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From Here Forward shares stories and ideas about amazing things UBC and its alumni are doing around the world. It covers people and places, truths, science, art, and accomplishments with the view that sharing better inspires better. Join hosts Carol Eugene Park and Jeevan Sangha, both UBC grads, in exploring solutions for the negative stuff out there — focussing on the good for a change, from here forward.
[00:00:00] Carol Eugene Park: Hello, friendly alumni. You're listening to From Here Forward, an award-winning UBC Podcast Network podcast. I'm Carol.
[00:00:07] Jeevan Sangha: And I'm Jeevan.
[00:00:09] Carol Eugene Park: Jeevan, have you ever interacted with, like, a dark personality?
[00:00:13] Jeevan Sangha: I feel like you don't start a career in journalism without interacting with a dark personality. That, that's my answer to that. So, the answer would be yes, several. I imagine you've had a similar experience. I love journalism, but it's true. Come on.
[00:00:30] Carol Eugene Park: Wow. No, I love this realness. I just was not expecting you to say that.
[00:00:34] Well, according to our guest from this week, a dark personality, it's someone that's motivated by reward, status, and power. Actually, by that definition, yes, I have also interacted with many dark personalities, would that make us dark personalities?
[00:00:51] Jeevan Sangha: No
[00:00:53] Carol Eugene Park: Mm.
[00:00:53] Jeevan Sangha: We're better than everyone else, so...
[00:00:56] Carol Eugene Park: But, like, when you're in journalism, you ask dark-ish questions.
[00:01:01] Jeevan Sangha: You ask dark questions-
[00:01:02] Carol Eugene Park: to said dark personalities
[00:01:03] Jeevan Sangha: Okay, the, the last part of the definition that you missed was, they care about reward, status, and power rather than fairness or how other people feel. And I feel like as journalists we are very concerned with fairness and how other people feel.
[00:01:17] Carol Eugene Park: Depending on the dark personality that we're talking to, we don't necessarily care about how they feel, we just want the fairness and the facts.
[00:01:24] Jeevan Sangha: Which would stop us from being dark. We might be curious-
[00:01:27] Carol Eugene Park: Mm. Interesting ...
[00:01:28] Jeevan Sangha: a- about, like, about dark personalities, but I don't... I'm, I'm defending us on this one.
[00:01:32] Carol Eugene Park: Okay.
[00:01:33] Jeevan Sangha: Yeah.
[00:01:33] Carol Eugene Park: That's cool. So, we've only interacted with dark personalities.
[00:01:36] Jeevan Sangha: Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:36] Carol Eugene Park: Great.
[00:01:36] Jeevan Sangha: Let's go with that.
[00:01:37] Carol Eugene Park: Okay, cool.
[00:01:39] Jeevan Sangha: we got distracted there. Falls upon us, you know, it's the season of falling leaves and frightening decorations on homes. About to have way too much candy and chocolate, um, as Halloween approaches.
[00:01:52] Carol Eugene Park: Oh, yeah. And you know what better way to celebrate the month of Hallows' Eve, um, than speaking with a psychology professor about all things behavioral consequences of emotional high-stakes deception.
[00:02:06] Jeevan Sangha: Leanne ten Brinke, PhD, is an associate professor at UBC, where she directs the Truth and Trust Lab. Her research is focused on social and the paradox of trust.
[00:02:18] Carol Eugene Park: The lab at UBC studies whether humans can discriminate friend from foe, and if they can, how this process unfolds, the conditions under which we're persuaded to place our trust in others, and all that fun stuff. Leanne's also the author of Poisonous People: How to Resist Them and Improve Your Life.
[00:02:39] Jeevan Sangha: We talked about what makes a dark personality, how to identify them, and more.
[00:02:43] And if you'd like to learn more about the work at the Truth and Trust Lab, we've included links to them in our show notes below. And keep listening to find out if Carol actually has a dark personality or not
[00:02:55] Leanne ten Brinke: So, my name is Leanne TenBrink. I am an associate professor of psychology at UBC on the Okanagan campus, and I study, deception, dominance, and dark personality traits.
