associated with
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: emotional responding, particularly fear. And so we know that people
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: with high levels of psychopathy tend to have, they experience
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: pretty low fear and they're not very good at like
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: aversive conditioning, right? So like if we get punished for something,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: we learn that whenever we, you know, come up against
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: that stimuli again in the future, we're like, oh, That
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: turned out really badly last time. I'm going to avoid that.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: So amygdalas in people with high levels of psychopathy tend
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: to be both smaller and less active. So there is like,
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: you know, brain differences, neurological differences between people with high
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: levels and low levels of psychopathy.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: So I guess this begs the question that if someone
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: has those traits you've described, or if there are any
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: one of these four things in this dark triad, these
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: dark personality traits, can they be cured? So.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Some change is possible, but I mean, some. Some being
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: an operative word there. So most of the research we
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: have on psychopathy in particular comes from criminal offenders. So
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: individuals who are incarcerated have to take part in some
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: treatment while they're inside. And the research finds that they're
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: not particularly motivated to So that's a big problem with
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: like all of these things because they don't particularly care
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: about other people. And it tends to be other people
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: that they are hurting with their behavior. And so it's like,
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: why would I change? This is like a you problem,
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: not a me problem, right? So motivation can be difficult
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: to come by with this population. But if they do
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: consistently engage in cognitive behavioral therapies, you can reduce the
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: likelihood of change. recidivism. So the likelihood that they will
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: reoffend upon release. Again, we're talking about incarcerated individuals. When
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: it comes to lower levels of these traits, it's really
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: interesting research by Nathan Hudson had people do these agreeableness challenges.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: And agreeableness is kind of like the opposite of these traits.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: So you would just like ping them on their smartphone
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: every day and would say like, oh, you should give
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: a compliment to a friend. You should reach out to
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: a friend and just offer them some encouragement. You should,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: you know, buy coffee for the person behind you in
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: line at the cafe today. These little things where people
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: were encouraged to be kind, be helpful to other people,
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: to see other people's perspectives. And people who actually followed
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: through on those did report having lower levels of these
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: traits after four months than at the start.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: And in your book, under the section that says hard truths,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: dark personalities persist, you write, poisonous people aren't likely to
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: change very much. Personality traits are, by definition, enduring. Although
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: some evolution of our character happens naturally, it takes decades.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Data suggests that people become a bit more agreeable over time.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: And research with incarcerated men finds that even those with
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: clinical levels of psychopathy are less likely to reoffend as
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: they get older. Even so... Waiting it out is likely
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: to be a painful strategy. One study asked more than
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: a thousand people who knew individuals who were psychopathic for
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: a long time whether their behavior had improved past the
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: age of 50. Almost all respondents, 93%, said that as
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: researchers put it, quote, the behavior was just as bad
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: or worse after age 50 than it had been previously.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Just as bad or worse.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's their personality, right? So it's kind of
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: like asking a tiger to change their stripes. So if
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: you're not motivated to do it, as we know, people
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: with these traits tend not to be very motivated. That's
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: where that, you know, 90-some percent of folks come in.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: It's like they're not dramatically changing unless they find some
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: reason to do so.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: One of the smartest things a business can do is
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: build like a bigger company without actually hiring like one.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: But the problem we all face is that most companies
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: don't have every skill in-house. So when I look at
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: the businesses seeing real success today, the consistent pattern with
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: all of them is how quickly they move. They bring
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: in specialists with skills in emerging areas to keep themselves ahead.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Even in our company, we spent the last year pulling
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: in talent across areas like AI-native strategy... no-code builds and
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: product workflows. And we find this talent through our long-time partner,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: Fiverr Pro. Their premium service only shows you vetted talent,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: so you've always got the safeguard that anyone you pull
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: in to help you with a complex project has the
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: skills that you're after and and will deliver to the
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: same high standards as your internal team. And most importantly,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: they'll keep up with the pace. It's a simple strategy,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: but it lets us stay agile without compromising on quality.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: So if you need these kinds of skills in your business,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: head to pro.fiverr.com to find pioneering talent to fill your
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: business's gaps. That's pro.fiverr.com. Hello, I wasn't able to make
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: that finance meeting. Can you tell me what I missed?
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: What I have in front of me is Whisperflow's new notetaker.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: And for me, it's been an absolute game changer. I
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: spend most of my life sat in very, very long
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: meetings with lots of different teams and lots of different departments.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: In any given week, I could have 40, 50 meetings
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: and sometimes more. But also I sit in podcasts where
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: lots of very interesting things get said and I need
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: to focus on the conversation. What Whisperflow's notetaker does for me...
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: is it captures the entire context of everything that's happened
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: throughout my entire week. It labels who the people are
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: that said what. And I can ask it for things
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: that I might have forgotten, for actions, things that I
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: said I would do that I haven't yet done. It's
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: building this sort of broader context of everything that's happening
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: in my life. And it's an incredible, incredible superpower. I
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: love the fact that so many of you come up
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: to me in the street because you know I'm an
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: investor in Whisperflow and tell me how much it's changed
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: your life. It is the worst kept secret in productivity.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: If you want to give it a go, head to whisperflow.ai
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: slash Stephen to download it right now and give it
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: a try. And once you try it, I think you'll
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: realize why we let them sponsor this podcast. It's amazing.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Is there anything else in this bucket that you find interesting?
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Because I know you may or may not be working
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: on a book that really focuses on deception, but is
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: there anything else that we haven't covered here that you
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: think is pertinent or any research that you uncovered that
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: was fascinating?
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: So in my lab right now, I've become increasingly fascinated
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: with how we respond to people who are lying to
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: us when we're not suspicious at all. Because most of
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: the research is like, I give you a bunch of
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: videos and I tell you some of these people are lying,
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: some are telling the truth, and you make judgments about them.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: But that's not how real life works like at all, right?
