The Manipulation Expert: How to Spot Hidden Manipulators & Take Your Power Back

I think notice it nowadays people just throw words around like, "Oh, this person's toxic, that person's an narcissist, this person's a psychopath, as if it's nothing."

“But these words do mean something very specific.”

And our expert today is going to take you and me into the world of dark person. Analys. Because what she calls poisonous people aren't just the subjects of true crime investigation or sitting in jails, they're in boardrooms. They're in public office. You might encounter them in your living room or at work.

Dr. Leanne Tenbrink is here in our Boston studios. She runs the Truth and Trust Lab at the University of British Columbia, where she is a professor of forensic psychology. She's spent two decades studying manipulators, chronic liars, and dark personalities.

Because there will always be people who don't want peace, they want control.

Chaos, they want you confused, and you know what? They don't care when you're upset. This episode is not about labeling people as toxic. It's about something very specific and important. How to spot dark personality traits in other people, and when you do see these toxic traits,

“exactly what you should do, and more importantly, what you should not do when you encounter someone like this.”

And if in listening to this, you recognize that you, or someone you love, is in a relationship with someone with a dark personality, she has specific recommendations for how to extract yourself, or how to support someone you love who needs to. What you're going to learn today will help you protect yourself, because as you know, you can't change and control their people.

But you can recognize who you're dealing with, and become strategic in how you approach them, and that is the first step to reducing the stress and pain they can cause in your life.

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am thrilled that you're here. I'm so excited about this topic. It's such an honor to be together and spend this time with you, and if you're new here, somebody sent this episode with you. I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. Dr. Leon Brink is here to teach you and me how to spot a truly toxic person and what to look for and what to do.

Dr. Ten Brink is a bestselling author who earned her PhD in psychology from the University of British Columbia, where she is also a professor and the director of the truth and trust lab. She studies the patterns behind manipulation, gaslighting, chronic lying, and why a small number of people can cause so much damage in relationships, workplaces, and in positions of power. What can forensic psychology teach us about the dark personalities that you encounter in your day to day life. That is exactly what she's here to teach you today.

Please help me welcome Dr. Leon, Ten Brink to the Mel Robbins podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I am so excited that you flew in all the way from British Columbia because I am fascinated by your field of expertise and your research and our team devoured. You're bestselling book poisonous people. And what I'd love to have you do is, if the person listening applies everything that you're about to teach us from your studies of deception and dark personalities and they apply it starting today, what will change.

“I think they learn how to reduce one of the biggest stressors in all of our lives because dark personalities and I'm not talking about like the super extreme clinical levels here necessarily.”

People who are just like consistently callous and manipulative in our lives and so you can probably, you know, everyone has someone in their lives that kind of might be popping into their head right now, right? The manipulative sister-in-law, the boss at work who just needs all the attention and take so the credit for your work, the callous mother-in-law, I get a lot of callous mother-in-law in the comments.

These are people who cause us incredible amounts of stress, they divide us, they make us think that everyone is terrible when that's not the case.

And they erode norms of polite conduct, they enshrined competition where cooperation will be so much better for everybody. This one bad apple can really ruin the barrel. And I think today, I'm hoping to give people some tools to stop that rock.

One of the things that I wondered almost immediately because as you talked about these are the huge source of stress, you talked about callous manipulative, they divide us, they make you think other people are terrible, they stir up controversy and competition. Is it always someone who's doing it overtly or would this apply to somebody who's maybe a little bit more victimy and softer in their approach like as we kind of, because I want, I want to start the conversation by you having people in your mind that cause you stress so that you can think specifically about how to apply this.

“So we define dark personalities as the overlap between kind of specific dark personalities which I'm sure will get into is this kind of nexus of like callous manipulative and hostile.”

Certainly know what they're doing so one of the questions I often get is do these people realize that they are this way and the answer is yes because we often measure these personality traits with like a self report we ask them is this characteristic of you and they will say yeah that sounds like me I don't have any remorse I am a born leader I am okay manipulating other people to get my way and I don't feel bad about it and so it's not like they don't.

Not like they don't realize that they are this way but they don't necessarily care or they're not like concerned about that impact on other people right that's that callous piece.

“So that combination of manipulativeness and callousness I'm going to take advantage of you I'm going to tell lies and then I don't really worry about the consequences or how that makes you feel.”

Got it I'm so happy that you just define callous because that was going to be my next question so manipulative is my behavior does impact you and callous means I don't really care that it does.

Yeah so what is a poisonous person look like in day to day life so a poisonous person has elevated levels of callousness.

“The manipulativeness and hostility toward other people is kind of the core of dark personality traits okay if you're trying to think of in your life what does that person look like.”

Yes, they might be the boss who is like consistently self focused and takes advantage of all the people that work underneath them takes credit for their work. Manipulates them perhaps into doing work that is not part of their job description and then it's like oh this is all about me right it could be the manipulative mom at the PTA right like she's kind of pulling the string she's spreading rumors and also that she can kind of maintain this position of power right there's other versions right so you might have your friends new boyfriend right might seem really kind of.