[00:03:07] Jeevan Sangha: What prompted you into this field of research? What initially drew you in?
[00:03:10] Leanne ten Brinke: I think I was always interested in, in research and, like, discovering new things, but I didn't really know that psychology was an area where you could do that until, uh, grade 11. In sociology class, my teacher, Miss Louise Lorifess, she, like, rolled in the TV/VCR combo.
[00:03:30] Like, I'm totally dating myself here as a millennial, but maybe some Gen Xers will remember this too. Very exciting day, you know this. And so, you know, we get to watch a movie in class. It turns out it was a documentary, a Nature of Things documentary, very Canadian, about psychopathy. And it was the first time I had heard about this type of personality, and it was also the first time I realized, like, you could study people and I thought that was so fascinating.
[00:03:57] I was like, okay, that's what I wanna do. So, then I went to, um, Dalhousie University, to kind of get my feet wet in this area.
[00:04:04] Carol Eugene Park: So, you're grade 11 and you're having this awakening. Prior to that, like were you drawn to kind of like s- books or movies that dealt with kind of similar themes, that now you're like, "Well, duh, of course this is my line of work now?"
[00:04:21] Leanne ten Brinke: Does the Goosebumps series count? Like, I think that would probably be like as close as I would have gotten. To be honest, like I, I real- I don't like horror, I don't like scary movies whatsoever. I startle very easily and like just can't handle scary movies very well, so you know, and I wasn't really into like true crime or something.
[00:04:43] I think what was fascinating to me when I watched this documentary was there was this man and he was, he, uh, had been, uh, diagnosed with psychopathy and he was describing his kind of inner experience, like this like lack of remorse, you know, no guilt, very little fear.
[00:05:02] And I was like, "What is that?" Like, that just seems so different from my experience of being human. And so, I thought that was so interesting. And so, it was mostly a fascination of like I didn't know that was a potential human experience, and I wanted to understand it better.
[00:05:19] I think that's really the impetus as opposed to like, you know, being a true crime junkie or something like that.
[00:05:25] Jeevan Sangha: You kind of touched on some of the traits there, but it's a word that people throw around a lot, like psychopath, but I don't think many people actually have like an understanding of what that actually means.
[00:05:34] So, for folks who don't know, what are the characteristics of psychopathy and how do you identify them?
[00:05:41] Leanne ten Brinke: Yeah, so psychopathy is, uh, what we call a constellation of traits, so it's not just like one thing. The kind of various components that make up psychopathy, there's a few different ways that we can organize them, but one really influential kind of organization system was pioneered by Dr. Robert Hare, who was on the, um, UBC Vancouver campus for many years. And he basically described these, like, four subcomponents.
[00:06:05] So there's essentially an interpersonal component, so they're very manipulative. They can be kind of superficially charming, but it's, it's in the service of kind of getting what they want, um, and they tend to be quite grandiose. They have very, uh, high beliefs about themselves.
[00:06:21] Secondly, there's this emotional or affective experience that is different. So very little shame, empathy, uh, very little concern for other people. They have low levels of remorse, and their emotional experience just tends to be kind of shallow. So, it's not that they can't experience any emotions, but they tend to be kind of limited in their experience of them. So, they can experience things like exhilaration, excitement, that kind of stuff, but very little shame and remorse. They might experience anger, but it tends to be quite short-lived. So, it's just, like, a different emotional experience, um, than most people.
[00:06:57] Thirdly, there's these kinds of lifestyle factors. Like, they're, they tend to be very impulsive, and they live, like, a fast life, right? And so, they're, they're not spending a whole lot of time very diligently working toward a life plan. They're a little bit more, like, fly by the seat of their pants. And because of that, they tend to, like, mooch off of other people, um, especially, you know, 'cause they don't have, say, a steady job that would provide them with the income to have their own, you know, apartment, et cetera, et cetera. So, they tend to approach risk differently, uh, then other people in that they're willing to take much more of it.
