Episode summary
Gaslighting Expert: The One Phrase Narcissists Always Use To Control You! | Dr Leanne Ten Brinke
The Diary of a CEO
· · 1 hr 46 min · Hosts: Steven Bartlett · Guests: Leanne Ten Brinke
Summary
Leanne Ten Brinke argues that deception and dark personality traits can be studied empirically, but they are easier to miss than pop culture suggests. She says people can get a rough read on psychopathy in about five seconds, yet the most reliable clues are not eye contact or fidgeting; they are sparse detail, verifiable specifics, and visible cognitive effort. She also says liars often use mixed signals, such as friendly smiles paired with hostile language, while people with higher dark-trait scores can show more Duchenne smiles and hand gestures.
She breaks down the dark tetrad as psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and sadism, stressing that all four exist on a continuum rather than as a simple yes-or-no label. Ten Brinke says psychopathy is about 50% genetic and 50% environmental, while cold, uncaring parenting and child abuse can raise risk; overvaluation in childhood may also feed later narcissism. She distinguishes grandiose from vulnerable narcissism, and says men score somewhat higher on average across these traits.
On prevention and response, she says warm, responsive parenting is the best-supported way to reduce callous and unemotional traits in children, and that cognitive behavioral therapy can lower recidivism in incarcerated people with psychopathic traits. More broadly, she argues that people should stop over-weighting unreliable body-language cues and instead ask better questions, especially open-ended ones that increase the burden on someone who is lying.
Key takeaways
- Ten Brinke says there is no single lie signal; verifiable detail and follow-up questions work better than eye contact or fidgeting.
- She says psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and sadism each lie on a continuum, with clinical psychopathy affecting about 1% of the population and narcissistic personality disorder about 2% to 5%.
- She says dark traits are about 50% genetic and 50% environmental, with cold, uncaring parenting and abuse raising risk.
- She distinguishes grandiose narcissists, who react badly to failure, from vulnerable narcissists, who react badly to rejection and need constant admiration.
- She says warm, responsive parenting and reward-based reinforcement are the best-supported interventions for children showing callous and unemotional traits.
Notable quotes
“You can get a kernel of truth about someone's personality, the extent to which they're psychopathic in about 5 seconds”
“there's no research to suggest that that is true. However, there's an essential tool for detecting lies”
“warm and responsive parenting is it like when you look at treatment for kids who are showing early warning signs”
How the episode opens
How long does it take someone to spot a psychopath? — About 5 seconds. So, most people think a psychopath looks dangerous. They picture the villain in a movie, but that's not how it works in real life. We've done some research in my lab and we found there are certainly some things that you can look for.
Have they ever done that with lying to figure out if people can spot liars — Thousands of times? If you ask people what's the number one cue that someone is lying to you, they will say they can't look you in the eye. But there's no research to suggest that that is true. However, there's an essential tool for detecting lies which is
Oh — I know as I study dark personality traits and I found that there's four different elements which are psychopathy, machavelianism, narcissism and sadism. And what we found is that people with higher levels of these traits engaged in duchen smiles which is the activation around the eyes and they also used a lot of hand gestures.
Where does this come from? Well, research suggests that abuse, cold, uncaring parenting style, but also overvaluation of a child early in life may lead to more narcissistic views later. — Is there any other fascinating questions you've pursued in your lab?
Yes, we studied the extent to which psychopathic personality traits could increase the amount of influence you have in government. And also, there are three common mistakes people make when dealing with dark personalities. We'll get into this more later. And I'm wondering if you can spot any of these dark personality traits just by looking at dating profiles.
All right. So, this is Ryan. This feels like a red flag. And then there's Haley.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- gaslighting
- narcissism
- psychopathy
- deception detection
- boundaries
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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