Signally sweet around her but is actually really cool to everyone else around him and seems like he might be like love bombing her right like creating this beautiful sense of a future for them but you see the pattern everywhere else which is that he is callous he doesn't care about other people he treats them poorly he dominates people and so I think we see these personalities.

In all different versions or all different aspects of our life because a personality is a consistent way of thinking feeling and behaving.

And by virtue of it being consistent that means you take your personality with you wherever you go right so sometimes you're at the grocery store sometimes you're at work sometimes you're with your family and so we see these types of personalities you know in all different aspects of our life. I want to hover right there and make sure that I got that so a personality is a consistent way of being thinking behaving and feeling. And when we look at this in the context of you know poisonous people that are hostile callous manipulative so you're kind of seeing this almost consistent trend of somebody's hostile to other people call us I don't care manipulative I'm going to do what I need to do to get what I need.

Before we go even deeper I cannot wait to dig into this could you just list quickly for the person who's listening right now what are the four kinds of dark personalities that we're going to dig into in detail. So personality psychologists talk about four different but overlapping okay as the dark tetrad okay personality traits so we've got this tetrad mean four it sure does okay yeah like learning a lot.

Macievallianism and sadism so these are the four dark personality types but as you've already said as we're digging into each one so we can spot trends.

There may be some overlap yes absolutely so like that question that I sometimes get is this person on narcissists or a psychopath that also suggests that they're like completely separate things right. And when we get into the definitions you'll notice that there's a reasonable amount of overlap so these traits tend to be moderately correlated so if you're high in one chances are you're also higher in others. And so it's not like an either or kind of thing it's often like a yes and got you after this episode when you start to apply what we're learning.

Is it more useful not to label somebody in narcissist but to go that's a narcissistic personality style right there ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding or they have the makings of associate path like how do I talk to my my best friend about this.

“Yeah I think it's certainly more accurate to say like this individual seems like they have high levels of psychopathic personality traits or narcissistic personality traits.”

It's a bit of a mouthful but it recognizes the fact that you know this is a continuum and not you know kind of a black and white situation.

What I also like about that even though it's a mouthful is that. I think for so much of my life anyway and I'm sure as you're listening you're gonna feel the same way that I have given so much time and energy and experience so much heartache at the hands of people. Yeah that are hostile callists and manipulative yeah and if I can take a step back and be able to be more of a ninja with this where I can go oh there's a narcissistic personality style.

“I think I could recognize it sooner versus thinking you have to label somebody something versus spotting behavior and recognizing oh I got I got a step back from that I got to recognize that step back.”

Yeah versus just saying oh that person is that kind of person if that makes sense.

Yeah totally I think sometimes we get caught up in like trying to figure out what is the label. Is she this or is she that yes and that can kind of distract us from like you know it doesn't have to be either or it's just oh I see there's callisness coming across and a lot of her behavior and so now okay I'm cut into the callisness and I can try to interact with her in a different way that is going to reduce some of the impact of those personality traits. I find that to be really helpful because I feel more equipped than to spot across a continuum versus waiting for behavior to build up to the point where I label somebody.

“Let's start with sociopath because you hear that word thrown around a lot what actually is a sociopath.”

Dr. Tenbrink and how do you spot one so people with high levels of psychopathy I've got a visual here you do okay yeah okay check this up and I want to tell the person who's listening what it is you don't feel like you're left out it is a. The illustration of a person who is wearing a mask and behind the mask you can see that they're either angry cowless and manipulative but the mass that they're wearing has a big smiley kind of friendly face. Psychopathy is actually a constellation of traits it's not just one thing but it's a set of traits that when you kind of put them together creates psychopathy I think this illustration is is a good kind of depiction of the mask of sanity so one of the early researchers who studied.

Psychopathy use this phrase to describe people with high levels of psychopathy and it's because they they're incredibly manipulative and they often come across as very superficially charming. And so like what you see is not necessarily what you get right and so you can see this kind of friendly looking demeanor on the outside masking that hostility and anger underneath. But when I talk about psychopathy being a constellation of traits that means that it's more than just one thing it all comes together to form psychopathy.

One way to chop up those behaviors or those constituent parts of psychopathy has a relatively long history but Dr. Bob here and. broadly map those pieces on to being callous manipulative impulsive and anti social and so we can go through each of those yes that's what you like because I'm like oh.

before they're acting they tend to be pretty reckless and irresponsible.

This might lead to them kind of having a called parasitic lifestyle like they're mooching off of other people because they're not putting in the like consistent work and planning of planning out a career. a family all these things that go into life right so that's the impulsivity bit and then anti social is a prognist to breaking the rules and this we've often studied psychopathy in the context of criminal justice settings and so this could be legal rules right that they're breaking but it doesn't have to be that it can be kind of social norms of.

