Re:Thinking with Adam GrantHow to spot psychopaths and narcissists, with Leanne ten Brinke | ReThinking
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 1:03
Psychopathy in everyday micro-signals: yawn contagion and emotional “catching”
Leanne ten Brinke opens with a striking behavioral marker: people higher in psychopathic traits are less likely to yawn contagiously. The discussion uses this simple reflex to illustrate a broader point—many people automatically mirror others’ emotions, while psychopathy is associated with diminished emotional resonance.
- •Research finding: higher psychopathic traits predict reduced yawn contagion
- •Most people are highly reactive to others’ subtle cues; psychopaths less so
- •A tiny, reflexive behavior can reveal differences in emotional responsiveness
- 1:03 – 2:37
Two kinds of empathy: noticing vs feeling (and the “words but not the music” idea)
Adam and Leanne unpack why psychopaths may see emotional cues without internally experiencing them. Leanne distinguishes automatic/emotional empathy (reduced) from cognitive empathy (often intact), capturing the idea that some can understand emotions conceptually but not feel them.
- •Psychopathy can involve atypical attention to faces and reduced emotion-recognition accuracy (fear/sadness)
- •Affective/emotional contagion is diminished; cognitive empathy can remain
- •“Knowing the words but not the music”: understanding emotion without sharing it
- 2:37 – 5:09
Defining “poisonous people”: the Dark Tetrad and where harm begins
Leanne defines “poisonous people” as those scoring high on the Dark Tetrad: psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and sadism. She explains overlap (callousness, manipulation, antagonism) while noting each trait’s distinct flavor, and discusses the challenge of drawing a non-clinical but meaningful line.
- •Dark Tetrad components and their shared core: callousness, manipulativeness, hostility
- •Key differences: impulsive psychopathy vs strategic Machiavellianism; grandiose narcissism; pleasure-in-pain sadism
- •Traits are continuous, not just diagnosable disorders
- •Self-report measurement and an estimate: ~10% fall into a high, trouble-causing range
- 5:09 – 6:11
Why some admit it: low remorse, low shame, and little motivation to change
Adam notes how surprising it is that people would endorse dark-trait items, and Leanne explains why it happens. Antagonistic individuals often don’t experience guilt or shame in the same way, so they perceive conflict as others’ problem and feel less internal pressure to improve.
- •High-dark-trait people may freely endorse statements others would avoid
- •Evidence: antagonistic individuals often aren’t motivated to change
- •Low remorse/shame makes harmful behavior feel justified or inconsequential
- 6:11 – 7:47
Spotting dark traits without a survey: schadenfreude, boundary-pushing, and conversational tells
The conversation turns to practical detection cues when you can’t administer questionnaires. Leanne describes an “interpersonal measure” style checklist: interrupting patterns, ignoring boundaries, rambling tangents, and performative language—paired with unusual emotional presentation.
- •Schadenfreude: more smiling/enjoyment when discussing others’ failures
- •Interpersonal cues: frequent interrupting, refusal to be interrupted, boundary violations
- •Communication tells: tangents/rambling; trying to impress with misused jargon
- •Emotional cues can show up in oddly short-lived or unusually calm reactions
- 7:47 – 8:56
Thin-slice accuracy: what people infer from five seconds of behavior
Leanne explains “thin slice” research showing observers can detect psychopathy above chance from just a brief clip. Her follow-up coding work suggests one cue is emotional incongruence—hostile or angry content paired with a broad, seemingly inappropriate smile.
- •Observers can make surprisingly accurate psychopathy judgments from ~5-second clips
- •Coding work identifies cues people may rely on
- •Emotional mismatch: hostile words delivered with a big smile as a common signal
- 8:56 – 11:28
The ‘toxic’ label backlash: continuum thinking and learning to manage (not just cut off)
Adam raises concerns about social-media overuse of “toxic” labels and the risk of writing people off too quickly. Leanne agrees harm is real and outsized for a minority, but warns that if intolerance extends to any small dark-trait behavior, people may end up severing too many relationships—missing chances to build interaction skills that reduce damage.
- •Dark personalities can cause outsized harm, but traits vary by degree
- •Over-labeling can lead to “cutting out everybody” for normal imperfections
- •Beyond “cut and run”: develop skills to mitigate harm when exit isn’t feasible
- •Goal: reduce the damage dark traits do in everyday settings
- 11:28 – 14:05
Are psychopaths overrepresented among CEOs? Interpreting the base rates
Leanne addresses a popular claim: psychopathy is more common among CEOs than the general population, but the absolute numbers remain small. She contrasts CEO rates with prison populations to show psychopathy doesn’t equate to “success”—it’s associated with many negative outcomes, including incarceration.