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: So usually we're having some sort of interaction with people.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: No one comes in and says, you need to judge
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: the veracity of this person. We're just having a conversation.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: And so I've been really interested in how people conversations
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: unfold how interactions unfold when one person is lying and
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: the other person is just like none the wiser and
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: so we keep finding these pretty small but consistent effects
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: that people feel less close to their interaction partner when
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: someone is lying to them close yeah it's like so
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: we actually had this study where we got people to
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: just converse right talk to a stranger and One person
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: was told to lie in response to everything. The other
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: person had no idea that was going on. And at
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: the end of that study, the dyads that had a
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: liar in them said like, I feel, you know, less
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: connected to this other person than dyads where both people
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: were telling the truth. And so we also found that
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: the more lies that people tell, they just, you know,
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: self-report on how much they lie in their everyday life,
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: the more lonely they feel. And so we're finding this
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: kind of bi-directional effect. And I think often people lie
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: to like spare the feelings of others. That's for the
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: average person, not necessarily these traits here, but for the
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: average person, most of the lies that we tell are
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: pro-social in nature. Like I tell you a lie because
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: I don't want to hurt your feelings. But we are
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: finding that that actually creates this like social distance between
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: us as opposed to bringing us closer.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Together.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: And so I've been really interested in just kind of
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: like the negative impacts of telling lies, even when we
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: do it for quote unquote good reasons.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: In that you talked about how when, if we were
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: both sat down and you were asked to lie to me,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: I would walk away feeling like I was less close, i.e.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: slash connected to you. What is it in your behavior
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: or in my perception that you think is causing this
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: feeling of disconnection?
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: So We are finding that people who are lying are
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: perceived as less warm. They're perceived as less competent. They're
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: perceived as less moral. Also, if we think about, like,
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: some of the cues to deception that we talked about earlier,
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: when people give relatively few details about themselves, conversations are
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: based on this reciprocal exchange, right? Like, I tell you
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: something about myself, you tell me something about yourself. And like,
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: we start to know each other, right? And so if
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: you've got someone who's lying to you, they're giving you
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: less information about themselves, for example. And so I don't
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: feel like I know you at the end of our conversation.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: Even though I'm not like actively suspicious that you're lying
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: to me about your likes and your interests and what
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: you did on Friday afternoon, it comes across because you
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: gave me less information. And maybe I think he didn't
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: really want.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: To talk to me. I mean, I'm so fascinated by
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: the fact that you have a lab that tests this stuff.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: What are some of the fascinating questions you've gone in
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: search of answers for in your lab?
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: One that I love is how much sympathy people feel
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: for individuals who are lying or telling the truth about
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: how sad they are. So think back to the pleaders
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: that we talked about. If you look at This face, right,
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: versus this face, like how much empathy do you have
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: for that person? How sad do you feel? How willing
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: are you to donate money to whatever cause they're looking for?
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: So like we studied this with the pleaders that we
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: talked about. So people who went on TV and asked
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: for help trying to find their missing loved one, half
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: of whom were actually responsible for killing that person they
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: pleaded to find. And we showed people, again, they weren't
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: aware that some of these folks were lying and some
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: were telling the truth. But we showed them these videos
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: and we said, how much sympathy do you feel for
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: this person who's asking for help trying to find the
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: missing individual? And how much money would you donate to
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: a theoretical GoFundMe that would like help support the search
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: for this missing person? And we find really consistently that
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: people are more willing to donate money to the genuine
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: pleaders relative to the deceptive ones. And they feel more
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: kind of sympathy and compassion for them, even though they're
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: not you know, they don't know that some of these
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: folks are actually, like, deceptive murderers. And the effects are, like,
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: you know, not gigantic, but it does suggest that, like,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: we're not completely clueless moving through the world. But when
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: we reduce it to a simple binary, is this person
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: lying or telling the truth? We lose a lot of
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: kind of, like, the nuance of how we move through
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: our relationships. And, like, oh, I'm feeling... kind of close
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: to this person closer to that person i'm willing to
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: help this person more than that person yeah so those
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: are the kinds of things i've been interested.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: In one of the things i spoke to vanessa van
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: edwards on this podcast a few times and she does
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff around like body language and how
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: you show up and she talks about warmth and competence
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: yeah and how some people can over index on warmth
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: and maybe that brings them down on competence or they
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: can over index on competence but be less warm wanted
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: to know if you had a perspective on this like
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: how like through your research and through all the studies
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: you've done, can you be warm and competent at the
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: same time? Or is there a bit of a trade-off?
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: And like what, even you used the word warmth a
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: second ago, what is it to be a warm person?
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Is it to be like, how is it like, you know, like.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: No, it's like, it is the sense that someone is
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: kind and honest and trustworthy. It is your benevolent intentions
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: toward another person, right? So we trust people to the
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: extent that they are both warm and competent in the
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: sense that, like, I'm going to trust you if I
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: think you have benevolent intentions for me, that I think you, like,
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: want to be kind to me. But also if I
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: think you can actually execute on that thing. Like, do
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: you have the competence, the ability to actually, you know,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: do that thing, make that connection for me at work, right?
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: It's like if you are just warm but, like, you've
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: got no– You don't have like the ability to back
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: it up. Then we tend to trust those individuals less.
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: So this warmth, high warmth, high competence tends to be
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: associated with high trustworthiness.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: And does high warmth come with certain behaviors?
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean. one is just smiling.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Eye contact, you know, it reminds me of the
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: research by Alison Wood Brooks, who I know has been
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: here before as well. And, you know, being engaged and
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: interested in your conversation partner right being these like immediacy
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: cues like you're leaning in you're paying attention you are
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: smiling you're making eye contact these things are associated with warmth.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: What about resting bitch face.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: I am occasionally guilty of this thing when I concentrate
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: so when we have very little information about a person
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: we're just trying to pick up on anything right in
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: their in their body language, their nonverbal behavior to try
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: to make an assessment of them. If we've just got
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: like a quick look at your face and there's a
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: bit of a scowl on it, that signals to us anger.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: And anger is not a very, that's not a warm thing, right?
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: And so that tends to decrease our perceived trustworthiness of people.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Any other fascinating questions you've pursued in your lab?
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: So I've been really interested in psychopathy, as it relates
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: to like leadership outcomes. So whenever I finished my PhD,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: I was trying to figure out what I was going
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: to do next. And I was kind of bummed out
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: thinking about murder all the time. I was like, I
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: really love these topics, but I got to go somewhere
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: else and like think about this in a different context.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: It was shortly after like the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: kind of fell apart. And I was like, oh, maybe
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: like business school. Like I could go to a different
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: context and study these same like personality traits just in
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: a different area. And I was also interested in like
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: this notion of successful psychopathy because like since really early
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: descriptions of psychopathy, there's been this suggestion that these traits
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: can actually help you to succeed, right? And I often
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: hear that from people where they're like, yeah, like that's
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: terrible behavior, but like, you know, sometimes that helps, right?