The kindness or politeness or fairness it can also be like workplace conduct right we've got certain rules in the workplace and they are kind of blatantly disregarding those kinds of things so putting all those things together.

“Callous manipulative anti social impulsive that's what is the kind of combination that makes up psychopathy.”

So when I hear the words psychopath I think about some sort of horror movie yes and some person running around killing people.

Dr. Tenbring can you give us an example of two since this personality trait runs on a continuum. What does a subtle version of a psychopath look like you know on one continuum and what might it look like on the other in terms of what you would encounter in your life. So I mean very low would be someone who is like kind and honest and follows the rules right and so that is actually most people.

“Gotcha very high but perhaps not that kind of serial killer stereotype yeah would be someone who tells a lot of lies.”

Is very superficially charming so like they're kind of fun to talk to in the moment but if you think about the conversation you had later you're like not it really makes sense there's not a lot of substance.

To what they said if you examine it in some depth they don't care they're like very remorseless right not experiencing a whole lot of guilt.

Breaking a whole lot of rules and they're not really thinking too far ahead right so you can imagine this kind of personality almost anywhere. You can think about them in the workplace maybe you might have a coworker who is very charismatic and everyone loves them at the start.

“And they're always breaking the rules that work but people see them and they're like that's a go get her they're great they are so smart but you behind the scenes are like they don't do their work.”

They're breaking the rules all of the time and they're really more like you know talk a big game then actually back it up with the time and the effort that you often need to be good at your job. That is incredibly helpful are there any early warning signs that you may be dealing with this kind of personality type either in somebody that you're dating or that your brothers now dating or in a family member. So I mean you you spot one of these individuals again by looking for consistent patterns right of these traits over time and across context but there are some early warning signs right.

So if you think about if you act in these ways consistently over time if I just happen to pop into your life for like a minute chances are I might see some of those patterns happening right it's not perfect indicator and I might see new information over time. But there are some things that you can look for so you can look for things like inappropriate emotional expressions especially you know if someone has failed or if someone is hurting they might look like they're actually enjoying that kind of thing.

They might be expressing really hostile language but smiling at the same time so you get this kind of like weird emotional presentation. You might also get that superficial charm where it feels you know kind of really good in the moment but if you examine what they actually said. There's not a whole lot of substance there they tend to be kind of combative right so they might be kind of pushing on your personal and professional boundaries so even if you say oh I don't really talk about my family while I work they keep asking you about it.

And in addition to that they might be kind of impulsive in their answers they're asking they're answering very quickly off the cuff they interrupt you all the time but they get really angry if you interrupt them because they tend to like to be kind of dominating or domineering in conversations.

And if you've been listening and you've ever said yourself I don't know why I feel so off after talking to this person.

Share this episode text it to your best friend send it to your sister drop in the group chat at work you don't need to explain anything trust me when they have play they're going to get it and don't go anywhere because we have so much more to dig into with Dr. Tenbrink when we return stay with me.

“Welcome back at your friend Mel Robbins today you and I are here with Dr. Leanne tenbrink and we're talking about what she calls poisonous people manipulation and how to protect your piece without becoming cynical.”

Right Dr. Tenbrink let's keep going my next question is what is mackey a vellianism. Did I say that right yes you didn't yeah big word it's so many syllables so mackey a vellianism is a tendency to desire status and control like they really want to be in charge they want to be in power they want maybe fame or money whatever that is and they have a really a moral approach to manipulation. Meaning like they're very willing to kiss someone's butt to get ahead but they're also just as willing to like spread rumors or tell lies to do that and they're not particularly bothered they're just like what do I need to get to the top of the food chain here and.

We're willing to do that so somebody will step on your head or spread lies about you in order to get what they want yeah totally yes we do have a visual okay so this one we got the chess pieces right so he's knocking you off the board yes right so you're in the way knocking you off the board I think you know what this depicts is essentially is very strategic social style so like where we talked about psychopathy having that kind of impulsive nature right this is different. This is like they're willing to like kind of plan things out they're like oh melto me something kind of embarrassing I'm going to like put that in my back pocket and I'll bring that back up later whenever I kind of.

“Need to turn the screws on her or something like that is this a kind of person where I think we've all had that experience where you.”

You have this sense that somebody is turning it on and showing up when they need something and the second that they have gotten what they needed and used you for a particular purpose.

You're on yeah absolutely you know I spoke to some people who especially at work would see this kind of behavior very strategic pushing people out very subtly managing up to the boss to try to get what they want and these people tend to be very.

“Unsatisfied with their current position and all like always gunning for something better yeah what does this look like in a family.”

You know again it would be just that desire for power control over other people and probably very willing to create these divisions maybe between the cousins and the uncles and whatever create divisions so that they come out on top so yeah it would be very similar right so like we take our personalities with us wherever we go. The same kinds of strategies but just playing out in the different context how do you spot a Machiavellian personality style at work like what are some of the behavior patterns that you should just pay attention to what's really going to be helpful here.

