EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,087 words- 0:00 – 2:58
Bill Eddy
- AHAndrew Huberman
(uptempo music) Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Bill Eddy. Bill Eddy is a practicing lawyer, a professional mediator, a licensed therapist, and on the faculty of the School of Law at Pepperdine University. He is a world expert in conflict resolution, in particular, how to resolve conflicts with what are called high-conflict personalities. I should be very clear that these high-conflict personalities, as you'll learn today, are not in a category of so-called personality disorders. Now, it is the case that people with high-conflict personalities often also have borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, or suffer from bipolar depression. However, as you'll soon learn, people who have this high-conflict personality type could fall into any one of those three different categories, any combination of them, or none of them at all. These high-conflict personalities essentially come in two flavors. Some are very outwardly combative. They like to argue. They like to generate conflict in a way that's very overt, very obvious. The others, which comprise about 50% of high-conflict personality types, are very passive. They play the victim, or they leverage other people, so-called negative advocates, in order to achieve their goal of creating a lot of conflict where they always appear as the victim. During today's discussion, you'll learn how to identify these high-conflict personality types based on some very simple questions that you can ask yourself about them. He also explains how to deal with these people in the workplace setting, in relationships, and importantly, of course, how to disengage from these people, not just in the short term, but permanently. Now, across today's discussion, you'll realize that Bill Eddy is very sensitive both to the suffering that high-conflict personalities cause for other people, and therefore how to identify them, avoid them, and disengage from them, but he also makes it a point not to demonize these high-conflict personality types. Instead, as a mediator, as a lawyer, and as a therapist, he is really most interested in helping people resolve their conflicts with these people and find the best, most peaceful path forward for conflict resolution. Dr. Bill Eddy is the author of several important books related to this topic and related topics, such as Five Types of People That Can Ruin Your Life. It's an excellent book, I've read it, and I highly recommend it for everyone. He's also written books about adult bullies, which are becoming increasingly common online and in real life, and about mediating conflict resolution in separations and things like divorce, and in family court situations where he spent a lot of his professional career as a lawyer. By the end of today's episode, you will have a lot of new practical tools for being able to identify these high-conflict personality types and learning how to navigate forward and, frankly, away from them in the best way possible.
- 2:58 – 6:41
Sponsors: Maui Nui & ExpressVPN
- AHAndrew Huberman
Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Maui Nui Venison. Maui Nui Venison is 100% wild-harvested venison from the island of Maui, and it is the most nutrient-dense and delicious red meat available. I've spoken before on this podcast about the fact that most of us should be consuming about one gram of quality protein per pound of body weight every day. That protein provides critical building blocks for things like muscle repair and synthesis, but it also promotes overall health given the importance of muscle tissue as an organ. Eating enough quality protein each day is also a terrific way to stave off hunger. One of the key things, however, is to make sure that you're getting enough quality protein without ingesting excess calories. Maui Nui Venison has an extremely high-quality protein per calorie ratio so that getting one gram of quality protein per pound of body weight is both easy and doesn't cause you to ingest an excess of calories. Also, Maui Nui Venison is absolutely delicious. They have venison steaks, ground venison, and venison bone broth. I personally like all of those. In fact, I probably eat a Maui Nui Venison burger pretty much every day, and occasionally, I'll swap that for a Maui Nui steak. And if you're traveling a lot or you're simply on the go, they have Maui Nui Venison sticks, which have 10 grams of protein per stick at just 55 calories, and they're extremely convenient. You can pretty much take them anywhere. If you'd like to try Maui Nui Venison, you can go to mauinuivenison.com/huberman to get 20% off your membership or first order. Again, that's mauinuivenison.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN is a virtual private network that keeps your data secure and private. It does that by routing your internet activity through their servers and encrypting it so that no one can see or sell your data. Now, I'm familiar with the effects of not securing my data well enough. Several years ago, I had one of my bank accounts hacked, and it was a terrible amount of work to have that reversed and for the account to be secured. When that happened, I talked to my friends in the tech community, and what they told me was that even though you think your internet connection may be secure, oftentimes it's not, especially if you're using wifi networks such as those on planes, in hotels, at coffee shops and other public places. Surprisingly, even at home, your data might not be as secure as you think. To make sure that what I described before would never happen to me again, I started using ExpressVPN. The great thing about ExpressVPN is that I don't even notice that it's running since the connection it provides is so fast. I have it on my computer and on my phone, and I keep it on whenever I'm connected to the internet. With ExpressVPN, I know everything is secure, my web browsing, all my passwords, all my data, and of course, anything that's behind an account wall, like a bank account. It can't be tracked, and no one can access or steal your data, which is terrific. If you'd like to start protecting your internet activity using ExpressVPN, you can go to expressvpn.com/huberman, and you can get an extra three months free. Again, that's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com/huberman to get an extra three months free. And now for my discussion with Bill Eddy. Bill Eddy, welcome.
- BEBill Eddy
Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to discuss this with you.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I've read your books. I learned about them from perhaps one of the smartest people I know. She said, "You should check out this book called Five Types of People That Can Ruin Your Life." And I said, "Well, that's an impressive title," and I tore through the book, um, learned a ton. You have a number of other
- 6:41 – 10:48
High-Conflict Families, High-Conflict Individuals & Patterns
- AHAndrew Huberman
books. I mentioned them in my introduction. And I suppose it's appropriate to say that you are an expert in conflict, conflict resolution, and in particular, how to deal with people that are high conflict. So maybe you could just tell us what a high-conflict person is, how common are these people, and how does this overlap with some of the more traditional, quote-unquote, diagnoses of personality disorders?
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah, it's fascinating because I started out as a clinical social worker working with children and families in psychiatric hospitals, outpatient clinics. But I really liked conflict resolution, so I went to law school to get a law degree so I could do mediation, other conflict resolution, and I practiced family law. And when I started in family court, I noticed right away that a lot of the conflicts seemed to be driven by people's personalities rather than the legal issue, because I was also doing mediation in my office. I'd go to court in the morning, do mediation in the afternoon. Same exact issues, in the morning, people were stuck for two or three years. In the afternoon, two or three mediation sessions, shook hands, went separate ways. So in family court, a lot of people aren't familiar with this, but since the 1980s, there's been the use of the term high-conflict families, and family court lawyers, judges, mediators, therapists identified high-conflict families as repeatedly coming to court to make decisions, as having a lot of hostility, of just seeming driven in one direction, unable to be flexible, and in many ways, unable to truly have empathy for their kids, so they'd fight over their kids. And so high-conflict families was a term, when I became a lawyer in 1993, I was like, "Wait a minute, these aren't high-conflict families." These have maybe one, maybe two people with high-conflict personalities or traits of personality disorders, which I knew about since 1980 and working in hospitals and outpatient clinics.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Because you're also a clinical psychologist.
- BEBill Eddy
Clinical social worker.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Clinical social worker.
- BEBill Eddy
So I got a master's in social work in 1981. Then I became, I got licensed to do therapy on my own, so I'm a licensed clinical social worker in California. I can diagnose disorders, I can do treatment without supervision. I went through that, and that's how I became licensed. So when I came into family court, I go, "This is the same patterns when I was working, say, with people in the psychiatric hospital who had addictions, depression, all these problems," and my job as the hospital social worker was to help them with their outside problems, their family problems, so I did family counseling for the patients. Um, with their job, maybe their employer wanted to fire them because of their behavior and I tried to help keep their job. Um, maybe they were getting evicted, their landlord couldn't stand their behavior. And I'd solve one problem and I'd go, "I've, I've got you into marriage counseling and your, your husband or wife's committed to working on the relationship." And I'd go, "Yay, I accomplished something." Next day, "Bill, my landlord wants to kick me out." Okay, I'd convince their landlord to give them one more chance. Yay. "Bill, my job wants to fire me. Can you help?" What they have is a pattern of conflict behavior that doesn't get resolved, and that's the high-conflict families that I saw in family court. So that's where that connection came from, which I would not have arrived at if I hadn't been a therapist and also a lawyer.