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, What does the data say on that?
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: And so I work with Dacher Keltner.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, Dacher's been here as well.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: Has he?
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: I love that guy.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: He's so wonderful. I love him.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: And so we studied, you know, the extent to which
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: psychopathic personality traits could increase the amount of influence you
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: have in government and also the amount of money that
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: you make as a hedge fund manager. Those are kind
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: of the two– because I was like, these hyper-competitive contexts, right?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: Where maybe in government you can kind of like backstab
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: and backroom deals and whatever. You might be able to
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: get lots of co-sponsors on your bills if you're using
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: kind of these backroom tactics. And then I thought with
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: respect to money, maybe you're willing to take more risks, right?
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: You're willing to cut people or companies down in public.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: You're not so worried about hurting other people. So I,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: of course, was like, these are situations where people with
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: high levels of psychopathy can shine. Dacker was like, no,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: it won't be. So we were kind of pitting these
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: like good versus evil concepts against each other. And consistently,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: we found that high levels of psychopathy was associated with
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: less influence in government. It was also associated with making
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: less money as a hedge fund manager, whereas it's very
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: like counterintuitive, I think, to people.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: What about some of these other ones like narcissism and Machiavellianism?
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: What about those ones?
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: So it really depends on like how you define success.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: So there is some research to suggest that narcissism, Machiavellianism
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: can be associated with kind of rising up in ranks,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: maybe having a higher salary level, but they're not associated
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: with like teams doing great, right? And honestly, most of
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: the research is on psychopathy. The work that I'm interested
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: in is that People with high levels of psychopathy, they
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: talk a really good game and they make people think
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: that they're a great tactical communicator. They're very strategic thinkers.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: But if you actually ask them, like, how good are
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: they at their job? They say they're a terrible manager.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: They tend to bully their subordinates. They create a huge
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: amount of stress for other people on their team. And
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: their teams have worse outcomes because of it.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: So when you're talking about team performance, you're saying narcissists
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: typically aren't good at leading teams over the long term?
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: They tend to come across as like leadership material early on.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: And there's this one study by Del Palhaus, which shows
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: this quite nicely. It's like they had these student groups
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: and they would work together throughout the term. After the
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: first meeting, they all made judgments about each other, how
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: likable they were, etc.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: etc.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: whether they seemed confident and smart and agreeable, the people
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: who were high in narcissism came across really well in
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: that first interaction. They said they knew what they were doing.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: They came across very confident. They seemed like they could lead.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: They wanted to lead. But then as the course of
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: the term went by, people were like, this person is
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: actually really hostile and doesn't do their work, and they're
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: a pain in the butt. So certainly the, you know,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: the thing that can make narcissism look good at the
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: outset is our confusion of confidence and competence. So when
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: someone says they can do something and they say it
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: very confidently, we're like, oh, they got this, right? But
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: that's not the same thing as actually being able to
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: There's often like an assumption that people that are actors
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: or have certain roles where they're on stage performing have
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: high levels of some of these things is that is
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: there any truth to that at all.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: Not to my knowledge although so I think where it
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: would mostly intersect is like if you have any training
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: and like the Stanislavski technique which is like trying to
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: experience an emotion like if i need to portray an
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: emotion to you i want to come across as genuinely
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: sad in this scene or whatever i might recall a
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: time in which i genuinely felt sad to try to
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: like bring that emotion up as opposed to like trying
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: to fake it i try to actually feel it so
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: that kind of training might help you to like you
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: know mimic some emotions but to i don't know of
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: any research that would suggest that actors would be higher
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: in these traits.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: Or not equally we have some cards here which are
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: people's dating profiles okay and i'm wondering if you can
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: spot any of these dark personality traits just by looking
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: at dating profiles or any clues okay that might be
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: associated with it all.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: Right so this is ryan he's a chief of staff
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: in washington dc professionally trained to argue my point so
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: yes i'm probably going to win the debate about what
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: to have for dinner Okay. This feels like a red flag. Savvy, strategic,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: and persuasive by trade. I mean, this feels very much
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: like Machiavellianism, right? Kind of like controlling the situation, being
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: kind of a smooth talker. Savvy, meaning like they're controlling you.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: They're maybe using information to get you to do what
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: they want. Strategic, right? We talked about that very kind
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: of strategic social style where like they're not kind of
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: impulsively behaving like someone with psychopathy. They're more like three
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: playing three dimensional chess, right. To get what they want.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: So that's quite a strategic behavior. Off the clock, you'll
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: find me exploring the city, enjoying great food, traveling and
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: keeping life interesting, looking for someone who makes me laugh.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: So I think the words to me that are like a,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: might be used as like euphemisms, essentially, for some of
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: the Machiavellian traits would be savvy, strategic, persuasive, like I
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: can get anybody to do anything because I'm just going
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: to manipulate them into doing it. Now, these could be
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: red flags. He could be a perfectly nice guy. But
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: these are things that I would like go into that
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: conversation thinking like, okay, does he seem very cynical of people?
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: Is he quite power hungry? Is he willing to manipulate
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: other people to his own ends and kind of step
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: over other people for what he wants?