Yeah is talking to other people about that person why okay so my dear postdoc advisor Dr. Dacker Keltner yes who's been on this podcast we love him the science of all he's amazing he did this study on gossip in a sorority and essentially he asked everyone to fill out a measure of their Machiavellian traits.

And then he also asked the girls who gets talked about like in private conversations right who's well liked who has status and who is respected.

And what he found is that the people who were gossiped about the most were people who were not well liked but they were well known and they weren't well liked because they were highly Machiavellian and people perceived them as having status that they didn't really deserve. And so this is a situation in which it can be really helpful to maybe not take all rumors as base value right but like you know pay attention because people are going to be talking about these individuals because they're so.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense mm-hmm that makes a lot you could you could see that playing out in a family yeah where you have somebody that becomes the favorite and it was also always stirring up drama and always sucking the energy out of the room.

Yeah and it doesn't seem fair right.

Yeah and it can be hard to see you know because they use manipulation and they use it quite strategically like it can be hard to see through at the start I think that's what's hard about all of these personality traits is that they've got manipulation at the core of them right. How do you define manipulation manipulation is just the the willingness to use other people to your own ends and so you are you know you're essentially like pulling the strings on other people changing their perspective perhaps by telling lies or half truths.

“Yeah so because I was about to say aren't we all like using other people should have said but what you just said though is very important you basically said you're doing you're willing to do whatever it takes.”

To use people like I suppose on some level we all hope that our friends are super Kate yeah we all hope that by you know being loving and kind you're going to get it back but that's not a form of manipulation because I'm not deceiving you in some ways that fairway to think about it. Because I don't struggle with the fact that you know this is kind of probably a conversation for after we finished these four personality traits but here's something I struggle with like I know people are wildly stressed out and overwhelmed.

Yeah and there's a lot going on with the state of the world.

And you never know what somebody is dealing with and I also recognize that you typically are not dealing with the actual person in front of you you're dealing with their childhood issues in their emotional state whether or not they've eaten anything in there.

“Tolerance for emotions and blobity blobity blobity blobity blob but and so I often try to give people the benefit of the doubt for me very safe distance yeah.”

But we are living in a moment time where the behavior of people in public the behavior of people online the acting out in families it just seems like.

Like toxic behavior has skyrocketed and so I am just trying to disartain when you know that somebody's truly being manipulative versus somebody is having a super bad week. Or they're just really at a point because of this stuff going on that you don't know about that they're emotionally flooded and they didn't intend to be this way but they're walking all over. Totally.

“So you could be consistently call us a manipulative right yeah and therefore you probably have high levels of these dark trades but that doesn't mean that the rest of us are never call us a manipulative right and there's often.”

The situations that are more likely to bring that behavior out so and you're right that the world right now seems like it is pushing on a lot of those situational factors that increase the likelihood that will behave in these kinds of ways. We can probably all think of a time when we were not our best selves right I feel bad about that though yeah and I apologize for it and I then beat myself up over it and what you're saying I I'm starting to disartain dr 10 brink is that a person with dark personality trace actually does not know.

I mean especially psychopathy a lack of guilt and remorse is like core to what that personality is is that the kind of person also holds grudges. Yes, yeah absolutely obviously I'm thinking of somebody that I know. Dr 10 brink what's the number one sign you're being manipulated so if this person wants something from you you know maybe it's your time your money your influence. We seem to be a different person around you than everyone else. I think that's a big red flag that you're not seeing who they are so you know early in romantic relationships will hear about you know love bombing and you know this person seemed like the perfect partner they they were always texting me they sent flowers they want the same things that I want out of this relationship.

All seems great just a two of us but like look at how they treat the Uber driver the barista the like hostess at the restaurant especially when they don't think you're looking.

Eventually you're not going to be the exception anymore you're going to become part of the rule and I think yeah seeing that kind of deviation when you are you are the deviation that I think is a is a problem let's talk about narcissism so what is the clearest sign that you're dealing with somebody that has the dark personality of narcissism. Okay another visual. Nars this isn't. All right so here we've got someone looking into a broken mirror and you see kind of like the cracks in the facade here and I think essentially what this is kind of pointing out is that what you see is not really what you get that actually this signifies to me kind of like a vulnerable type of narcissism where.

“There ego is actually really easily shattered grandiose narcissism is kind of the opposite of that where there ego like cannot be deflated.”

Even though they're getting kind of feedback that it should be but at the core of both of those kinds of narcissism is entitlement.

And exploitation of other people in order to get that what they think they deserve which is more than most other people and I think it's really helpful to try to identify those things early if you can because those traits look really attractive early on and they are the exact same traits that lead to problems a little bit later. So there's this one study that I love Delroy Paul House at UBC he did this study of groups of students and they were working together over the course of a term right and week one they all.