- 10:48 – 18:28
Personality Disorders, Prevalence & Overlap
- BEBill Eddy
- AHAndrew Huberman
My understanding from reading your book is that this high-conflict personality phenotype is equally distributed between men and women. What is the percentage of people that have this high-conflict phenotype? And then maybe we can drill into a little bit of how that shows up, its different forms of expression.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah. Well, let me say a little bit about the difference between high-conflict personalities and personality disorders, because we have a lot of research on personality disorders, including statistics, which I'll give you. We don't have a lot of research on high-conflict personalities. People have talked about it, like I said, since the 1980s in family court, and my own observations with thousands of cases, um, of high-conflict personalities is it's pretty much men and women. My law practice, I represented pretty much 50/50 of men and women, mostly custody disputes, mothers and fathers. So I got a good impression. Personality disorders, there's a lot of research on, and, and I mention in the book some statistics, and they came from the personality disorder research. So what they found, they studied the 10 personality disorders. In the early 2000s, a big study, National Institutes of Health, um, the alcoholism subdivision of NIH, they wanted to see how prevalent personality disorders were with substance abuse, with domestic conflicts, with criminal behavior, and workplace conflicts.And so this study, they looked at all 10 personalities, came up with numbers for each. Five of them seem prone to high-conflict behavior. So these five, I can give you statistics on, and I can give you breakdown male and female, all from 20 years ago, big study, 'cause it hasn't been repeated since. So basically, cluster B, that's, uh, narcissistic, borderline, antisocial, histrionic, but we see a lot of paranoid in legal disputes, and some research says paranoid personality disorder is the most likely to sue their employer of the personality disorders. So that's gotten attention too. So here's some numbers. First of all, narcissistic personality disorder they found was about 6% of adults in the United States. They found the statistics on that was 38% female and 62% male. So that's more heavily male. 20 years ago. Could be different now 'cause of environmental influences. Borderline, also about 6%. This was 53% female, 47% male, almost 50/50. And that shocked the mental health world, 'cause we've always thought of borderline as a female disorder, but Marsha Linehan, the big name in treatment for borderline says she agrees. She thinks that's true, and I think that's true as a family lawyer because a lot of the men that we see engaged in domestic violence seem to have the borderline personality pattern, and the domestic violence is much more male than female. Then, um, antisocial, it's around 4%, and that's about 75% male, 25% female. Histrionic is about 2%, and they found this is about 50/50, which again surprised people, 'cause you think drama, center of attention, all of that, but... And this may be very much environmental influence. Our culture today teaches especially young men to try to get attention, do, you know, ride your skateboard behind a car, or jump off a building, do all these dramatic things to get attention.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Or social media.
- BEBill Eddy
And social medias, uh, really encourage that. Everyone wants attention, and now you kind of have to fight for it in our culture, and so men as well as women are getting out there, often in dramatic ways. So it came out about 50/50. Paranoid, it's about 4%, came out, uh, I think it was 57 to 43%, somewhere right around that. A little more heavily female, but not all that far apart. Altogether, it's really roughly 50/50.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm. Very interesting. And how does this high-conflict personality cut through all these personality disorder phenotypes? Um, because... Oh, and I should also ask, I could imagine that some people who are borderline perhaps are also histrionic. Is that possible to fall-
- BEBill Eddy
There can be.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... into multiple categories?
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay.
- BEBill Eddy
And, and the study actually broke down some of that. So in the research, they particularly, one that I remember is borderline and narcissist, and it came out around 38% overlap. So, and I teach-
- AHAndrew Huberman
People who are borderline also can often be narcissists?
- BEBill Eddy
Have narcissistic personality disorder.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I see.
- BEBill Eddy
And so this is personality disorder overlap. Now, there's a whole continuum here. So, many people have traits, but don't have a disorder. The current DSM says the total personality disorder is around 10%. Now, that's taking an average of studies from around the world. The study I quoted earlier in the US said 15% have a personality disorder. So in, in, in the US we're seeing that's, that significant, and that's the one that said 38% overlap, borderlines and narcissists. I think that's, that, it fits for me, because when I teach lawyers, from my own experience, I can say, "You have a client that comes on like a narcissist. They're very self-centered and putting you down, saying they're superior. Here's some tips to deal with them." But they also may have wide mood swings, which is more associated with borderline. So you need to butter up their ego honestly, not... You know, praise them for something that's real that they do, but also they really need empathy. If they have wide mood swings, that's someone that needs a lot of empathy. Say, "Wow, I can see how upset you are. This is so important," and they calm down. So you have to use both sets of responses to deal with someone that has that com- combination. You mentioned borderline and histrionic. There's a lot of similarities, so we see over- overlap with that, but I've seen every combination. But what I don't know in family court is, is it the disorder or just traits? And the disorder doesn't matter to me. It's the pattern that matters, 'cause if I see this pattern, I know I should do that. That's the key.
- 18:28 – 24:33
High-Conflict Personality vs. Personality Disorders, Blame
- AHAndrew Huberman
I can imagine that in family court, it's especially complicated given that some of these things, not all, but some of these have a genetic component, certainly a situational component. So you could potentially be dealing with, um, trying to work out a situation for the benefit of children that have some of the same personality disorders as their parents. Could be, uh, really tricky.
- BEBill Eddy
Well, what's interesting, and it's very rewarding work when things can go well. When the lawyers get it, the judge gets it, uh, uh, everyone gets it, what's happening, they can make orders that fit the situation and help protect children from bad behavior and help get parents some help. So, like, substance abuse is, is a bigger issue in family court than personality disorders, but almost neck and neck. We talk about substance abuse all the time openly, there's treatment, h- everyone recognizes the signs. We don't talk about personality disorders in our culture, and that's like flying under the radar.
- AHAndrew Huberman
S- s- Ari, I'm just gonna pause you for a second there. I think it's such a key point, um, (smacks lips) you know, in a very interesting paper that you sent me, which, by the way, I'll provide a link to in our show note captions-
- BEBill Eddy
Great.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... it essentially kicks off by saying that, you know, the, um, (smacks lips) the movement toward explaining to people what alco- I think they now call it alcohol use disorder or alcoholism-
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... was and is in the 1970s and '80s was a crucial, uh, move forward for the judicial system.
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I think nowadays, people generally understand that addiction is not just a lack of willpower-
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... that there are brain circuits that become hijacked by substances or behaviors, that these brain circuits were designed to promote our adaptive evolution, but they can be hijacked by behaviors and substances that render people really, um, just unable to control their b- their addictive behavior.
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I think nowadays that that box is checked.
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And it's wonderful that the judicial system understands that, right? Because then it can work with that. Um, I don't think that the general public has yet come to the full appreciation of these personality disorders and these high-conflict personalities and how pervasive they are, um, probably because of their prevalence. It's just sort of all around us and in all sorts of interactions.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And here's the question. High-conflict interactions tend to be quote unquote "dramatic."