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: What about that last line about makes me laugh? I
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: found that to be quite self-serving in a way because
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: you're looking for something yourself there. That's obviously can be true.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: We're all looking for someone that can make us laugh.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: But whether you'd write that is, I don't know. Yeah.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: Just interesting.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: Potentially. All right. So this is Hayley, who is a lawyer.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: My friends call me Hurricane, but you can call me Haley.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: Equal parts chaos and good company. Chaos is immediately bringing
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: up potential psychopathy because that's like that impulsivity. Like you
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: kind of don't really know where she's at. In women
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: in particular, psychopathy can be associated with like pretty volatile
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: emotions and like connecting with like we seem really close
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: one day and then I'm really angry at you the
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: next day. I'll happily spend the weekend trying a new
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: workout class or plotting a harmless prank on my friends.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: That's a sadism. Red flag. So someone who is, you know,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: maybe delighting in someone else getting hurt, that could be concerning. Outspoken,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: tough enough to handle myself. Toughness is associated with psychopathy.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: Do you think you can handle me? That's up to you.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: David is a brain surgeon. Very impressive. So he's a
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: surgeon by day, theater enthusiast, and cocktail appreciator by night.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: I'm confident enough to pick the restaurant, self-assured to admit
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: when I'm wrong, occasionally And my friends would describe me
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: as the life of the party. So this is giving
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: like potential narcissism cues, right? So loves a lot of attention,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: life of the party, confident enough to pick, like he
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: won't be wrong about picking the restaurant, self-assured enough to
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: admit when I'm wrong occasionally, he put in brackets. So
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: you might not see a ton of that behavior. Don't worry,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: I'm sure I can find the time for you somewhere.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: winky face. So you might not be a priority, but
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: you know, again, so I'm seeing narcissism vibes here. That's
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: something I would, you know, pay attention to in our
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: conversation would be like, does he ever ask anything about
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: me or do we just talk about him and how
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: fabulous and amazing his life is the whole time? So
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: dating narcissists, You know, profiles are like an advertisement that
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: you put out there. So this is not an entire
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: person's personality. So we can gather more information over time,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: but some red flags there. This is Chad. He's in
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: law enforcement in Texas. He's barbecuing in the picture, which
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: feels on brand. Looking for my wife who will join
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: me for life. No debt and no kids. Don't worry, ladies.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: I'm house trained. When I'm off duty, I'm very independent.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: Y'all find me hunting, outdoors, grilling, or challenging my buddies,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: looking for someone genuine to share life's adventures with.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: Nice guy.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: Seems okay.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: I wonder what he's grilling. Yeah.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: Okay. If I was to go on a date with
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: any of these people, Hayley, Ryan, David, Chad, from these
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: dating cards that we just read out, What are the
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: type of verbal and nonverbal cues that I would be
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: looking for, whether I was dating them or in a
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: relationship with them, to figure out if they had any
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: of these dark personality traits?
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: Again, these are kind of early warning signs that you
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: can look for. Things like, do they interrupt you often
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: but refuse to tolerate it when you interrupt, right? And
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: so this is kind of an indication of that impulsivity
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: as well as potential dominance over other people. They want
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: to dominate you. And I mean, sometimes people get excited
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: and they just want to interject and share something. Here,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: what we're really interested in is it's a cue to impulsivity,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: but like refusing to tolerate it when you interrupt. That
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: makes them quite angry. Do they consistently ignore personal or
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: professional boundaries? So, you know, maybe you're at work or
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: maybe you're on one of these dates, right? And you say,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: I'd really rather not talk about my family right now.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: And they continue to ask you about your family. And
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: you're like, I really don't want to talk about that
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: Tell me about your brother and this terrible relationship you
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: have with them. So kind of always pushing on boundaries,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: even when they're set explicitly. Do they seem weirdly calm?
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: This is related to psychopathy and that kind of shallow
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: emotional affect. Like they're not experiencing fear or sadness or
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: concern for other people when you expect they would in
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: a conversation.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: Do they seem to be an authority on every subject?
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: This is a narcissism vibe, right? Like they know everything
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: about everything and you don't know anything, right? So they
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: need to be the authority. Do they offer impulsive, off-the-cuff
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: responses to your questions so they're not really thinking about things,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: they're just saying whatever comes to their mind immediately, a
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: sign of potential impulsivity that's associated with psychopathy? Do they
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: seem to come across as tough, combative, or cruel, right?
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: So Psychopathy associated with aggression, wanting to dominate people, cruelty,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: of course, sadism.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: Haley here, she said about throwing pranks, she's called herself
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: tough and asked if we could handle her. So maybe
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: that's links.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: Yep, exactly. This one's interesting. So do they make intense
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: eye contact with you, seeming to peer into your soul?
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: One of the things that clinicians have noted with people
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: with high levels of psychopathy is that they tend to
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: make really intense eye contact.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: Hmm. Okay.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: Do they seem to lack emotions related to self-awareness, such
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: as embarrassment, embarrassment, or shame? These are the kind of
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: broader self-conscious emotions, like remorse, like guilt, that are associated
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: with psychopathy, a deficit in those. Do they spend a
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: lot of time talking about themselves and show much less
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: interest in you? That's our old friend, narcissism. And when
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: others are struggling, do they find it enjoyable, annoying, or boring?
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: And that would be associated with sadism.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: This is something that I've made for you. I realized
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: that the Diary of a Sadist audience are strivers, whether
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: it's in business or health, we all have big goals
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: that we want to accomplish. And one of the things
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: I've learned is that when you aim at the big, big,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: big goal, it can feel incredibly psychologically uncomfortable because it's
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: kind of like being stood at the foot of Mount
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: Everest and looking upwards. The way to accomplish your goals
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: is by breaking them down into tiny, small steps. And
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: we call this in our team, the 1%. And actually
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: this philosophy is highly responsible for much of our success here.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: So what we've done so that you at home can
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: accomplish any big goal that you have is we've made
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: these 1% diaries and we released these last year and
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: they all sold out. So I asked my team over
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: and over again to bring the diaries back, but also
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: to introduce some new colors and to make some minor
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: tweaks to the diary. So now we have a... better
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: range for you so if you have a big goal
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: in mind and you need a framework and a process
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: and some motivation then I highly recommend you get one
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: of these diaries before they all sell out once again
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: and you can get yours at thediary.com and if you
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: want the link the link is in the description below
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: There should be a button just down below here. And
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: if it says subscribe, you're already subscribed. If it says subscriber,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: that means you're not yet. And if you're not subscribed,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: please could you do us a favor and hit that button?
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: It helps the show more than you know. And according
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: to the algorithm, you're someone that watches our show, but
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: you haven't yet hit that button. Thank you so much.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: With two things in mind. The first thing is that
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: these dark personality traits are very common relative to the
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: impact they can have on lives. I think they're extremely common.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: And the second thing is that according to a book
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: and some of the research, people don't tend to change.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: So this leads me to the conclusion that we might
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: have to figure out how to deal with these people.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: Because if we work in a company or a team,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: or even if we work in a family, if I
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: look at some of those stats around antisocial personality behaviors,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: it would suggest roughly one in five people are going
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: to be antisocial in some way. So we can't just
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: hope to avoid them in our lives. No.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, everyone's got a story, I think. And I
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: think people feel relatively powerless. Like, because the approaches that
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: we tend to take with other people when they hurt
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: us don't work very well for these individuals. Like when
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: someone hurts us, we might be like, we show them,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: we tell them, that really hurt me. And then they
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: feel guilt and they might apologize, right? Or we might
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: punish them in some way. And then that leads them
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: to avoid that behavior in the future. These are precisely
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: things that people with psychopathy, for example, like doesn't really work, right?