[00:07:30] Um, and lastly, and probably not surprisingly, like, all of these things together can lead to some pretty antisocial behavior. And so, a lot of, especially the early research in, um, psychopathy has been done in prison settings. People with these traits also tend to break a lot of rules, and that can sometimes be, like, social norms or just, like, workplace rules, but it can also be, you know, laws. They tend to engage in, you know, criminal versatility is what we call it. So, it's like they're not, like, a specialist. They kind of, like, do all the things.
[00:08:05] Um, so, those are kind of the four, uh, you know, components that make up psychopathy. And it's a spectrum. It's like a continuum, right? So, you know, we can talk about the, the very high end, uh, where someone would meet, like, a clinical cutoff for, quote, "having psychopathy," but really, it's like everyone falls somewhere along this continuum from very low to very high. And so, we can also observe these traits in just, like, the normal population.
[00:08:36] And so my research has gone really from studying them in the, in the criminal population to observing these traits kind of in the broader world.
[00:08:44] Carol Eugene Park: So, is dark personalities kind of like the umbrella term that psychopathy would go under and then other kind of disorders?
[00:08:52] Leanne ten Brinke: Absolutely. You got it. So, Delroy Paulhus, who is also on UBC Vancouver campus, so UBC has a huge presence, um, in this field. You know, he talks about the, the dark tetrad, and so that's a combination of four traits or, or four kinds of overlapping traits.
[00:09:09] One of them is psychopathy. Um, another is Machiavellianism, so they're, like, very kind of power hungry and very strategic in their use of manipulation in order to gain status or, or fame or power. There's narcissism, which we're probably all, uh, you know, well aware of, tend to be very grandiose and entitled. And then sadism, which is a relatively recent addition, um, and that really focuses on, like, taking pleasure in other people's pain.
[00:09:39] And so, all of these traits overlap with each other. If you score highly on one, you tend to score more highly on the others as well because they kind of share this, like, core of being callous and manipulative toward other people. And, and all of them, again, are... like, exist on a continuum, um, so that you can score anywhere from very low to very high, uh, on these traits.
[00:10:04] Jeevan Sangha: Wow. That is so interesting. You work as the director of the Truth & Trust Lab. What is, like, research look like in this space? what kind of methods do you use to understand how trust and deception unfold in real world settings beyond interpersonal relationships, but in, like, broader cultural spheres as well?
[00:10:23] Leanne ten Brinke: Yeah. So, we've really used a whole lot of different approaches over the years. Like, whenever I was, uh, just starting out in this field, you know, studying psychopathy, we were looking at, like, criminal case files, and we would have an offender's psychopathy checklist revised score, and that's kind of, um, a measure that is used to assess psychopathy, particularly in prison settings.
[00:10:46] So, we could look at relationships between their personality, their, their level of psychopathy, and kind of behaviors that they engaged in, and look at, like, risk profiles essentially. So, we kind of started there. Um, I got really bummed out honestly, uh, by the end of my PhD. I was just, like, thinking about, like, murder way too much, to be honest, and I was like, "I've am fascinated with this topic, but, like, I need to... I need a different setting."
[00:11:15] And this actually happened to be right around the time when Bernie Madoff, he was, like, identified for that giant Ponzi scheme that he executed. And so, I was like, "Oh, maybe there's, like, other settings where these personality traits might emerge."
[00:11:32] My postdoc was at UC Berkeley in the business school there, in the Haas School of Business. And so, I was interested in, like, these same personality traits but, how they were related to how much money hedge fund managers made, and like how effective US senators were at getting co-sponsors on their bills. Like, I was kind of trying to look for, like, is there a situation in which psychopathy can lead to success as opposed to going to jail? Which I think we would all agree is kind of the opposite of success.
[00:12:07] So in that way, we, we did not have US senators, like, fill out personality measures, nor did we have them, like, sit down to do, uh, a personality assessment with a, a trained clinical psychologist. What we did there is we were looking at behavioral cues. So, we would watch videos of them on the US Senate floor giving a speech, and we knew which like verbal and non-verbal behaviors tend to be associated with psychopathic personality traits. And so, we kind of worked backwards. We're like, "Okay, let's watch this video, see how many of these behaviors we, we identify, and if we see lots of them, they're probably relatively higher than people who exhibit very few of these traits."