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And there tends to be a, almost a reward for dramatic behavior, as you said, online, in politics, in the media. The more dramatic, the more salience. The more salience, the more people click, the more the people watch. And then the algorithms are designed to look at, you know, like, dwell time, which is nerd speak for how long people look at stuff. And so you could see how this stuff could be fed in the same way that for nearly, uh, you know, uh, 75 years leading up to the 1970s, alcohol use disorder was sort of fed by the culture, you know, their 5:00 PM happy hour.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Coming up in science, I would go to scientific meetings and it was like, "Okay, 5:00 hits, let's all drink." And I always thought, "This is kind of crazy," especially given that there was also a lot of concern about the kinds of interactions that drinking can create-
- BEBill Eddy
Right?
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in the work environment.
- BEBill Eddy
It leads to high-conflict behavior. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Exactly. So anyway, I don't want to riff too long on this, but first of all, I, this is just lauding the important work that you're doing. Second, how should we think about this high-conflict personality phenotype? Should we be calling pe- people out like, uh, you know, "Hey, that's a narcissist. Hey, that's a, a, you know, that's a borderline histrionic person"? Or is there a, a more, um, I guess, something that embraces a little bit more of the humanity and the, and the real issue at hand? I think that's what you're trying to do.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah, absolutely, and you may have seen me shaking my head no when you said, "Should we point this out to people?" That's the last thing you want to do. In fact, don't do that. And the reason why is, is personality disorders... Oh, oh, let me just quickly distinguish between personality disorders, high-conflict personalities. The difference i- and there's a chart in the beginning of the book with two circles overlapping, a lot of overlap. But the main thing about personality disorders is they're stuck in a narrow range of interpersonal behavior. So some aren't high-conflict people, some are. Thing about high-conflict people is that they're preoccupied with blame, that blaming others is a big part of their life. So when you're dealing with a high-conflict person who's blaming and has a personality disorder, you get a stuck pattern of behavior. You get high-conflict personalities or high-conflict people. So they're persistent in acting that way. That's the overlap with personality disorders is they don't reflect, they don't change, they just keep blame is everybody out there. So recognizing that difference and similarity. So about half of people, I think, with personality disorders, and this is just my estimate, have high-conflict personalities, and about half don't. I've worked with borderlines in the psych hospital, narcissists that don't blame other people, narcissists that are just self-centered but, and borderlines who are more frustrated with themselves than anybody else. So that, that's of an important distinction.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You beautifully distinguished between high-conflict personalities and these personality disorders, and I just want to make sure, um, (smacks lips) everyone hears again that about half of people with personality disorders would fall into this high-conflict personality-
- BEBill Eddy
In my estimation.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right, right.
- BEBill Eddy
I don't have research yet.
- 24:33 – 30:53
High-Conflict Individuals, Tool: First-Year Rule & Commitment
- AHAndrew Huberman
So I can imagine that the high-conflict person doesn't always appear as high conflict. In fact, this is something that you've alluded to many times already in this conversation and certainly in your book, that sometimes these high-conflict personalities come in kind of under the radar, and that can be confusing to people, or they can go undetected for a long time.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah, so part of it goes with the specific personalities. So high-conflict people with borderline personality traits or histrionic personality traits are often more openly dramatic, and so they, they might really shock you. Uh, suddenly, they start yelling, screaming, uh, throwing things just 'cause you're having an average conversation. Very disproportionate. But some, and it tends to be more of the antisocial personalities, some narcissistic personalities, can look really reasonable on the surface, and they've actually had a lifetime of experience at looking good, which kinda covers up all the stuff under the surface. And I think of, of a couple examples. So for example, and I deal sometimes with domestic violence cases, so let's say an abuser says, in court says, "Oh, well, I was helping her. Because she was so upset, I took her keys away, and I held her down on the bed 'cause I was afraid she would leave and get into a car crash." Well, there may be rare occasions where that's true, but that's a common story that we get from domestic abusers. Um, or in court I've seen this, uh, where there'll be a very reasonable person kind of explaining the situation, and their partner, more often a woman, is just emotional, is a mess, maybe even in tears, and people don't realize about 80% of divorces in court today, people represent themselves. And so there's these conversations, and the judge is like, "Well, this guy is being really reasonable, and this woman's a mess. I mean, you know, I'm, I'm gonna go with what he's saying." And so a lot of stuff slips under the radar that way. But gender-wise, it could be the reverse, and a lot of relationships people get into, people make themselves look really good, and then the negative stuff comes out weeks, months, maybe a year later. So that's why we say wait a year until you decide to commit, because nowadays, who knows? You may have someone that really is good at covering their bad behavior.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, let's hover on that one particular point because this is perhaps one of the most important takeaways from your work. Um, could you just, um, spell out this first-year principle? Um, and perhaps it's useful for us to also acknowledge that, yes, there are a great many truly great stories about people who met one weekend, two weeks later, got married, and then we're hearing the story 50 years later when they've got grandkids and great-grandkids, they thrived. Or people me- met, got engaged three months later, or, you know, some cases, got pregnant three months later, and they have this wonderful marriage and family story to tell. We hear these stories, and they're really wonderful stories, right? I mean, they, they sort of, uh, affirm your belief in humanity-
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
...uh, when you hear those stories, and they are powerful, but in discussing a little bit of this with you offline, you probably have witnessed more cases where people rushed, and the rushing to, uh, commit or to create led to more problems than it did good.
- BEBill Eddy
Yes, and that's many, many of the high-conflict divorces that I've worked on as a lawyer and before that as a therapist and sometimes as a mediator are, in my mind, kind of the bad luck stories. Got a decent person, usually my client, of course, but something happened, they got together too fast, and then all this stuff came out. And I really believe in today's world that it, it is a matter of luck, and that's why you should take a year to find out, am I, did I draw the short straw in this relationship 'cause I got this perfect-looking person, um, great record, all these good things? But close relationships is where personality disorders come out, interpersonal difficulty, and the high-conflict behaviors, mostly close relationships. So they might, everyone might like them at work, but when you're home alone with them, they could be really terrible, yelling, hitting, doing all of this stuff. So that's why we say wait a year. I've, I've had a lot of cases where people tell me, "We just, just fell in love. It was beautiful, and everything was wonderful for about six months, and then when I committed to get married, all this stuff started showing up, but I got married anyway 'cause I figured, well, time and love will heal everything." Only it didn't. So in today's world, there's a higher risk of getting a high-conflict relationship, I must say, and the description you gave is what people often tell me. They say, "My grandparents got married a week after they met, and they just celebrated their 60th anniversary. They're still in love. Everything's wonderful." Your grandparents tended to know who they were marrying. In today's world, not only don't you know, you don't have a history, but high-conflict people have learned to cover up the full range of who they are, and they're not bad people, and that's something I want to emphasize.They just have a different personality, and they may have been born this way, but they don't come with, with markings, you know? They don't come with the music like of Jaws, (singing) . They look good. And anybody, I think, is at risk of falling into a relationship like this.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'd
- 30:53 – 32:05
Sponsor: AG1
- AHAndrew Huberman
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- 32:05 – 38:54
Relationship Stability, Tool: Vetting Potential Partners
- AHAndrew Huberman
I definitely want to come back to this point that you made, that you're not demonizing these people.
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You're talking about how to behave with them or how to not behave with them, in some cases, in order to, um, try and create the smoothest possible interactions, in some cases, no interaction.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But if we could, um, hover still a bit more on this first year idea.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
My understanding is that no getting engaged-
- BEBill Eddy
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... or for that matter, married. No conceiving children, and no moving in together in the year one. Is ... Are those the critical?