You know got together in their new groups and they made these little like first impressions of people and it turns out that the people who were the most narcissistic in those groups were originally seen as like really agreeable really well adjusted and very competent.

Really that was the first impression yeah and it agreeable and then week seven he has some do those same ratings again.

Those same people were seen as arrogant braggards who were actually really hostile and who overestimated their abilities right so it's kind of like there's the sheen at the start and it quickly wears off when you start to realize like the person they are putting forward. And they are putting forward is not the person they actually are so there tends to be a lot of self enhancement some early cues might be having lots of confidence coming across very confident in your. And they have verbal and non verbal presentation the way you carry yourself they tend to be very concerned about their physical appearance so putting they tend to be quite stylish and like put a lot of effort into their appearance and so it can be really hard to kind of pull apart what is.

And what is the impression that they're trying to make and sometimes it's like time that is going to reveal that.

You know you said that there were kind of the two camps of the narcissistic personalities one being grandiose which I think we all have somebody in mind you can think of that represents that.

“It's in your family or at work or you know in public here in the United States but vulnerable yeah because I think these can be sneakier and like you don't realize that's what you're dealing with and so can you talk a little bit about how.”

The vulnerable narcissistic personality shows up like what are we looking for because I think this one's really sneaky. Yeah so with respect to vulnerable narcissism like the the entitlement and the willingness to exploit other people is still involved just like for grandiose yeah narcissism but they tend to have a real fragility to their ego like they're they're almost looking for you know your admiration to prop up something that's like not there right.

“And they tend to be very defensive and somewhat avoidant and I think learning a little bit about what triggers these two different kind of types of narcissists is actually pretty revealing so.”

The grandiose type tends to get very angry when there's like a failure because they they are supposed to be incredible and amazing and they're going to be pissed whenever you know they don't get that job they don't get the promotion they don't get you know the raise at work.

And so if you know they get broken up with or you know someone just doesn't treat them very nicely you know they tend to really react strongly to that kind of thing.

“How can this show up in a family especially in the vulnerable narcissist like is this the person that flies off the handle because you can't make it home this weekend is this the person that's just.”

Constantly giving you the guilt trip if you're not doing everything you wanted them to do because meeting expectations if you don't do it it's the rejection piece right like how does this show up in a family. I mean they're going to have those same traits right so the entitlement whatever they want the family to do whatever everything I've done for me yes exactly very willing to manipulate people so using guilt trip whatever it would be that would like work to kind of push you around. And in addition to that it's like rejection so yeah if you don't come to the birthday party if you don't make it to the retirement party or whatever you don't come home for Christmas that is going to really you know set someone with vulnerable nurses.

“This is where as someone who's more grandiose narcissism like this kind of dirt off their shoulder right so like they're they're they're.”

Interesting and I want you to hold that thought doctor 10 bring because we're going to take a quick break so our sponsors can have a moment to share a few words and don't go anywhere we're going to be right back. Welcome back at your friend Mel Robbins today you and I are here with Dr. Lee and 10 bring we're talking about dark personalities and how to spot them in real life and exactly what to do and not do to protect yourself.

All right Dr. Jim break let's just jump right back in here's the next thing I wanted to ask you what about the fourth.

Dark personality which is sadism what is sadism. Sadism is essentially having an appetite for cruelty oh yeah what oh really yeah so it's centered around finding enjoyment and the pain about the enjoyment. Oh like oh God that's awful yeah oh yeah so we've got a depiction of this until oh say doesn't okay.

So here we've got someone who is you know taking some control over the situation I might actually like add like little knives or something.

But this is a visual that Dr. 10 bring is holding if you're listening there's a person that's big above and then a little person that's almost like on pop it strings being manipulated but you're saying they take pleasure in hurting other people and so if you were to add anything you would literally stab the person that's at the end of the mind. Yeah they get enjoyment out of paint and what's so interesting about your reaction is like yeah there are those like very extreme versions of this like when I was an undergrad I was coding these descriptions of sexual homicides and I was coding them for evidence of gratuitous violence and sadistic violence.

Those are obviously these like very extreme examples right but there's more like every day for instance some things like enjoying really violent sports. Maybe you know enjoying you know you're scrolling through Instagram or something and you see a video of a kid getting hit with a soccer ball and you find that funny.

“So kind of everyday sadism is what it's called and I think we think of these people as like you know monsters right but we can probably all think of a time when we felt something sort of adjacent so let me try this on you.”

So imagine that you are thinking about someone really powerful maybe a politician a CEO of some company that you dislike and they are walking across the stage to give speech and they trip and they fall like how do you react. You know I guess I might be like you deserve that yeah there might be like a little smirk might come on your face just for you know why and you don't I would call it karma. She just came for you because you didn't deserve that you know yeah title and so I can see what you mean by like that's just example of like a micro.