[00:12:49] So, absolutely not like a perfect measure. We're essentially like thin slice... That's what psychologists call it, thin slicing. We're trying-- We're taking like a really short, uh, snippet of your behavior and trying to get a sense of your personality from it. And it turns out that we can do that with some accuracy, but it, it tends to be noisy, as you can imagine, because personality is a, a pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving over time and context.
[00:13:15] So if you only have a little snippet, you're not getting across time and context. But in any case, that's how we measured it there. Now, um, at UBC in the Truth and Trust Lab, we are primarily looking at kind of your average, you know, average undergrad, average citizen out in the world, and so we often use self-report measures.
[00:13:37] So we ask people, like, read a bunch of statements and indicate whether this is consistent with how they think, feel, and behave, or is not consistent with. And so, you give them statements like, you know, "I don't feel, um, empathy for people when they're in pain." And they would say like, "Yeah, that sounds like me," right?
[00:13:56] And so... Or like, "I am, I am special. I am the leader in every room." You know? If they say, "Yeah, that sounds a lot like me," that tends to be associated with high levels of narcissism. So now we're using a lot of self-report, um, measures in the lab, which is, is really like a gold standard for, for personality assessment.
[00:14:14] Carol Eugene Park: You know what? You just unlocked a memory that I had. So, I have OCD. And so really early on as a kid, I'm the eldest of three, come from an immigrant family. I don't really get much emotions. Uh, of course I do, but at the time there were things that were happening and I was just not feeling anything. And I remember, I think I was, like, in high school, I, like, in my room, just dim lighting, s- total silence. I was like, "I think I'm a psychopath," because I wasn't feeling anything at the time, and I did all these, like, tests on Google, like free figure out whatever. Do you, did you ever have those kinds of moments, like, as you were studying, um, more about dark personalities where you're like, "Oh my God," like, "is this about me?"
[00:15:01] Leanne ten Brinke: Yes. And then I take a measure and I get a sense of like... 'Cause you can actually. you know, there's, there's a few online, like psychopathyis.org actually does have a measure of psychopathy, like a screening measure that you could take, and it gives you like a percentile of like, okay, where do you land relative to other people.
[00:15:20] It's actually really interesting to do just to get a sense of like is your ex- your inner experience is kind of like all you know, right? And so, if you're able to kind of compare that to other people, might make you feel a little bit good, or a little bit bad about yourself. I don't know how it's gonna go.
[00:15:37] But you're right that, like, it's not, A lot of these experiences are not completely foreign so some people will think like, "Oh, psychopathy," you know, that's like monstrous. That's something I could never have any understanding of any identification with. But in fact, you know, all of us behave manipulatively sometimes, and all of us are callous on occasion, and certainly under particular situations, this tends to get, like, brought out.
[00:16:06] Uh, there's actually this great study that just came out, um, and it was about basically, you know, we usually use these self-report measures. If these statements are characteristic of you on average, like across time and space, right? 'Cause that's what personality is. But in this study, they asked them, "How characteristic are these items of you, like, today? Like, are you empathic today? Are you kind of grandiose today?" And they also measured sleep quality.
[00:16:34] And what they found was that people were, like, less empathic, more willing to lie. They were essentially kind of behaving in a quote-unquote, "dark ways" when they had lower quality sleep the night before, and it seemed to be related to lower distress tolerance. So, like, when we're just like, "We can't even deal with these people," right? It tends to kind of bring out the worst of us. Um, we all experience kind of low-level versions of these.
[00:17:03] So sadism is kind of a good example, right? So, when I was first thinking about sadism, I was actually coding. I was reading through these, um, sexual homicide files, and I was coding for how sadistic the crime was, and that's like, you know, very far on like the high end of the spectrum, right? Most of us would never do things like that.