- BEBill Eddy
Except for the last one, is it's really don't commit like getting married within the first year. Sometimes moving in together is a good way to find out what it's like up close with this person.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, you learn a lot by living with somebody.
- BEBill Eddy
That's right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- BEBill Eddy
That's right. And personality disorders, part of the definition is interpersonal dysfunction, and that's close. That's close relationships. So if you haven't had that close relationship, you don't see what happens when you leave your socks out or the cap's off the toothpaste, and some little thing is some huge storm. You know?
- AHAndrew Huberman
Or when somebody's sleep-deprived. I always say you can ... You learn a lot about somebody after a bad night's sleep.
- BEBill Eddy
(laughs) Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You and them, right?
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know?
- BEBill Eddy
But the key is patterns of behavior. So one thing I want to say is everybody gets angry sometimes. That's, that's fine. Everybody yells sometimes. Everybody, you know, criticizes sometimes. But if they have a pattern, like their life ha- pattern of relationship is to yell and scream and criticize and all that, whoa. This pattern is probably gonna keep going. And as I mentioned earlier, I believe, with personality disorders, it's an narrower pattern of behavior, so it's more pattern-driven in several different settings. Family, maybe at work when it's close, maybe in the community when it's close. So these are recognizable patterns, as recognizable as alcoholism and addiction once people learn. So that's the key. Give yourself some time, see if this stuff comes to the surface.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I think you're raising a really interesting point, which is that although nowadays we have more information about people available to us by way of the internet and social media, you made the comparison with our grandparents' era. I'm 49 years old, so my grandparents-
- BEBill Eddy
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Actually, my grandparents knew each other from the time they were, like, in the eighth grade. They eloped when they turned 18.
- BEBill Eddy
Uh-huh.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And went and got married, I think to the dismay of one si- or the other side parents, but then were married more than 50 years.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And grandkids, obviously. I'm one of them, et cetera. And so y- you have these stories, and, and we, we love these kinds of stories.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But as you point out, they knew each other very, very well, and had for a long time. Nowadays, one can, quote unquote, "do their research," um, go online and le- and look for things, but would you argue that that's not complete information?
- BEBill Eddy
Right. I think it can be helpful.
- 38:54 – 47:50
Heightened Emotions, Negative Advocates, Divorce
- BEBill Eddy
- AHAndrew Huberman
What about advocates? So, you know, I'm familiar with some high-conflict individuals. Um, some are more of the combative type, others are more of the kind of, um, what did you call it? Sort of a quiet, manipulative, victim-playing type.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And, um, both seem to be pretty good at generating advocates. Um, I guess you called these negative advocates.
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
People that will fight for them.
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right? By the way, this is all sounding a lot like modern politics.
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, uh, and, uh, maybe we'll get into that a little bit, um, because it is an important reflection on what we're talking about. But what about these negative advocates? If somebody has a lot of, um, friends or advocates that they're, are kind of like on their side against, that, that are also in a blame mode.
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Is that a red flag?
- BEBill Eddy
Yes. What's interesting, and, and I've, I, I'd like to someday learn more of the neuroscience behind this, but high-conflict people have heightened emotions. The cluster B personality disorders are known as dramatic, emotional, and erratic. That's the DSM-5-TR says that, the manual for mental health professionals. And so their heightened emotions are contagious. And in general, what I've learned about this work a lot is emotions are contagious, and high-conflict emotions are highly contagious. So what happens, and I see this so much as, as a lawyer and with other lawyers and with therapists, is the high-conflict person comes into your office and says, "I've been terribly treated by," let's say, "my ex." You know, man or woman, 'cause it happens to both. "Been terribly treated and you've got to save me. You've got to protect me. You've got to win. You've got to..." Sometimes they say, "You have to destroy the other party." That's always a warning sign when their goal is to destroy the other party. It's not a good sign. But they're so emotional. You say, "My goodness, this person's been through so much. Now I have the emotions." And what I teach in my seminars is, I understand has a lot to do with the amygdala, that the amygdala catches the intense fear or tense anger, that those are heightened. And so now mine's going, "Oh, Billy, you've got to do something." I'm, I'm like, my body wants me to take action and I want to save this person from their evil, uh, co-parent, for example. And so what we see with negative advocates is they're emotionally hooked, but uninformed. They don't really know what's going on. And I'll give you an example. A court case with a, a high-conflict, uh, person, um, brought their whole family. And I had a case with false allegations, terrible allegation. My client happened to be the father. The mother was making false allegations of child sexual abuse. And I've had all types of true cases, false cases. So this is a real problem, a real issue, but there also are false allegations. In this case, that's what was happening. So the, the mother brings her whole family (laughs) and the judge realizes what's going on in the case 'cause of the evidence presented and sanctions the mother for knowingly false allegations.
- AHAndrew Huberman
What does that equate to in the legal system?
- BEBill Eddy
So my client, the father spent like 40...... about $40,000 getting a psychological evaluation, having a trial, doing all of this attorney's fees. And so the court made her pay $10,000 of his attorney's fees-
- AHAndrew Huberman
I see.
- BEBill Eddy
... and costs. So that's what the sanction is. And there's a code section that said knowingly false allegations of child abuse are a basis to make one party pay the other party's fees. So she's ordered to pay. She never paid it, by the way. And she owned no property. We weren't able to get it 'cause she had property in other people's names. But the idea was that she brought her whole family there. She brought her mother, her mother's boyfriend. She brought her roommate, who was a psychology grad student, who was, like, encouraging her, "Oh, your daughter's being abused. You've gotta do something." These were all negative advocates. And when the judge made her ruling and spelled out the information, that was very clear. I mean, we caught the mother lying. She persuaded other people to lie for her. We caught them in lies. So it was a really surprisingly open case. And, and the family started yelling at the judge (laughs) . And he says, "This is, this is a crime, and this is a shame," and blah, blah, blah. The judge said, "You take yourselves out of here immediately, or I will have the bailiffs take you out." And that they stood up and left and shouted, "This is an abomination," or something like that. These were the negative advocates. They didn't know what the full picture was. They believed their family member, who was a skilled liar. I believe, and this is very interesting, I got to talk to her therapist, a therapist she had. I was released to talk to her. And the therapist, it was in the open, was she has borderline personality disorder, and that was an open thing. And, and the therapist said, "And there's something else." And I said, "Antisocial personality disorder?" And she said, "I can't say, but I wouldn't disagree with you."
- AHAndrew Huberman
Which is effectively a yes.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay.
- BEBill Eddy
And with antisocial, that's where you get a lot of lying and stuff like that. It's a rare case, but since I have the social work background, and I've had many true cases of child sexual abuse, especially as a therapist, I can see the difference, whereas a lot of lawyers don't know what to look for. But this was an exceptional case, antisocial and borderline personality disorder. She had a lot of traits. And at first, the judge was very critical of my client and us, and he w- had supervised contact. But the supervisor said, this is fascinating, when the child would be exchanged, the girl would, like, kind of walk kind of tentatively towards the father. The mother dropped her and left. Supervisor brought her to the father. She was, like, kind of tentative. She'd see the father, and she'd look. The mother's out of sight. She'd jump on him, laugh, and have a wonderful time.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I do have, um, one, uh, question. It's not a litmus test que- question, but do you recall from, um, the particular case you were just describing whether the relationship had started very quickly? Had they, uh, moved in together quickly? Uh, decide, uh, excuse me. Had they decided to have children together quickly, married quickly? In other words, um, was your client oblivious, um, because of the rate at which he were moving? And the, the analogy that comes to mind is, if you're moving very fast, it's hard to read the, the road signs. (laughs)
- BEBill Eddy
I think he did. And, and what's interesting is they got together when they were quite young. I think maybe she was 18, he was 20, something like that.