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: And so we're left being like, how do I deal
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: with this? Like my tools are not working. But I
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: think what's really kind of powerful to know is that
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: there are things that you can do. So we've got
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: seven rules for dealing with people with dark personalities. So
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: the first one is to establish clear boundaries. And I
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: want to kind of preface this by saying, like, setting
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: out the rules is not like a guarantee that they
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: won't be broken, right? We've talked about with respect to
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: psychopathy that they tend to break the rules. It's like
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: a defining feature of that personality. But research suggests that
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: establishing clear rules, making them explicit, decreases the likelihood of
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: kind of selfish behavior, for example, compared to if there's
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: no rules whatsoever, right?
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: I care.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: So sometimes, like, you know, in my workplace, we have
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: a respectful workplace policy, which when I read it was like,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: why do people need a respectful, like, why do people
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: need to be reminded of this? This seems so obvious, right?
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: But there's really good reasons to have a respectful workplace policy.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: One is that it makes very explicit how we expect
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: people to be treated here. That is going to decrease
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: the likelihood of people, even with, you know, kind of
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: moderate levels of these traits, let's say, will violate those rules.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: And more than that, if they do violate the rules,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: you've got something written down that's like, you're not supposed
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: to do this. Otherwise, it's very hard to kind of
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: do anything about it, right? In a relationship, you can
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: make this really clear, like what's okay, what's not okay
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: in this relationship. And you've got to tell the other
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: person that. It can't just be in your head, right?
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: So you've got to make these rules explicit. And it
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: can also help to like read in a buddy. Like
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: if you've got a friend and you're like, okay, these
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: are the things that I want out of a relationship partner.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: These are like no-goes. These are behaviors that cross the
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: red line. Having, you know, a friend that knows what
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: those are that can tell you when your boundaries are
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: slipping can be really useful.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: I was thinking of one particular context that I know
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: and I'll keep it anonymous as well. where there's five
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: people that I know. It is a family that I
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: know of, and they have five five kids and one
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: of the family members was telling me that they are
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: the only one that has maintained a boundary against one
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: of the um older parents who's got a track record
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: of like some of these dark personality traits and she
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: was telling me that because she has always maintained a
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: boundary against the father who is the person that has
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: dark personality traits the father is has almost left her
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: alone and has gone for the other four siblings more so.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: And that the other four siblings are suffering because they
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: don't have an established boundary. Whereas what I'm saying here
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: is it's interesting that someone who has a boundary seems
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: to be preyed on less by the narcissist or person
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: with Machiavellian personality than those that haven't established one. And
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: if that is true, then what is it about the
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: psychopathic or narcissistic person that is choosing easier targets?
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: Or boundary-less targets. Does that hold as truth or is
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: that just anecdotal?
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: So we do know from research that this is mostly
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: in workplaces, that workplaces that have kind of codes of fairness,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: people with high levels of these traits are less likely to,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: you know, keep a bunch of the bonus money for
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: themselves instead of share it among their team fairly. So
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: there's evidence of like having rules in place increases the
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: likelihood that they will follow those rules relative to like
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: a no-holds-bar kind of situation.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: There's also research on, you know, how people with high
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: levels of psychopathic traits kind of choose who to prey upon, essentially.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: And individuals who are not very assertive tend to be
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: more likely to, you know, kind of... It's almost like they're, like, picking,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: you know, the weakest of the herd or something like that.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: So having asserting some boundaries can help to... you know,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: not have that target on your back.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about a guest that I interviewed on
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: this podcast that was telling me she had gone through
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: domestic violence and she was telling me about like the
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: love bombing process as to how this individual had like
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: broken down her boundaries and her confidence over time and
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: then had isolated her from her friends and family, wouldn't
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: allow her to call her mum, would give her a
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: script when her mum called and those kinds of things.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: And One of the remarkable things I observed is how
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: over time they'd sort of broken down their confidence in
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: order to be able to seemingly control them. Is this
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: a common practice?
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in a domestic violence situation. You know, it kind
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: of reminds me of the kind of emerging research on gaslighting,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: where someone would Make their partner kind of doubt their
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: sense of reality, kind of correcting them all the time,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: like you're being too sensitive, you don't see the truth
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: around you. And I think what's kind of so insidious
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: about that is that it makes you dependent on And
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: then the isolation can really decrease your ability to kind
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: of like get out of it because you don't have
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: someone else who can, you know, check your sense of
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: reality that you really are seeing and feeling and remembering
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: things that really did happen, even though they're telling you
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: that it didn't.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: What is gaslighting? Because we throw around the term all
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: the time. The minute someone lies, we say, you're gaslighting me.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a pattern of denying someone's version of reality.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: So you might tell people that they shouldn't be feeling
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: the way that they're feeling. Things didn't happen like they
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: are remembering they happened, that they can't trust their own
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: sense of you know, perception of reality. And so it
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: can be incredibly kind of destabilizing and isolating. And what
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: is worrisome about that is that we really need other
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: people to help us see reality. And so if we're
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: only seeing it through like their lens of we can't
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: be trusted, our own eyes, our own memory can't be trusted,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: we start to depend on their perception, which is essentially
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: a control tactic and research does suggest that people with
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: high levels of these traits endorse these tactics they like
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: they don't see anything wrong with doing that to a
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: romantic partner which would probably follow um that they would
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: be more likely to engage in it.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: A lot of romantic arguments would sound like gaslighting i
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: think within that definition of like you know Let's go
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: back to the cheating example we said. Last Friday, I
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: was doing something dodgy. You suspect I'm lying. So you
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: say to me, no, you weren't, Stephen. You weren't at
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: the office till 3 a.m. And I go, yeah, I was.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: I was at the office. You don't know what you're
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: talking about, Leanne. You weren't there. You're making this up
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: in your head. Yeah. Who was gaslighting who there? Because
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: you said you denied my reality. And now I'm denying
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: your reality.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: Wait, but were you actually at the office?