[00:17:26] But most of us have experienced what's called, like, schadenfreude, right? Where, like, you know, maybe someone who's really powerful is walking across the stage, and they trip, and they fall, and you're like, "Ha ha." You're like, a smirk comes on your face. 'Cause you feel like they don't really deserve their power. They're kind of getting what they deserve maybe, um, by looking silly in front of everybody.
[00:17:47] So we all experience those, like, kind of low levels, and that's a really good indication of this like c- the spectrum or the continuous nature of these traits. Like, you might be on the low end, but it's not like you don't; you have never experienced some kind of diluted version of these traits.
[00:18:05] So yeah, I actually... I think it's good to have some self-awareness about, like, where, where you sit on it. Also, because, like, if we wanna see less callousness and manipulation in the world, the easiest place to start is with yourself. And so, we can do these little interventions.
[00:18:21] Like, there's this great research showing that If you just, like, follow through every day on trying to be a little more agreeable, and by agreeable I don't mean, like, literally agreeing with everyone, I mean, like, trying to have empathy and understanding for other people, like, trying not to blow up at other people, show some gratitude and kindness, give people support or compliments, that that can decrease your dark traits over time if you commit to it.
[00:18:50] So yeah, I think it, it's useful to think about these traits in a, a... not just, like, blaming other people and, like, you know, calling other people high on these traits, but, like, considering where you land and whether you could tamp down some of these traits in yourself as well.
[00:19:06] Jeevan Sangha: The word dark has come up several times. Um, but it's, it's... it seems like dark work. You know? Like sitting with a lot of these kind of, um, scarier aspects of human nature for long periods of time. What is it like for you? Like, how do you cope when it becomes overwhelming, or do you experience ever any, like, increased sensitivity to dark traits in your day-to-day life?
[00:19:31] Like, what does that look like for you on a personal level?
[00:19:34] Leanne ten Brinke: Maybe this is surprising to people, but all of this research has actually made me much more optimistic about humans and human nature than, uh, you might think. So, the research suggests that clinical levels of these traits, like let's just take psychopathy for example.
[00:19:53] Our best estimate is that about 1% of the population have clinical levels of these traits. People who, like, on average agree with statements that are measuring dark traits, that's about 10% of the population. So that might sound like a lot. Like, oh, 10% of the population are like, "Yeah, I am grandiose. I am remorseless." But that means that 90% are not that way, and I have literally had studies fail because I could not get enough people to lie to me. People are much better than we give them credit for.
[00:20:22] Actually, there's a lot of research to show that we're overly cynical about other people. We think that they will, you know, lie and cheat and steal from us, but if you actually, like, play out the scenario, they are actually far more honest and kind than we expect them to be. And so, this research has actually led me to be like, darkly optimistic in a way.
[00:20:45] I hope that, you know, this, this research has also trained me a little bit to identify some of those red flags, um, but also to keep in mind that, like, you know, we, we all, you know, experience callousness sometimes. We all manipulate sometimes. We all do these things occasionally. And so, like, a red flag is, is a data point. It might be an important one, but personality persists, and so you need to gather more data. You know, be a scientist about your, your social interactions. Gather data, update over time. I think I'm actually pretty optimistic despite the, the topic of study.
[00:21:22] Carol Eugene Park: Do you watch reality TV shows by chance? I just ask because any time I'm watching any reality TV show, and I'm specifically thinking about Love Island 'cause I'm watching that right now, I'm just like, "Red flag. Narcissist." I feel like it'd be kind of fun but maybe also annoying to have to put on your work brain when you're trying to log off and watch TV.
[00:21:43] Right now a lot of the conversations on social media, specifically TikTok, are like, "This is how you spot a narcissist. This is how you spot X, Y, Z." What are some of the myths about identifying or detecting these dark personalities or being able to detect deception when it's happening in real time?