- AHAndrew Huberman
That's pretty young by today's standards.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- BEBill Eddy
And so excitement, new, all of that. I'm pretty sure they did. And what's interesting is they, they had gotten divorced. The, the issue I described was an after divorce custody issue. But they had gotten divorced maybe four or five years into their marriage, and she assaulted him, and he had the scars and all of this. So he had actually custody of this girl, who was eight years old when the story I just told you happened, which is also helpful 'cause she was verbal. She could describe. She actually described how her mother coerced her to say things that weren't true. But yeah, so they got together young, I think quick. Then they got divorced, but the patterns continued. And that's one thing we see. A lot of high conflict divorces keep going even after the divorce. The actual divorce date is like a speed bump in the lifetime of high conflict if they have children together.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hence the, uh, wait to have children with somebody-
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... uh, if possible.
- 47:50 – 54:51
Brain, Plasticity & Fear; Bullies, Polarization
- AHAndrew Huberman
you asked about emotional contagion, and you-
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... made reference to the science. Um, if I may, I'll just share something that might be of interest-
- BEBill Eddy
Oh, love to hear it.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... to you and to the listeners. Um, you're certainly right that the amygdala is a central hub for threat detection. Um, what a lot of people don't know, because it's just not discussed enough in the popular coverage of neuroscience, is that the amygdala can learn in the sense that it's highly prone to context dependent plasticity.
- BEBill Eddy
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, you know, this idea that getting emotionally charged is either negative valence, like fear, or positive valence, like, "Oh, I like that," eh, that's true to an extent. But over time, the brain changes to, in some cases, like the feeling of adrenaline, to get a-
- BEBill Eddy
Mm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... an associated dopamine release with that. But a, a really interesting set of brain structures that, um, aren't discussed enough I'll just mention 'cause they're k- um, 'cause you asked about neuroscience. I had a post-doc-... in my laboratory by the name of Hee Kyung Jung, a fantastic post-doc who was looking at emotional contagion.
- BEBill Eddy
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
We were interested in human subjects, but these were animal studies. You know, by one, by one, uh, member of a species is observed and then mimicked by the ano- another member of the species. A very powerful-
- BEBill Eddy
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... aspect of human and non-human, uh, behavior. And there's a structure in the brain called the claustrum, most people don't know about it, which seems to be critical for this. And, um, and she does a beautiful set of experiments of showing that, um, when animals observed other animals, either in a positive or a fear state, but in this case, a fear state, they would... Or a threatened state, their own claustrum to anterior cingulate cortex circuitry, and of course, amygdala, et cetera, those would light up as if they were in the experience, but not to the same degree.
- BEBill Eddy
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But over time, what one could see was a kind of a, a heightening, a plasticity of these circuits, so that smaller, um, thr- threats started to create larger internal responses. That's both combining Hee Kyung's work and, and other work that's come out since. So, um, what it says is that our brains are very tuned to the emotional states of others.
- BEBill Eddy
Right. Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
This is good. Empathy, for instance. Um, but that over time, we can... Our brains change to actually, um, require a lower stimulus to activate that p- that kind of, um, negative advocate part of ourselves.
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And, and so perhaps this is a good segue into a discussion about what we're observing societally now, not just in terms of politics. But, you know, it's one thing to be recruited to a camp, but then once you're in the camp, it turns out if you, if we think about it through the lens of this work, it seems that it requires less, um, negative stuff in order to stay in that camp, but want to fight more and more, um, stridently in order to protect a cause. Does that make sense?
- BEBill Eddy
I think exactly. And as I mention in my book about bullies, I think polarization really demonstrates that. So once you're in your group, and you see the other group as not only having a different point of view, but as the enemy, then your brain doesn't need to work on it anymore. That's case closed. They're the enemy. The only question is, what do we do now? And the, the research saying that when you t- when you talk to the people in your group, rather than coming together, you move farther apart. And to me, what's fascinating in terms of legal cases, and especially in family law, is you have, like the family I described, you have the family talking to each other. You pull a lawyer into that, the lawyer talks to them, the lawyer gets heightened, uh, anger maybe, or commitment to save this person, and maybe you get a therapist into the picture, and they all just talk to themselves, they pull farther and farther apart. And that's often when we have our high-conflict court case. They come back to court every six to 12 months, sometimes for years. I have cases where people have been in court like every year for eight or nine years.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Oh.
- BEBill Eddy
And, and these are cases where the divorce was done long ago. What people don't realize is the worst custody disputes tend to happen after the divorce is over, and I think it's because people are spending more and more time talking to their own team, to their own group, and that pulls them farther apart. Their view of the other side is worse and worse and worse. And that's why I think the structure really matters. So I think politically, we have, we have these two different universes that d- not necessarily talk to each other, and they really create a sense of community. People are looking for community and they find it, but it's fed by, I think, the media ecosystem, everyone has their own media. And so we have these two universes talking to themselves, growing farther and farther apart. And that's why elections don't seem to have made a difference in any of this, 'cause elections kinda decides who does government, but they don't resolve the adversarial communities, and they get a lot of attention. And sad to say, I think our culture has shifted from government, uh, the politics as about government, and the details, and nitty-gritty, and the values of government are what's good for our group, good for our country, unity, citizenship, we should be together in this, that politics have shifted to entertainment. The values of entertainment are be extreme, be emotional, um, and entertainment's driven by drama, you know, for thousands of years. And drama is opposing us against them. And as I mentioned in the bullies book, there's a terrible crisis, there's an evil villain, and there's a superhero, and if you have someone tell that story to their community, they will love that person. So now, we have two communities in politics loving themselves and hating the other, and the elections don't resolve that. That's a speed bump on road to high conflict, and that's not a good sign, and we have to find ways to bridge the gaps, and there are ways. You get people one-to-one talk to each other. There's a lot of groups trying to say, "Let's, let's connect rather than separate." And if we get too far out of balance, we're gonna have bigger and bigger high-conflict problems, so we have to... The more people's eyes are open to this pattern, the more they can say, "Hey, I seem to be part of this group, but I wanna, you know, my neighbors think differently. I'm gonna listen to them." It's listening that's missing.