Yeah, so this is the Germans have a great word for this is shot in Florida and it is taking joy in the misfortune of someone else and often we experience this when someone who's in like a position of power and they kind of fall or falter something like that. And so that's yeah kind of like an everyday sadism kind of experience. Well let me let me tease that a little more because I was very intrigued when you said a micro everyday pharmaceutical is watching very violent sports or maybe even watching extremely violent horror movies.

Just as you know what I'm saying for somebody who doesn't deserve the power that they have how do you know the difference between something that might feel like they're getting what's do versus taking.

“Pleasure in seeing someone else suffer if that makes sense or is it the same thing and I'm just putting a better label on it.”

I think what it would be is just kind of like different places on that spectrum got right so like someone who scores really high on sadism might be like oh yeah I love you know violent sports I love violent video games because I enjoy seeing you know the heads blow off the characters or whatever and I also love.

I also love trolling people online because it gives me kind of a thrill to just like.

Break people down not yeah exactly and so they might also feel shot and Freud right but they would be like yes yes yes to like all of these different items that we present to them and you would be like yeah a little bit on one item right so you would be pretty low on that spectrum and they would be pretty high. So when there's a pile on online and people are just tearing somebody down those are examples of microsatism. Yes so there's great research showing that people who score higher in sadism also tend to be more likely to engage in online trolling.

And it's actually like a small proportion of the internet feels like a lot of the internet right but it's actually a pretty small proportion of people.

Why should microsatism somebody in your life that is really in the violence sports or love seeing heads blown off and video games should that concern you.

“I think as with all of these things I kind of file them away and I'm like.”

I'm going to hold on to that red flag and I'm going to think about how I need to interact with you and whether this personality trait is going to get in the way of that.

If you've got like I don't know a brother or a cousin who's like I love UFC I mean this is not necessarily like a throw them away kind of situation right it's like.

He might you know score relatively low on all of the other aspects of sadism and not a problem whatsoever it might be part of a personality pattern that is a much bigger problem. So you're looking for evidence of this like over time and across context it's not just in sports right it's not just in.

“Conversations with you it's also at work it's also you know at home with the his own family.”

Dr. Tenbrink what are the signs that someone is being terrible. Just temporarily versus they truly have dark personality traits. So if you're just coming into the situation at that moment it's going to be very difficult to discern what you really need is time okay because someone who has high levels of these dark traits are that way. And then you know, you know, you know, you know, is stressed is tired is hungry etc and they do something call us they do something cruel. That is a deviation from their normal pattern of behavior so having like a bigger scope of information about this person is going to help you to see whether that's like that tracks or more like oh that was a weird thing that they just did.

If you're going to bring you say that within 10 seconds even of meeting somebody you can spot a dark personality trait what are you looking for. Okay, so bit of a good news about new situation here is that good news people with very little training can. Detect with some kernel of truth the extent to which someone has psychopathic personality traits or not just like five seconds five seconds five seconds of their behavior. And it might need to be updated over time, but let's talk about this research. So this has worked on by Scott Lillinfeld and his colleagues and he had videos of men who were incarcerated they were actually doing the semi structured interview with the psychologist that was part of a psychopathy assessment.

And so he had trained psychologists who were doing this long interview and like criminal case review to try to assess these personality traits and then he took five seconds or like ten second clips of this interview and show them to people who just had you know a little definition of what psychopathy was kind of like we did earlier in this. And just for a refresher psychopathy is when you are manipulative and callous, but you also are a rule breaker in your impulses.

Okay, yeah, so gave completely untrained people that little definition that you just gave and five seconds of their behavior and said, you know, where do you think they fall on this kind of spectrum of psychopathy.

And the ratings that these untrained people gave were reasonably correlated with the trained psychologists who had the benefit all of like a much longer interview and this criminal case file review.

Okay, so we're like, what are they looking at right so my colleagues and I we reached out to Scott and we're like, can we get these videos we want to code we want to know what people are looking at and what we found was that. People with high levels of psychopathy were saying really hostile things and smiling broadly we called a doucheon smile with you and you got those little. Crinkles around your eyes that go along with the upturned lips. Oh, they're like douche and I'm like, okay. Yeah, sounds like somebody was smile as they're saying something like a rule.

Yeah, yeah, so we're getting this like extreme kind of discordance between the things are saying and the way that they're expressing it. And people kind of naturally were like that's weird.

“I think that's associated with psychopathy and that was a reasonable useful cue in this case.”

There are other things that you can look for too. So high psychopathy folks are more likely to interrupt you in conversation but refuse to be interrupted themselves. They ignore those personal and professional boundaries. They might be kind of like oddly calm so like they're not showing guilt or shame whenever you would expect that to be the case which they have an air of moral superiority about them. They might be unusually angry and they might get frustrated when they can't bait you into an argument like if you don't take the bait like they're looking for that.

That hostility, and if you don't give it to them, they can get frustrated. So like none of these are a Pinocchio's nose, right? They're not.