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: Does it matter? Like, Jeremy, I'm trying to figure out
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: if the behavior... Which one of us was gaslighting behavior there?
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it would be like, if I say like,
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: you know, I feel insecure, I feel threatened by like
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: whatever you were doing on Friday. And you're like, no,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: you don't. Like, or you shouldn't feel that way. There's
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: no reason for you to feel that way. You're blowing
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: things out of proportion. It's essentially like denying someone's actual,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: my experience is that I feel threatened. And so it's like,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: even if I might be wrong about that, That is
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: my experience.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: So I could deny the facts, theoretically. I could say, no,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: at 2 a.m. I was falling asleep on my desk.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: I could maybe argue with the facts, but it's when
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: you start arguing with someone else's perception of reality, of
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: their own subjective experience, that's when you stray into this gaslighting.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: In the example I gave earlier from my guest, that's
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: exactly what happened to her. What he started to do
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: is he started hiding her stuff in places. So he
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: put her car keys in the fridge. To make her
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: feel like she'd gone crazy. Yeah, yeah. Which is fucking crazy.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: It's absolutely bonkers.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: That's wild.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense. So that was establishing clear boundaries.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: Really what I was getting at is do they try
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: and erode those boundaries or do they leave you alone?
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: So they're likely to try to push on them, but
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: less so than if you have no boundaries at all.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: Yep. So the next one is don't give them power
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: over others. We've talked about kind of All of these
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: different traits and that they, you know, Machiavellianism is actually
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: kind of named after the pursuit of power. Psychopathy is
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: associated with domineering people. Narcissism, I'm better than you. I'm
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: a born leader. All of these are kind of related
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: to power. People with these traits tend to be very
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: interested in having power. over other people. But we know
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: from research that this does not tend to go well
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: for those individuals who are working underneath them. So at work,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: for example, we know that people who are working under
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: a boss with more psychopathic traits report being more stressed out.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: They also tend to be more likely to bring that
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: stress home, and that creates more family conflict. So it
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: kind of spreads. It doesn't stay where it is. They
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: tend to create division within teams. They also tend to
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: increase the likelihood of turnover intentions. So, you know, if
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: you're working for a boss with these traits, you're like,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: I got to get the hell out of here. So
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: you're churning through staff, right? So giving them power over
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: others is not a great way to kind of, yeah,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 2: to deal with them. So you don't want to give
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: them power over others. even when they want it, but
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: there's other things that you can give them that they
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: do want. And this is essentially like negotiating 101, right?
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: So like you can look for win-wins when you're negotiating
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: with them, recognizing that what they consider motivation to get
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: to this win-win might not be what you consider to
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: be motivation to get to this win-win. So Imagine that, like,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: you've got this employee who is bullying his subordinates and
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: you're like, you really need to treat your team better
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: because they are so stressed out and they, you know,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: are going home from work and they're crying to their
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: spouses and, you know, they're bringing it home and they're
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: getting sick because of this. You're trying to make them
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: feel compassion for other people to get them to behave
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: better toward their team. That's not motivating to them, right?
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: It might be motivating to other people, but people who
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: with high levels of these traits, right, were callous, not
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: concerned about other people. However, that doesn't mean that they
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: can't do something kind or helpful, right? They might just
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: do it for a different reason. So if you know
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: that the team is suffering under this person's current like
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: bullying management style, you could say, you know, you've got this,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: you know, sales bonus that's coming up. But your team
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: is so stressed out that you're not going to meet
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: that target and you're not getting to get your bonus, right?
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: You need to treat your team differently. Money, they like money.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: They like power. They like status. And so it's not
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: that they can't behave better. It's that they might do
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: it for a different reason. So trying to understand what
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: motivates them and trying to figure out how you can
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: use that The next one is use the carrot, not
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: the stick. So we've talked about this a little bit
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 2: where people, particularly with high levels of psychopathy, very reward sensitive,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: but not very punishment sensitive. So you can try to
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: punish them, but literally their brains don't process punishment in
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: the same way. They don't develop that kind of link
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: between if I do this behavior, then fear of punishment.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: And so like they're more likely to repeat it than
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: people with low levels of these traits. So punishment, you know,
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: there's a place for it, I suppose, but it's like
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: it's not going to be as effective with these person.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: in particular. And I think what's terrible, what we are
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: losing a huge opportunity on is that we don't use
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: the carrot instead when the carrot is so powerful. So
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: sometimes people are like, they're a bad person, I'm not
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 2: going to reward anything that they do. Like, I'm not
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: going to give them any kind of positive feedback because
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: I think they're terrible, right? But if they do something
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: kind or honest or helpful, oh my god, reward them.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: Reward them not with power over others, but maybe with
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: like a bonus at work, with like a job title,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: because they really care about status. That's a um a
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: reward that they will really like and you are going
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: to increase the likelihood that you get more of that
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: behavior in the future i.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: Think there'll be some people listening right now that are
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: thinking shouldn't you just fire these people shouldn't you get
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: all of these people out of your life if they've
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: got sadism narcissism machiavellianism psychopathy psychopathy psychopathy um shouldn't you
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: just throw them out your life.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah i think given that there are you know a
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 2: reasonably sized minority of the population has some elevated level
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: of these traits, you're going to be chucking a lot
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: of people, right? And they also might genuinely have some
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: really useful skills that you want in your company. You
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: just need to learn how to manage this personality trait.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: And so I think even if, you know, you have
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: kind of a low tolerance for these personality traits, you're
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: not going to be able to completely avoid them at
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: all times. It might not be your decision to chuck
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: them out of the company.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: Like a sibling or something. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: It might be a person that you like, you want
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 2: to have a relationship with them, even if that relationship
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: is not good. perfect. You know, maybe it's a brother-in-law, right?
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: And you're like, he's such a pain in the ass,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: but I see him like twice a year and I
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: don't want to cut him out because that means I
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: don't get to see my sister anymore. And I love
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: my sister and I want to support my sister. And
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: so I think there's just like the, you know, stay
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: or go question is just so complicated and there's so
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: many reasons why you might not be able to do that.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: And so we need to learn the skills to manage
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: interactions with these people as well. Next one is emphasize
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: your common identity. People with high levels of narcissism are
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: not particularly interested in being fair to you or being
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: kind to you, but they are interested in loyalty. There's
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: these studies that are really fascinating where they just tell
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: people like, oh, you guys have the same birthday or
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: you have the same fingerprint type, which I don't even
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: think is a thing. Is that a thing? Anyway, but
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: people think we have some sort of commonality. then people
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: with high levels of narcissism get less angry when you
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: give them negative feedback, if they think you've got something
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 2: in common with them. So if you start your conversation...