- 54:51 – 58:00
Sponsors: Function & David
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'd like to take a quick break and thank one of our sponsors, Function. I recently became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. While I've long been a fan of blood testing, I really wanted to find a more in-depth program for analyzing blood, urine, and saliva to get a full picture of my heart health, my hormone status, my immune system regulation, my metabolic function, my vitamin and mineral status, and other critical areas of my overall health and vitality. Function not only provides testing of over a hundred biomarkers key to physical and mental health, but it also analyzes these results and provides insights from top doctors on your results. For example, in one of my first tests with Function, I learned that I had too high levels of mercury in my blood. This was totally surprising to me. I had no idea prior to taking the test. Function not only helped me detect this, but offered medical doctor informed insights on how to best reduce those mercury levels, which included limiting my tuna consumption, because I had been eating a lot of tuna, while also making an effort to eat more leafy greens and supplementing with NAC, N-acetylcysteine, both of which can support glutathione production and detoxification, and worked to reduce my mercury levels. Comprehensive lab testing like this is so important for health, and while I've been doing it for years, I've always found it to be overly complicated and expensive. I've been so impressed by Function, both at the level of ease of use, that is getting the tests done, as well as how comprehensive and how actionable the tests are, that I recently joined their advisory board, and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd like to try Function, go to functionhealth.com/huberman. Function currently has a wait list of over 250,000 people, but they're offering early access to Huberman Lab listeners. Again, that's functionhealth.com/huberman to get early access to Function. Today's episode is also brought to us by David. David makes a protein bar unlike any other. It has 28 grams of protein, only 150 calories, and zero grams of sugar. That's right, 28 grams of protein, and 75% of its calories come from protein. This is 50% higher than the next closest protein bar. These bars from David also taste incredible. My favorite bar is the cake flavored one, but then again, I also like the chocolate flavored one and I like the berry flavored one. Basically, I like all the flavors. They're all incredibly delicious. Now, for me personally, I try to get most of my calories from whole foods. However, when I'm in a rush or I'm away from home or I'm just looking for a quick afternoon snack, I often find that I'm looking for a high quality protein source, and with David, I'm able to get 28 grams of high quality protein with the calories of a snack, which makes it very easy to hit my protein goals of one gram of protein per pound of body weight, and it allows me to do so without taking on an excess of calories. As I mentioned before, they are incredibly delicious. In fact, they're surprisingly delicious. Even the consistency is great. It's more like a cookie consistency, kind of a chewy cookie consistency, which is unlike other bars, which I tend to kind of saturate on. I was never a big fan of bars until I discovered David bars. If you give them a try, you'll know what I mean. So if you'd like to try David, you can go to davidprotein.com/huberman. Again, the link is davidprotein.com/huberman.
- 58:00 – 1:04:57
Emotions, Media, Politics
- AHAndrew Huberman
On the, uh, suggestion of my friend and former guest on this podcast, two-time guest, Rick Rubin, um, I started watching a documentary about the history of professional wrestling, which everyone agrees is made up.
- BEBill Eddy
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
So let's just acknowledge that. I recognize that. Um, but it's a remarkable, uh, portal into some of the things that you're talking about, because, um, it all hinges on being able to create emotional responses in the crowd. And just a very brief history of it, as I understand, and I'm by no means an expert, but I, uh, took notes on this documentary, as I do, um, take notes on most everything. Um, they used to have good guys and bad guys, good gals and bad gals.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know? Um, 'cause it's men and women's wrestling. Um, typically not against each other, although sometimes. In any case, there was a transition that occurred at some point where they couldn't get more excitement and, um, literally couldn't get more attention to the sport by having good, good guys and bad guys-
- BEBill Eddy
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... good gals and bad gals, so what they ended up doing was making everybody bad. And the ratings just skyrocketed.
- BEBill Eddy
Ah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Everybody bad, right? Th- the underlying premise being that both teams are cheating and so therefore, they had to, to behave poorly also. And it created this whole era of just, just bad people doing bad things, generating even greater emotional responses.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And this fits very much with the neuroscience of emotion.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, emotions like awe, happiness, joy, meaning, pleasure. These are powerful emotions, and I will not say, because there's no data to support the idea, that fear, anger, um, being threatened, et cetera, are more powerful emotions, but they tend to drive more behavior-
- BEBill Eddy
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... to... In other words, people will do more, this is well known in the field of behavioral economics too, people will do more to avoid losing something-
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... than they will to gain something, sadly, but this is how our species is wired for-
- BEBill Eddy
The negatives, yep.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... evolutionarily, uh, meaningful reasons. So the point being that I, I think societally and perhaps interpersonally, because the two things mi- mimic each other at every level, individuals on the, all the way up to, to culture, seem to be e- engaged in this, like, increasingly amplified emotional states, and now it just seems like combat is the rule of the day. And, and it's so sad, and you kind of have to wonder where it goes next.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But it does seem like it rewards these high conflict personalities-
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... because th- they go undetected, right?
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So now the, the, the coworker who's super angry about something they saw on the news and is trying to engage people or something or create an issue around something that, like, is this really an issue? I mean, there are some real issues in the workplace and at school, but, like, is this really an issue? Like, that person 10 years ago, everyone would have been like, "This is a problem person," and would have backed away. Now it just kind of, um, because the, the, the mean has shifted-
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... I think it goes, it's no longer signal above the noise. It's, as we say in science, within the noise.
- BEBill Eddy
Right. Well, what we're seeing is the, the, these kind of-... media systems, I call them, are attracted to high-conflict personalities, and high-conflict personalities are attracted to attention. They want attention. So there's this almost marriage of, of media exposure and high-conflict personalities, and so that's what, wha- what pulls people together. There's a... I think everyone's looking for community these days, and it used to be around work, like a shared task, but now we do so much of our work alone or tiny groups, and so you get a real sense of community. People used to get it from, from church or synagogue or mosque, wherever, and that's weakened. And so we get that now a lot, the intense emotional community from politics. And so there's a community for you, and there's a community for you, so they pull themselves together, they get that, that, I don't know, dopamine hit or whatever it is, um, and strengthens them. So what's happening is we're pulling apart, but to me the answer is exposing the patterns and understanding our brains, is recognize what's happening. This person's probably exaggerating when they say that, you know, those people are evil. This person's probably exaggerating when they say those people are stupid. Whatever it is that... We have to realize, okay, don't, don't buy that completely. And what's fascinating to me, I don't know how it happened, but I get text message solicitations to contribute to campaigns from conservatives and liberals. I get both, and guess what? They look like each other, and they're like, "The end of the world is coming. You've got to give $10 or $100 to save the world," and the end of the world's coming because of them.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's all fear-based.
- BEBill Eddy
And it's fear-based, but it hooks your emotions. I know this stuff, so I can go, "Okay, swipe, swipe, swipe, (laughs) swipe away," but a lot of people don't know that this is happening. They don't understand how emotions are contagious and how I think high-conflict emotions are more contagious. So to me, it's educating people about these dynamics so you don't engage so much with them. Like I won't watch more than half an hour of TV news, but you can have 24/7 TV news, and since 1995, 1996, when they allowed, um, um, they, they gave you licenses for radio and television that didn't have to tell the other side of the story. Before that, you used to... The, the Fairness Doctrine, you had to say what the other side is. You're for a candidate, you have to hear from the other side. You didn't have to after 1995, '96.
- 1:04:57 – 1:12:20
Tool: WEB Method, Identify High-Conflict Individuals
- BEBill Eddy
- AHAndrew Huberman
What are some of the signs of a high-conflict personality? Um, because in an ideal world, we avoid these people, and again, we're not trying to say that they're bad people. Some of them are bad people, some of them aren't, but, um, since I'm not a clinical psychologist, you are, you can make the assessment, um, uh, certainly better than I can. What, what are some of the ways to avoid these circumstances besides the first-year rule? Um...
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And then let's talk about some ways to disentangle from these people-
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, based on their unique, uh, phenotypes. So is there a question or set of questions one should ask themselves when they are potentially, um, dating someone, potentially becoming friends with somebody, potentially becoming co-workers with somebody, and so on?