[00:22:00] Leanne ten Brinke: So, I think one myth about, um, psychopathy is that it's kind of synonymous with physical violence, and actually physical violence is not, it's not a marker, um, of psychopathy. So, they do tend... I mean, it's a risk factor for it, but it is not, um, you know, actually an item that is on the psychopathy checklist revised, right? So, we do look at rule breaking. That's a potential way that you could break the rules, but you could break the rules in a million other ways as well.
[00:22:30] There's m- probably more of those stereotypes that just, like, don't pan out when it comes to deception. So, if you go around the world and you ask people, like, "How do you detect lies?" Uh, researchers have done this in I think about 60 countries around the world. The number one answer you will get is that liars can't look you in the eye. Liars avert their gaze. Sometimes you get something more specific like liars look up and to the right or up and to the left. There is no empirical evidence that liars look anywhere different than truth tellers do.
[00:23:04] Similarly, fidgeting. People seem to think that fidgeting is associated with deception. Right? The sense that, like, you're nervous, you might be fidgeting and that would reveal your nervousness. We also don't find strong evidence that that's a cue to deception.
[00:23:19] People generally will talk a lot about, like, non-verbal cues to deception, right? Something in your face, something in your posture shifts, whatever the case may be that they're looking for to detect lies.
[00:23:32] The more reliable cues are actually in your words. So, liars tend to give shorter responses. They tend to give less verifiable details in their stories. Um, they tend to use fewer first person pronouns, so they don't use I as much as truth tellers do, and none of these things are Pinocchio's nose. So, like, if there was a Pinocchio's nose, if there's this one cue that always worked, there would be no point in lying at all. So, it, like, it persists because It's not easy to detect.
[00:24:08] Jeevan Sangha: I'm also thinking about how subjective truth can be and what it looks like for people who are deceptive but potentially believe their own lies or are convinced of their realities. Like, is that still detected as deception?
[00:24:24] Leanne ten Brinke: So, the definition that we use in the literature of, like, of what is lying is the intention to mislead another person. So, if you believe it to be true, you're not actually trying to mislead someone because, like, you, you're just telling the truth, whatever that is in your brain, even if it is false.
[00:24:42] So, there is some, like, evolutionary theories, which are always fun to think about and very difficult to test, is that, like, we developed this kind of self-deception in order to make it easier for us to tell lies because, you know, perhaps we won't have cues of deception in our behavior if we actually believe it. So yeah, that we would probably call self-deception, um, if we ever knew the truth at all. But it could just be that I'm like, I'm misinformed for some reason, and I share that with you. That's not deception at all. I just don't know what I'm talking about.
[00:25:15] Jeevan Sangha: I'm curious about, sometimes there's something delicious about a villain, you know?
[00:25:19] Like, sometimes I watch a show and I'm like, there's something really fun, and maybe it's the humor. I think there's a, a tendency with, like, a good villain, where, like, what makes them effective is, like, rooting for them a little bit, but then knowing that they're gonna lose. And even if you know they're gonna do something bad or wrong, it's like, ah, there's a bit of me that's rooting for them. Do you have any thoughts about, like, what that might be psychologically that's functioning for folks? 'Cause I, I can't be the only one.
[00:25:46] Leanne ten Brinke: So there... I think there's a few things. Like, one is that this, the superficial charm can be real. Like, it can be quite engaging and interesting and, like, enjoyable to have a conversation with someone who is superficially charming.
[00:26:00] What you find out kind of, like, after the conversation is, like, that was more of a feeling in the moment than, like, and the kind of power of their presence than, like, anything they actually said. Like, I've had the experience of having this conversation with someone who had clinical levels of psychopathy, and I was like, "That was so interesting and fun, and they're, like, such a good conversationalist, and they made this really good point."
[00:26:23] And, and because it was an interview, I had a transcript of this, and I was like, I'm gonna go back and, and read that, you know, really good argument they made. And I read it, and it was complete nonsense. Its ma- it was like there it was like I was totally superficially charmed, right? It was, like, fun and engaging to talk, but, like, this argument has no weight whatsoever. That's a ridiculous argument to make, and it's just, like, gobbledygook. But it seemed convincing at the time.