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: with maybe that uncle at Thanksgiving who's always combative and
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: talks about himself all the time. And you're like, oh,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: we went to the same university, we root for the
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: same football team, whatever it is. You start with what
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: you have in common. You're like, okay, we are one, right?
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: And then if you need to say, you know what,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: you really need to pick up your game and help
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: him with the care of grandma, then he might be
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: more willing to listen to that as opposed to just
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 2: getting negative feedback. People with high levels of narcissism don't
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 2: like that. So emphasizing your common identity can help to
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 2: tamp that down.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: I'd sat here with Tali Sharot, who's this neuroscientist, and
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: she'd looked at the subject of disagreement quite extensively. And
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: she'd put people in these brain scanners and basically got
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: them to disagree with each other at some point and
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: looked at what happened in their brain. And what she
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: told me she observed is essentially, and I'm generalizing wildly here,
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: so please do fact check me on the screen. She
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: basically observed that the brain changed when someone disagreed with you.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: And I was on a... phone call the other day
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: with about 10 different people from a company we're doing
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: a deal with. And I just observed that one person
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: would often open up their rebuttal when they felt had
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: a difference of opinion with the phrase, I completely disagree.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: And then they would make their point. And so funnily enough,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: I got straight off the call, even though I'd written
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: about this previously, I got straight off the call and like,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: did a bit of research as to whether I I
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: just find that to be quite ineffective behavior or if
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: there's research around it. And what I found is it says, yes,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: there is extensive research across social psychology and behavioral economics
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: and linguistics showing that opening a counter argument or a
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: rebuttal with explicit adversarial phrasing, like I disagree, actively will
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: hinder your ability to persuade somebody. When you start a
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: rebuttal with I disagree, several psychological mechanisms trigger in the
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: other person's brain. And that goes into the detail about
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: what goes on in their brain. I just, it seems
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: somewhat linked to what you're saying there about like how
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: you keep the other person receptive.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: So this reminds me of another study on, I think
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 2: it's like really domineering bosses. If you need to give
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: them negative feedback, like, I don't know, say you hate
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: the way that we're running this particular process. These three
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: forms should be one form. Like, why are we spending
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: so much? This is like, you know, the bane of
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: office existence. If you say, this is so stupid, you
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: need to change the way that we're doing, you know,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: like kind of coming in hot, particularly people with high
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 2: levels of narcissistic traits are like, we don't like this
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 2: kind of, you know, ego threat. You're criticizing me. You're
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: giving me negative feedback. I'm just like shutting it down, right?
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: I don't even hear what you're saying. Whereas if you
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: phrase it as a question, like, what do you think
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: if we turn these three forms into one form?
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: Phrasing it as a question just kind of, like, makes
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: it softer and makes them more willing to just hear it. Like,
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: maybe you ultimately won't get to that one form, but
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: you'll at least get a little bit further in that conversation.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: I think that's true for, you know, it's true for everybody.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: But especially when it comes to people who are really domineering,
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: which these personalities tend to be.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: Okay. So, like, you kind of co-create the solution. Mm-hmm. Okay, interesting. Yeah.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: Okay. become a detective and notice their cues. So we
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: know that they tend to lie a lot. Being manipulative,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: telling lies is kind of part of their MO. That's
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 2: what all of these traits share. And so being able
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: to identify, know what those cues to deception are, know
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: that we're not looking for gaze aversion. We're not looking
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: for fidgeting. We're looking for those lack of verifiable details.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: We're looking for relatively few details. We're looking for signs
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: of cognitive strain and maybe like following up, right? If
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: we start to see some of those red flags. And finally,
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 2: avoid face-to-face negotiations. So this is like a really simple
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 2: move that can be really helpful. So some research out
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: of the same university as me, University of British Columbia,
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: had people with various levels of these dark traits engage
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: in a negotiation. It was just over like the price
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: of concert tickets. But what they found is that whenever
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: those negotiations occurred face to face, the person with the
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: high level of psychopathic traits or any of these dark traits,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 2: they got a really good deal. Like they were able
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: to command a whole bunch of money. for these concert tickets.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: Whereas if they engage in this negotiation over text, that
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: wasn't the case. So if you need to negotiate with someone,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 2: these dark traits can be like really domineering, really kind of,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: you know, superficially charming sometimes in person. And then you
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 2: can kind of like let your guard down and they're
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: going to take advantage of you. If you reduce them
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: to words on the page, they lose some of that
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: like charisma, right? But there's also other, like, practical reasons. Like,
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: you know, you've got a written version of what was
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: agreed upon. Like, you can't gaslight me and tell me,
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm misremembering what we agreed upon later. I've
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: got a written version here. I've got some time to
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 2: think about how I want to respond.
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 2: And, you know, if violence is a concern, say you're
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 2: talking about this is a domestic violence situation. You've got
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: to get out of the house. You've got to maybe negotiate,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: you know, some sort of settlement. in a divorce or
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: something like being face to face can be dangerous, right?
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 2: It literally puts some physical distance between yourself and that
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 2: other person if violence is a concern. So there's all
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 2: kinds of potential upsides to like, if you got to negotiate,
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: like pop it into text, put it into the chat
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: as opposed to sitting down face to face.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about all the things that are linked
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: to just having a bit more time, but also like
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: the medium of text. And one of the things that
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: came to mind is if someone does have those dark
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: personality traits, they are probably more cautious about what they
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: say if it's permanent and it's written. So like if
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: I was sending you an email, I might say something
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: to you in person, but would I write that same
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: thing on an email? And the other one is in
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: written form, you as the person that's receiving the, being
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: on the receiving end, you have time to show other
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: people and get another perspective. Even if it's like putting
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: it into AI or asking Google or checking if the
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: facts are right or asking your husband or partner if
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: this is appropriate behavior.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: Totally. And involving other people can be so helpful. So
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: research suggests that whenever we discuss with other people before
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: making a truth-lie judgment about someone else's statements, we tend
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: to be more accurate. Whenever we're making judgments about someone's personality,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 2: if we're talking as a group, we tend to be
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 2: more accurate. Another study that Dacher Keltner did, he talked
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: to a bunch of girls in a sorority and asked
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: them who gets talked about the most, like in gossip.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: And also had people rate their personality. It was the Machiavellian,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 2: the more Machiavellian girls who were talked about the most.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: Talked about positively or negatively? Negatively.