There's no one behavior that's always going to be like, all people with high levels of psychopathy do this all of the time.

But if you start seeing this pattern unfolding, you know, across multiple interactions, that's when you can be like, you know, increasingly confident that that this personality trait is present.

“Why are people with dark personality traits so often in leadership and powerful roles?”

This is a great question, which I've spent many, many a moon thinking about. There's a, I think, a whole bunch of different reasons. The first one, I think we overlook, which is just that they want it. When we study narcissism, often we have people do self-report, so they're just reporting on their own personality. One of those items is I am a born leader, and you're like, how much do you agree with that statement?

If you're like, yeah, I am a born leader, then you're probably also gunning for that promotion at work. Like you're going to be more likely to put yourself forward for a high status position. So that's one thing. Another is that we tend to be really blinded by their confidence, like we confuse confidence with competence. And so when people, you know, come across with like a lot of bravado.

They say they can and they have done all of these incredible things and they seem very self-assured, but we believe it.

And whenever you're talking about people who tend to be pumping themselves up and are willing to lie to in order to get what they want,

“like that can be quite misleading. What is gaslighting? Dr. Tenbrink? And what is not gaslighting?”

Yeah, so I think people throw around like, are you gaslighting me? Like even when there's like a little bit of confusion or like you interpreted a situation a little bit differently than I did. Or, you know, something doesn't make sense to them. And there's like a curdle of truth in the way that we're using that, but it's certainly overused. It's not just, you know, having a different perspective on things. It's not just a disagreement. It is a type of psychological and emotional abuse that involves someone attempting to make another person feel crazy by creating this kind of like surreal environment around them.

So it's not just like isolating or intimidating or minimizing someone. It's trying to make them like not trust their own mind, their own their memories, their reactions, their like experience of the world. And our brains are essentially like prediction machines. And so whenever we get feedback from another person that like all the predictions that you are making are wrong, it can be really destabilizing.

And that can create this real sense of dependence on another person and isolation from other people. I mean, compared to other types of abuse, we actually have relatively little research on gaslighting. But we do know that people with high levels of dark personality traits endorse this kind of behavior in romantic relationships. People were asked, what do you think about, you know, telling someone that, you know, that didn't actually happen that way.

“And that's where reactions are completely outside. They're trying to make them doubt their experience of the world. And people with higher levels of all the dark personality traits that we talked about today, we're like, that seems fine.”

So that can be, you know, incredibly destabilizing and difficult to get out of, can a person with a dark personality change.

So, personalities can change. They tend to change very little over time, especially if people are not committed to that kind of change. And people with dark personalities tend not to be very concerned about changing themselves. And they're challenged manipulative and hostile. Yeah. Then why would you change exactly as they see it as more of this is a you problem, not a me problem, right? So they tend not to have a whole lot of commitment to therapy. Now, the research that we do have say on psychopathy in particular suggests that if people will stay in therapy for like multiple sessions, they can reduce, it's almost like a harm reduction in their behavior.

So most of this research is with incarcerated men and the outcome that we're looking at is recidivism. So likelihood that they will commit another offense when they get released. And the guys who stick with treatment longer are less likely to engage in recidivism and come back to prison. So that's amazing. That's an improvement. They do not become dramatically different people like they don't become, you know, the most kind and honest person. We're not looking at a personality 180 here, but you can get reduction in some of perhaps some more problematic.

This is why I ask you that is because I remember Dr. Romani diversa who specializes in narcissistic personality disorders once said something to me that changed the way that I forever deal with a person in my life who clearly has all the traits and what she basically said is the single thing that is creating so much pain and frustration.

And dealing with somebody once you recognize these dark traits is your belief and hope that the other person will change.

And holding out hope for a fantasy of what might happen if you twist yourself and not through you stay for 10 more years or you just lower your voice or you bake more cupcakes or have more sex or show up at Christmas that that hope for the fantasy.

“Keep you from recognizing the reality of what you're dealing with. Yeah, do you have any thoughts on sort of that perspective?”

I think she's totally right is that my commitment to someone else changing really doesn't have anything to do with their commitment or ability to change and so someone's personality is as we've been talking about their consistent way of thinking feeling and behaving. Not how you feel about it. That's not part of the definition. So like your reaction to their personality or wish. Yeah, or wish is like dream. It's not part of it. It's not relevant, but it hurts whenever you are like I'm doing all of the things that I can possibly do to change you.

I think there are ways that we can approach interactions with people with dark personalities to make them a little smoother to like make it just makes it like less likely that this interaction is going to ruin my whole day.

It's not going to change their personality, but it's going to just like, okay, we can reduce the stress like day to day interaction interaction.

“So let's take an example. So as you've been listening to Dr. Ten Brink, I bet you're imagining somebody that you have to deal with whether they're in your family or there's somebody that you see at work or they're in your friend group.”