[00:26:50] So I think that's one thing. And we actually have quite a bit of research to suggest that, like, we really want these kinds of people in power under certain situations. So, like, whenever we feel like we're in competition with other people, when we're in the midst of, like, major economic inequality or military conflict, which sounds a lot like the world right now, we tend to think that we need these, like, strong, domineering leaders who are going to use their, like, manipulative wiles so that our group wins. I think in, in that way, maybe we kind of want them to win if we feel like we're on their side, like we're gonna get some benefit from them winning, uh, because we're part of their group.
[00:27:33] I think what's, what's worrisome about that actually playing out in real life, you know, is that they're so self-interested that at some point your interests and their interests are gonna diverge, and they're gonna choose themselves every time, not you.
[00:27:47] So yeah, I don't know, maybe those are some, like, little components that might come together to help explain that phenomenon.
[00:27:53] Carol Eugene Park: So, they're sexy until they're not sexy is what I'm hearing.
[00:27:57] Leanne ten Brinke: Yeah. It's gonna take a turn at some point.
[00:28:01] Carol Eugene Park: In your book, um, and I just wanna kind of focus on the solutions aspect of- of dark personality. You discuss solutions of, uh, managing and identifying, um, dark personalities, and I think there's a, a passage where you say that the, the individual has power to reduce the dark personality's power over them. Can you walk us through, like, what that means and, like, how that looks like?
[00:28:27] Leanne ten Brinke: Yeah, so I, I think, you know, say if you've got, like, a boss who always takes credit for things and, like, puts you down all the time and is really cruel, um, you know, might have some of these traits, it can really feel like, you know, it's their world and you're just living in it. But there are things that you can do.
[00:28:46] So one is making boundaries explicit, and that means, like, literally writing things down about, like, what's okay and what's not okay, um, in maybe this is in your relationship, maybe it's in your workplace. Like, you might have a workplace where you've got, like, a respectful workplace policy, and you're like, kind of like, "Why do we need this?" Like, this is so obvious.
[00:29:09] But if you don't have it written down, then if someone violates that, then you have no recourse, right? And research shows that just writing these things down does decrease the likelihood that people with high levels of these traits will violate those rules. Doesn't take it away completely, like rule breaking is kind of part of the personality, but it does reduce it relative to having nothing written down.
[00:29:35] Another is just, like, understanding what is important to them because it's not like they can't act in ways that are kind or honest or helpful, but they might do it for, like, different reasons than you would. So, for like, say, with that boss again, you know, he or she is, like, just demoralizing the team that he leads, and you're a supervisor. You're like, "I need to get this guy to be nicer to his team." You could appeal to, you know, his sense of care and compassion for the people on his team and like, "You're really stressing them out, and that's really not nice," right?
[00:30:12] But that's not particularly motivating to someone with high levels of these traits, right? That's not gonna work. What might work is that, If, you know, the, if their promotion or their bonus depends on the performance of their team, you could point out that your team is not being very productive 'cause they're so stressed out because of how you're treating them. If you treated them better, you might be more likely to get your bonus.
[00:30:36] Like, okay, that's something they care about. They care about power, they care about status, they care about money. Framing things in terms of what they care about, not necessarily what you care about, can get you to the same behavior.
[00:30:50] Another thing is offering rewards. When people do something wrong, we're very quick to jump to punishment. But the research suggests that people with psychopathy in particular don't respond to punishment in the same way, uh, that others do. There's actually, like, a neurological difference with how they, they process punishment. And they tend to be very reward focused.
[00:31:15] So, if you see them doing something that is good, that is kind, like, give them a reason to do it again. A bonus, a, you know, a fancy office or a new title, whatever that might be at work. I would not recommend giving them power over other people. Um, but we do know that, like, they're very reward focused. And so, sometimes I hear people being like, "Oh, they're a bad person. I never wanna, like, reward them, even if they do something good." But I'm like, you're missing out on this incredible tool to make that behavior more likely in the future.