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah, so what's interesting is often your gut feeling tells you something's up here. Like the person suddenly has a shocking opinion of somebody else. They say, you know, "That person's a total jerk," and yet you know that person, and they're not a total jerk. They suddenly... Something's disproportionate. I think disproportionate-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- BEBill Eddy
... um, emotions is often a trigger. I put, I put in, in a lot of my books now what I call the WEB method, is pay attention to their words, your emotions, and their behavior. So starting with words, do they use a lot of blaming words, you know, "It's all that person's fault?" Um, is, uh... Do they use all-or-nothing words? They seem to see things through a narrow lens that, you know, there's all good, there's all bad. Um, unmanaged emotions, which they may or may not show, like I explained. Some people are good at hiding all that, even though it drives them inside, and the extreme behaviors. Do they do things 90% of people would never do? And I'll give an example here, and this is, um... I w- I won't say the city, but there was a mayor. There was someone who worked... who was a congressperson.... and they decided to run for mayor in their city, instead of flying to go to Congress. But when they were f- flying to go to Congress back and forth... This is in California. I'll say that much. (laughs) People can easily research this. So this person, flying back and forth one day, one night, standing... You know, there was a line to get your bags at the airport after you got off the plane, and, and he was told to wait in line to get his bags. And he said, "Don't you know who I am?" And he pushed his way to the front of the line and had an argument with the person behind the counter. Said, "Don't you know who I am? I want my bag right now." And she said, "W- we don't have it now. You can't have it right now." And he pushed her and knocked her over. He shoved this, this airline worker behind the counter and knocked her over.
- AHAndrew Huberman
This was a mayor of a major-
- BEBill Eddy
Not yet. He wasn't mayor yet. He was c- a congressperson.
- AHAndrew Huberman
(laughs) Sorry.
- BEBill Eddy
Anyway, so that means he's-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Sorry. (laughs) No, uh, no knock... I know some, uh, some-
- BEBill Eddy
So-
- AHAndrew Huberman
... very decent congresspeople, but, like, okay.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um.
- BEBill Eddy
But, so he's a pr-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Well, well, in any case, right? This person could be any number of different professions.
- BEBill Eddy
Could be-
- AHAndrew Huberman
This is like-
- BEBill Eddy
... yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah. This is antisocial behavior.
- BEBill Eddy
But this is a high, high, uh, profile person, so this is in the... all over the news the next day. This is, um, 20 years ago, maybe 15 years ago, something like that.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Goodness.
- BEBill Eddy
Anyway, so it's in the newspaper the next day, and newspaper says, "Congressman so-and-so gets into physical altercation with, uh, airline worker, knocks her over." Half the people said, "That's terrible," and the other half the people said, "Wait, wait, he was sleep deprived. He was flying across country. You have to understand that he was stressed." And here's where my web method comes in. 90% of people would not have done that even if they were sleep deprived, and I fly back and forth a lot and I'm not s- I'm, I don't do that. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
I w- I would like to think 99% of people wouldn't do that.
- BEBill Eddy
I, I think you're right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right.
- 1:12:20 – 1:18:40
Body Cues, Identify High-Conflict Individuals
- AHAndrew Huberman
it's a very interesting, uh, literally high profile, although still anonymous based on this conversation, case. Um, I wonder if on a more, um, subtle or typical level, the following is informative or not. I'm not looking for a validation of the example I'm a- about to give, but I've been, um, very surprised at times how, um, if... a person who I'm with for the first time out on a meal will behave towards the wait staff.
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Not explicitly disparaging of them, but sometimes mildly disparaging of them.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Or, um, feeling as if, uh, the amount of, of liquid poured into their glass was somehow an indication of how the waiter felt about them or didn't feel about them.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah. Don't treat me that way.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Like, reading in, like, reading into these things where you're just thinking to yourself, like, "Whoa, life must be really tough for you." Like, who's paying attention to this stuff?And, um, and so that's, that's one that I've noticed in, in people, um, and it's, and it's proved informative.
- BEBill Eddy
It's really a useful thing to see. That's part of what you see, their behavior and their behavior towards other people. This was... It was a brilliant thing. I don't remember the name of, of the program, but there was a guy who was head of a company, and he used to, when he was interviewing people for high level jobs, he pretended he was a taxi driver or something, would pick them up at the airport as, as the taxi driver and see how they treated him-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- BEBill Eddy
... as the taxi driver, and then he gets in the interview room, and he's the guy interviewing them. And in some cases, people treated him really disrespectfully (laughs) , and it's like, "Now I know this is not someone I want."
- AHAndrew Huberman
Clever. I made the decision to not work for, um, somebody years ago, um, when I was on the, a different, very different stage of my career, based on how that person treated a janitor.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And it was amazing because it was one very brief interaction, and it wasn't like this person yelled at the janitor.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It was the kind of dismissiveness.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, and I remember it was this... Your, your web approach. It was, um, it was his... I guess I just revealed. It was his words towards-
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... the janitor. It was my emotional response was sort of like, I felt like I had been kind of kicked in the stomach.
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It was like, "Hey." Like, that was... Like, it just felt like a, like a, a very un- what I would call like a football play, unnecessary roughness.
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It was mild from the perspective of, like, no one got physical or called anyone names, but it was... But I remember thinking like, "Oh," like, "That sucked."
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And then their behavior was just to just go right back to what they were talking about, and I, I knew in that moment... I was really crestfallen because in that moment I knew, "Oh my goodness, I can't work for this person."
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Like, "I just can't." And I made the decision not to, and actually their response to my deciding not to, for a variety of other reasons too, confirmed everything that I suspected in that one little interaction.
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But it's interesting because we're trained to, um, collect data rather s- you know, carefully, you know, and we don't wanna, we don't wanna make snap judgments. Somebody could truly be having a bad day, but in this case-
- BEBill Eddy
Right, right.
- 1:18:40 – 1:23:12
Tool: Don’t Label & Empathy; Adapting Your Behavior
- AHAndrew Huberman
I wanted, uh, to ask you about other ways of, of just knowing if you're interacting with a high conflict person, um, w- when the cues are more subtle. Are there other things, um, or examples of the web method that, that come to mind?
- BEBill Eddy
Well, for me, of course, dealing, like, with Cord especially, there's a lot of stuff in writing, and so being able to look at what's written-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- BEBill Eddy
... and a lot of blame words, the all or nothing words, "She did this," and, "She did that," and disparaging words, "She's stupid," or whatever, or, "He's a bully. He's this and that," which triggers for me, maybe he is or maybe the person saying it is, but it heightens my attention.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, how do you disambiguate between projection and a real thing? Like, online now, I mean, one of the most pop- one of the fastest ways to get a popular-... social media account is for somebody to give advice about how to avoid bad people.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know, name-calling, gaslighting, narcissist, sociopath, psychopath, um, history on it. Like, these, these are clinical terms that now the general public can, leverages to, like, you know, sort of amplify community. And then, in part, I understand from talking to people in the tech side, is that social media is social.
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
The, the accounts that grow fastest are the ones where you don't need much language to convey what you're trying to convey, like a, a sport or dance or an animal. The, the, n- and among the others that grow very quickly, um, and therefore rewarding to people, are ones where there's, um, where you're recruiting these negative advocates.
- BEBill Eddy
Right. First of all, I wanna make sure that, that I get this point across, and that is, there's a lot of temptation to label people with, like, the mental disorders, the personality disorders, and it's absolutely essential that people don't do that. If yous think somebody might be a narcissist or might have borderline personality or be antisocial, keep that to yourself and adapt how you work with them to be more effective or be more cautious, whatever. But the worst thing, I think, is people say, "Oh," and everyone agrees, "That person's a narcissist," so we kind of gang up on that person. That's not helpful. The goal is not rejecting people. The goal is adapting what you do to either manage the relationship, decide, "Okay, that's not someone I'm gonna get close to, but, you know, I can still work with them or have them as neighbors or whatever." So, I wanna emphasize that, 'cause I think you're right, there's a lot of that today, and people come to me with that concern and say, "Bill, you teach about personality disorders." Yes, so people understand patterns of behavior and how to adapt your own behavior. I'm not teaching people to label other people. So, that's real important. Um...