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, people sometimes hear about like whisper
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 2: networks too, like stay away from that guy at work
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: or whatever. So I would, you know, caution just believing
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: everything you hear in the rumor mill. But sometimes people,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: you know, spread information about this was my experience with
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: this person. And we can learn from other people's experience
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: before having to go through it ourselves if we pay attention.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: And you've got three final cards down there, which I
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: think are.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: These are three common mistakes people make when dealing with
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: dark personalities. So the first one is just believing there's
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: nothing you can do. So... You know, we've talked about
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: how some of our go-to responses when people hurt us,
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 2: like trying to make them feel badly, trying to make
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: them apologize to us, like trying to punish them, don't
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: work so well. But we've also talked about all of
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: the things you can do, right? So we don't need
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 2: to feel completely helpless. Another is assuming they have the
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: same inner experience as you. you know, when we're trying
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 2: to figure out what motivates people, again, we talked about
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 2: this with respect to negotiation, right? Like what motivates you
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 2: to do a thing might not be the same thing
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: that motivates me to do a thing. I need to
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 2: try to get into their head, figure out what their
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: goals are, what would be motivating to change their behavior
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 2: in this situation and try to, you know, frame our
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 2: interaction in that way, try to convince them to change
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 2: their behavior for that reason, not because I think they
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: should or not because I would feel guilty if I
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 2: did what they did, right? But lastly, you know, is
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 2: thinking you can change them. So if your ultimate goal
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: is like, I'm going to stick around and they're going
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: to be kind and honest and they're going to be
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 2: super conscientious and helpful all the time, they're never going
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 2: to break any rules. Like, I think we also need
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 2: to be kind of clear eyed about the likelihood of
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: that happening. And so instead we need to kind of
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: deploy some of these strategies for making our day-to-day interactions
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 2: a little more positive and As opposed to just hoping
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 2: that someday they're going to wake up, you know, with
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 2: a different personality.
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: What is the most important thing we haven't talked about
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: that we should have talked about as it relates to
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: your work? And again, zooming in on the people that
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: are listening, that might benefit them in their lives.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 2: I think it's like a matter of numbers. So, you know,
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 2: we've talked about the, you know, 10% of people would
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 2: generally agree with items that we use to measure these traits.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 2: That means that 90% of people would generally not agree, right?
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: So I want people to keep into perspective that like
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 2: 90% of people, right, are good and kind and honest
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: and not breaking the rules. We've got this 10%, right?
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: That's not to say that 10% is causing little harm.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: In fact, they're causing hugely outsized harm, right? So like
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 2: with respect to psychopathy, that's about 1% of the population.
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 2: They have clinical levels of it. offenders with clinical levels
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 2: of psychopathy account for about 50% of all serious crime.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: So these people are like doing incredibly outsized harm. And
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 2: we also feel that in our lives too, right? Not
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: necessarily in criminal rap sheets maybe, but we've got like
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 2: one person who's like constantly making things hard because of
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 2: these traits. They're causing strife at work. They're abusing people
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 2: at home. And so- If we can learn to mitigate
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 2: the damage from just this small, relatively small group of people,
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: then we can dramatically improve our lives, our workplaces, our
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: interactions day to day.
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: knowing who they're leaving it for. Okay. And the question
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: that's been left for you is somewhat relevant. I like
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: that you got this one. What is one great lie
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: we've all been told?
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 2: I think one great lie we've all been told is
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: that to be successful, you have to be in it
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: for number one. And you need to exemplify some of
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: these traits in order to get that promotion, to get
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: that raise, to run that company that's worth millions of dollars.
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 2: And even I went searching for evidence for that to
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: show that people with high levels of psychopathy could use
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 2: their kind of callous, cunning tricks you know, fearlessness in
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 2: order to make more money as hedge fund managers. And
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 2: I found the opposite. And so I think even in
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: those areas where we think these traits lead to success,
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: they fall short and really taking other people with us
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: and thinking about success as, you know, prestige and like
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: respect from other people, care and concern about us from
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: other people is a much, truer version of success.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: Leanne, thank you so much. Thank you for writing a
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: book that is incredibly illuminating in a way that is research-based,
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: whilst also being just unbelievably engaging. And I think these
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: subjects are so pertinent to everybody listening, and I know
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: that they're going to love this conversation, because much like
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: you were when you started your career, we're all just
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out the ultimate barrier and opportunity that
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: all sits in front of us, and that's just other people. Mm-hmm.
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: And again, as you said on one of the cards,
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: but you articulated really nicely earlier on, we kind of
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: go through the world thinking that everyone else's internal experience
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: is a mirror of ours.
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: And it's very easy to get frustrated or to feel
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: like you're the problem or you're inadequate if that's the
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: lens that you take to life. And I think through
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: your research, you do exactly what you said, which is
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: in a weird way. you do make us more empathetic
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: and maybe more optimistic and less cynical about the nature
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: of human experience. And so this is a wonderful, wonderful
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: book for anyone that wants more information. I'm going to
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: link it below poisonous people, how to resist them and
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: improve your life. But also it might be a good
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: opportunity to buy this book for someone else who, you know,
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: is dealing with a slightly poisonous person. Where do people
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: go to support your work and to find more from you?
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 2: They can find that book, you know, wherever books are
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: sold online. They can also find me on Instagram at
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 2: Leanne Tenbrink on all the socials, TikTok, on YouTube. And
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 2: I post little things about studies and findings that I
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 2: think are interesting and hopefully they'll find it interesting too.
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Stephen. This has been so wonderful.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: YouTube have this new crazy algorithm where they know exactly
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: what video you would like to watch next based on
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: AI and all of your viewing behavior. And the algorithm
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: says that this video is the perfect video for you.
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: It's different for everybody looking right now. Check this video out.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: I bet you, you might love it.