[00:31:51] One last one that, um, I'll touch on is if you're, like, trying to come to some sort of, you know, deal in a negotiation, and you know you're dealing with someone with, uh, high levels of these traits, they can be very persuasive in person, ‘because they might be lying to you. They might be kind of pushing on your boundaries. They might be dominating you. They might be using that superficial charm, whatever the case may be.
[00:32:17] But research suggests that they tend to do pretty well in negotiations for themselves in a face-to-face format, but they lose that advantage when negotiation occurs over text. So, if you're like, "Okay, I need to negotiate," I don't know, maybe it's a raise at work. Maybe it's, you know, who's gonna have the kids for Christmas holidays with your ex. Do it over text. It takes away that power of persuasion that they have in person. It also gives you time to, like, think about and consider your responses, and you also have a record of what was said, so they can't, like, change.
[00:32:52] You know, they can't kind of, like, try to gaslight you later and be like, "You said this." "Well, actually, no, I have the, the transcript right in front of me." And, like, if this is a relationship that has been violent in the past, um, it also provides, like, physical distance between you and that person that can help keep you safe.
[00:33:09] So lots of benefits of, like, just, like, shifting to writing instead of a conversation in person.
[00:33:16] Jeevan Sangha: Amazing. Before we wrap, I just wanted to ask, is there anything we missed? Is there anything about your work that you didn't get a chance to touch on that you'd like to share with the alumni UBC audience?
[00:33:26] Leanne ten Brinke: The, the last thing maybe we touched on a little bit was just, like, people with high levels of these traits tend to do a lot of, um, damage in our relationships because, because they're callous and manipulative. And you might, in your own life, recognize that, like, there's this one person, right, that's causing a hugely outsized amount of pain and stress in your life.
[00:33:49] I think it's really important to recognize that if we learn how to manage just, like, one person, We can make our whole lives, like, dramatically better, and we can also kind of get our, our, get our heads straight again to recognize that they are actually a small minority of the population, and most people out there are, like, good and kind and honest. And so, I hope that I can bring other people along with me on this, um, darkly optimistic train about, uh, humanity.
[00:34:21] Carol Eugene Park: Great. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. This has been ... I have no dark puns. This has been great, and I loved it.
[00:34:31] Leanne ten Brinke: Wonderful. Thank you.
[00:34:33] Carol Eugene Park: That was super eerie, um, but I have a more eerie, ghoulish question for you. Do you have a villain or a dark personality in pop culture?
[00:34:44] Jeevan Sangha: Loving the use of the word ghoulish here, first of all. Um, second of all, not sure if this counts as pop culture, but my favorite villain has always been Iago from Othello. I just think he's, like,
[00:34:55] Carol Eugene Park: That's nice ...
[00:34:56] Jeevan Sangha: The perfect villain, like incredibly. I think Leanne used the word Machiavellian. I feel like he's very Machiavellian. There's something, like, so satisfying about the way he tries to manipulate. I've like ... Something about him I've always, like, been like, "That is the villain of all villains to me." What about you?
[00:35:14] Carol Eugene Park: Wow. Well, damn. I was really actually excited about my answer 'cause I thought it was unique and different, but yours is actually a lot better. Well, I'm a Disney millennial, so mine is either Scar from The Lion King or Ursula from Little Mermaid. Um, they are the villains that I can understand and empathize with- ... and also probably support. So.
[00:35:39] Jeevan Sangha: I love them both. Um, Lion King, also a Shakespeare adaptation, so.
[00:35:45] Carol Eugene Park: Period.
[00:35:45] Jeevan Sangha: Through line. Through line.
[00:35:46] True. Right there with you.
[00:35:47] Carol Eugene Park: Well, thanks everyone for listening. Um, make sure you catch our next episode by subscribing or following our show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're feeling your feels, please drop us a ghoulish review. You can find me on Instagram @caroleugenePark.
[00:36:02] Jeevan Sangha: And me on Twitter @jeevankasanga. From Here Forward is an alumni UBC podcast produced by Kylie McPhedran for Podium Podcast Company.