Maybe it's a neighbor who is particularly difficult and hostile to deal with or maybe it's your ex. Like a lot of people have situations with exes, especially when there's custody issues that have a lot of dark personality stuff coming up.

When you recognize the situation, you could maybe change how you approach the situation to reduce its impact on you. Yeah, I would love for you to speak directly to the person who's listening because you have taught us so much today and really help us to see both that this is on a continuum that there's only certain things you can control, which is how you're going to show up. And that there are things to do here, one of them not being that the other person's changing.

If the person listening takes just one action after hearing everything that you've taught us, what do you think the most important thing to do after listening to this is?

“I think it's to slow down because the personality is a pattern. We keep talking about this over and over again. And it's a pattern that as a spouse or as a friend or a coworker, you don't have a whole lot of ability to change, right?”

So take some time to get to know someone before you commit in whatever ways you need to commit to that relationship. You're all looking for this magic bullet, this like one behavior I can see and you can be like you're in and you're out, right? But that's kind of like trying to see an entire puzzle and you're just holding one piece in your hand. And so I think in addition to slowing down, don't do it alone, like we know that we are better at detecting lies at discerning people's personalities and at managing relationships when we do it with other people that we trust and we know.

Maintaining that supportive social network is just so important. Like you're going to need them to identify the bad apple, you're going to need them if you got to get out of a situation with a bad apple.

And so they're going to help you escape if you decide to leave and they're going to help you muddle through it if you decide to stay.

“And so like staying connected to other people, I think is so important.”

Dr. Ten, bring, what are your parting words? So I think it's important to end this conversation by like putting in into context, right? So about 1% of the general population would meet the clinical criteria for psychopathy. So 10% of the population on average would like agree with the self-report statements that we use to measure dark personality traits and that sounds like a lot now. It does. But it's so important to flip that statistic around that means 9 out of 10 people are not callous and manipulative and impulsive and anti social they are honest and they are kind and they are helpful.

And if you take the time to get to know people, I bet you'll be surprised how many good people there are out there. There's such a lack of trust in society right now. And I think some of it is is really misplaced.

So I hope people don't let this malevolent few that can have such a huge negative impact on our lives keep us from enjoying a life with all the benevolent amazing people out there.

Oh, Dr. Tenbrink, I'm so happy you ended there because you're right. After you hear all this, you start to just feel like you're in a dark case, surrounded by dark personality. It can be a bummer. The bigger zoom out is that it's probably one person. It's probably one person that has been causing the massive amount of stress in your life. And I really hope that as you've been listening, you take to hurt what Dr. Tenbrink has taught us and understand that when you spot these traits, okay, you now recognize what you're dealing with.

And you've got to assume this person's not changing and if you're going to choose to continue to be around them, you can be smarter about how you're showing up and you can think about what motivates a dark personality. Right? Yeah. And just get very strategic about the way you deal with this person. Yeah. It can feel like, you know, it's a dark personality's world and we're just living in it. But if we can learn how to identify those people and like either avoid or approach those interactions a little more strategically, it means that we can dramatically reduce the amount of stress and pain that we feel throughout our lives.

But just learning how to deal with like one person a little bit more effectively. Well, we all have that one person that's causing 90% of the stress. So I appreciate that you walked us through all of this in depth and really explained it.

“So we can see what's just normal stress and him maturity and what's really something that you need to protect yourself.”

So, Dr. Tenbrink, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mel. And thank you. Thank you for making the time to listen to this and one more thing. In case no one else tells you today as your friend, I wanted to tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life.

Remember, Dr. Tenbrink said pause, assess and then be strategic about how you move forward because when you start being more strategic about how you relate to other people.

“I promise you your life is going to get a whole lot better. So go do it.”

All righty, I will see you in the very next episode. I'll be waiting to welcome you in the moment hit play.

Okay. Dr. Tenbrink, how do you, how do you support someone? Okay. And they're starting to change for the worst. Wait, how do you, and you don't even, and they don't even.

“And thank you. Thank you for making the time to listen to this and in case, is that how we, just Christ, I'm starting to lose it or my hand. Okay. So read the last line again. Tracy, I'm sorry everybody.”

If you're choosing, if you're going to choose to give you around them, you can be smarter about how you're showing up and you can think about what motivates a dark personality. And I personally love knowing that we can both be more strategic, given that there are dark personalities out there. Well, I don't know.

“Okay. Wait. What is it? And thank you for watching all the way to the end here on YouTube. And if you're thinking, okay, what should I watch next?”

You were going to love this video. Oh my god. They, now look, they're always.

Okay. Okay. Got you. Right. Got you. Now, Dr. Tenbrink has fascinating research about how to spot how to spot a dark personality trait and how to, Dr. Tenbrink also has fascinating research about how to spot a dark personality type in less than 10 in 10 seconds. Okay, sir. Oh, and one more thing, and no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend.

Not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional. Got it. Good. I'll see you in the next episode.