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, people go to school for many years and do 3,000-plus clinical hours to learn how to do that.
- BEBill Eddy
That's what they do. Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Uh, to do that properly. It's like saying, uh, it's like diagnosing anything, right?
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I mean, uh, a dermatologist might be able to help diagnose a, a, a skin patch for potential cancer, um, but we're taught that we're not supposed to do that ourselves.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right? But-
- BEBill Eddy
So we have to be cautious, but on the other hand, aware, and the more you're aware of patterns, like, like being aware of someone with an alcohol abuse issue is to go, "Okay, I'm not gonna be serving him alcohol with dinner. He's a great person, but I'm d- I'm just gonna leave that out of the evening meal." Adapt what we do rather than judging them. And I don't see people with personality disorders as lesser beings. I see them as having a different set of behaviors that they acquired pretty much in childhood, so I don't hold it against them. I may dislike their patterns of behavior, but I, I really don't hate people like that. I've been a therapist with clients like that. So I think our awareness needs to be there so we adapt how we work with people, but I think the, the gut feeling is, is so important, and as a therapist, I was trained, pay attention to your gut, 'cause that's gonna help you with your clients. And that's why the WEB method, their words, their behavior, but how I feel often gives me tips.
- 1:23:12 – 1:28:18
High Conflict Personalities & Occupations
- BEBill Eddy
- AHAndrew Huberman
You mentioned before, and I think it's really important to highlight, that people's patterns of interactions across a lot of different domains, with the teachers in the school, with close family members, with the people that know them best at work, that these different types of relationships reveal a pattern. And one of the things I've, just speaking from my own experience, is that, uh, I've tended to, where I've gone wrong, I've tended to overemphasize the importance of, like, a, a credential.
- BEBill Eddy
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
For instance, um, uh, some of my past, uh, romantic, uh, relationships have been, uh, with people who were highly educated, some less higher education, all extremely smart people, some more formal, some less formal education. But I think that I and other people sometimes will look at the CV of somebody, um, and of course, that's not the only, uh, indication of-
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... of their, uh, you know, their, their values, et cetera, but, and to overemphasize, like, "Oh, well, they, you know, did difficult things in a difficult setting and therefore must be a, a, a good person." Like-
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So would you say that these high-conflict personalities exist more or less in high-competition venues versus low-competition venues? Um, I don't wanna make this about socioeconomic status. Those things correlate, but, um, but, you know, all too often, we tend to do the kind of good-on-paper analysis-
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and forget the, like, how do they actually measure up in real life? (laughs)
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah. I, I would say, first of all, that we see high-conflict people in every occupation, in every culture and every community, every economic status. I think that, and I don't think there's research on this, but I think that healthcare and higher education are two fields where there's a slightly higher incidence-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Higher?
- BEBill Eddy
... of high-conflict people because there's a higher tol- Oh, also I would say churches. And we get consultations with churches sometimes. There's a high tolerance for behavior that's outside the norm because-
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, you said higher education and-
- BEBill Eddy
Care.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... healthcare in particular.
- BEBill Eddy
And I would say churches-
- AHAndrew Huberman
So you're talking about physi- You're talking about physicians and universities?
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.... yes. So-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Students and faculty and staff?
- BEBill Eddy
Yes, both. Administrators sometimes. And I believe it's because of the higher tolerance.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Administrators. Just kidding, I don't know about that.
- BEBill Eddy
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
I've been blessed with good administrators. We- we have been blessed with great administrators.
- BEBill Eddy
So, let me... Yeah, let me mention, I do a lot of consultation, and one of the things that people come to me about is, is people with little power bases, like department heads in universities. Um, I remember one university I did a consultation with about a department head, and they were a medical school, and they had a, a high conflict, uh, person high up in the structure who was really, um, I was told, damaging some of the students' careers, because they didn't... they looked at them cross-eyed or something like that, so they wouldn't write the kind of recommendation that they needed. And how can we deal with this person, 'cause they're embedded in their position? So, gave them a variety of tips. But that's, that's why I think people do need to have their eyes opened in these fields. And, and I wanna add, since I'm talking about occupations, we see this a little bit more in nonprofits and nonprofit administrators, because again, nonprofits are good people doing good things, but they have this higher tolerance for administrators with bad behavior, because they're good people. And that blinds people to-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Because of the assumption they're good people?
- BEBill Eddy
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Or because they're g- or because the mission is good?
- BEBill Eddy
The mission is good, and they're invested in this mission, so they must be good.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Do you think that's part of what got them there?
- 1:28:18 – 1:37:27
Big Personalities: Evidence vs Assumptions
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's really interesting. Uh, you know, when I was a graduate student, there was a department chair in that department, big personality.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Like, big personality.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And, um, I very quickly came to realize, also because I listened to the faculty that were under this person, that despite having this, like, big, like, larger-than-life personality that you might initially r- like, place into a category of, you know, like diagnosis or something-
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... that this person was an incredibly strong advocate for the faculty.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And they loved that. And he was really beloved.
- BEBill Eddy
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I think rightfully so, you know? And, um, you know, at a, at a surface level, might have rubbed a few people the wrong way. I think as students, we were like, "Oh, whoa." Like, you know, like, it was almost like d- quite know how to, how to, like, respond r- respond to it. But you very quickly got the sense of, like, a real kind of paternal nature in this person.
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, I point this out because sometimes these big personalities are really truly benevolent. Now, I'm not saying he was a perfect human being. How could I know that? I don't know that.
- BEBill Eddy
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I didn't know him in all domains of his l- life. Although I did know his family, and, and he seemed to have a great, strong family too. Um, but then by contrast, I'm thinking of the person I alluded to earlier, different department, different university, who was kinda like more meek, like p- like, certainly is more of the, the stereotypical lab scientist, but then, um, you know, there was this, like, interaction that I observed, and I thought, like, "Whoa," like, "That's really dreadful. At least, that's not an environment I wanna be in."
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So sometimes, these things don't match our initial impressions. I raise this because sometimes we think big personality, AKA high conflict personality, sometimes we think, hey, kind of, you know, quieter, um, nerdy type, and they're actually quite dreadful.
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, it doesn't always fit. It's- it's... And- and I think the problem with the internet, social media version of this, the typical version, 'cause there's some great social media, internet stuff-
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... podcasts, et cetera, uh, is that we- we default to what we see-
- BEBill Eddy
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and what we hear, but we, we don't really have the data.
- BEBill Eddy
And we can get manipulated that way. That's- that's what's tricky. But- but you raised several important points. I wanna respond to them all if I can remember them. The- the first is that this is, in many ways, quite nuanced. The key thing to look out for with high conflict people, a preoccupation with blaming others and not taking responsibility. So, you might have a big personality that's- that's not a high conflict person. You might have a meek, quiet person who is a high conflict person. So, you can't go by what your eyes see and your ears hear. It's really a question of evidence. And that's why I think maybe I got into this after I became a lawyer, that there's no way to quickly know, although you may quickly suspect and then wanna look deeper. But I wanna give an example, 'cause now that I seem to have criticized department heads and, and, and all this-
Episode duration: 2:39:21
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