- •CEO estimate: ~3% at clinical psychopathy vs ~1% in general population
- •Prison population: ~20% with high psychopathy traits
- •Key interpretation: overrepresentation doesn’t mean psychopathy reliably produces success
- •Reframe: 97% of CEOs are not psychopaths; most people are not ‘poisonous’
- 14:05 – 16:34
Politics and power: coding dark traits in U.S. Congress and why influence can stall
Adam pushes into politics, asking whether dark traits help people succeed in Congress. Leanne describes coding C‑SPAN behavior for Dark Tetrad signals; their findings suggest higher dark traits did not translate to greater influence and, even with formal power (e.g., committee chair), these individuals were less effective collaborators.
- •Method: behavioral coding of members of Congress from public video (C‑SPAN)
- •Result: higher dark-trait indicators correlated with less influence, not more
- •Even with positional power, collaboration suffers
- •Dark traits gravitate toward power/status, but may undermine long-run effectiveness
- 16:34 – 17:34
A negative-spiral dynamic: charm, attention, conflict, and campaigns that go dark
Adam and Leanne discuss the paradox: dark-trait individuals can be compelling early and build followings, yet generate conflict that blocks sustained cooperation. Leanne connects this to campaigning—greater negativity can trigger opponents to respond in kind, escalating polarization and hostility.
- •Superficial charm and strong first impressions can attract followers
- •Day-to-day collaboration breaks down due to conflict creation
- •Dark personalities more likely to go negative in campaigns
- •Negativity can spiral as competitors mirror tactics
- 17:34 – 19:39
Stay or go: decision points, safety, and the emotional reality of leaving
Leanne outlines a “fork in the road”: deciding whether to exit a relationship with a dark personality or manage it. She validates how difficult leaving can be (social bonds, sunk costs) and stresses safety planning, especially where domestic violence risk can increase during separation.
- •Repeated decision points: whether to stay or leave
- •Leaving is emotionally hard; social connection and sunk costs keep people stuck
- •Safety guidance: avoid announcing departure; risk can spike during breakup/exit
- •Staying doesn’t mean accepting victimhood—management strategies exist
- 19:39 – 21:30
Practical interaction tools: create minimal common ground and give feedback as questions
For situations where avoidance isn’t possible (e.g., work), Leanne offers tactical communication strategies. She suggests building tiny in-group signals (shared interests) to reduce defensiveness, and reframing critiques as questions to avoid triggering dominance threats and blowups.
- •Establish small common ground to activate loyalty/in-group cues
- •Even trivial perceived similarities can reduce narcissistic reactivity to feedback
- •Frame feedback as questions (“What do you think about…?”) vs declarations
- •Reduce perceived dominance threat to prevent escalation
- 21:30 – 25:10
Don’t ‘beat them at their own game’: authenticity, negotiation, and explicit boundaries
They caution against counter-manipulation or ego-stroking that works short-term but backfires long-term. Leanne’s alternative: set explicit boundaries (since dark personalities test implicit rules) and use transparent negotiation—understand their incentives without losing your integrity.
- •Worst approach: lying back, dominating back, or heavy ingratiation
- •Short-term manipulation can inflate ego and create bigger future problems
- •Make boundaries explicit; implicit rules are easiest to violate
- •Use honest negotiation: find what makes it a win for them without self-betrayal
- 25:10 – 27:03
Rethinking ‘diversity’ of dark personalities on teams, plus dinner-party and primate detours
Leanne shares a moment of rethinking after a psychopathic individual argued for including dark personalities as “diversity.” She concludes the issue is the shift from task conflict to personal conflict unless the team is trained to manage antagonistic behavior; the segment also includes a lighter lightning-round discussion about bonobos, chimps, and studying psychopathy across primates.
- •Dark personalities can have skills/talents, but raise risks of personal conflict
- •If present on teams, everyone needs tools to manage antagonism or it devolves
- •Lightning-round: interest in how other primates handle similar traits
- •Curiosity about empathy/cooperation research (bonobos) and measurement in primates
- 27:03 – 29:50
Office Hours: redesigning leadership so guilt-prone people will step up (shared leadership)
Leanne asks how to make leadership more appealing to guilt-prone, other-oriented people who may avoid power. Adam proposes shared leadership—distributing responsibility across co-leads—to reduce emotional burden and make huge roles more humane and sustainable.
- •Contrast: guilt-prone leaders often produce positive team outcomes but may avoid leading
- •Proposal: shared leadership structures (co-leads/co-CEOs)
- •Evidence base: growing research suggesting shared leadership can outperform solo leadership in some settings
- •Many leadership jobs have outgrown what one person can reasonably handle
- 29:50 – 33:50
Turning the lens inward: reducing your own dark tendencies through ‘agreeableness challenges’
In closing, Adam reflects on his own temptation to justify manipulation as persuasion for a good cause. Leanne points to research suggesting personalities are somewhat malleable: repeated, structured “agreeableness challenges” (gratitude, kindness, perspective-taking) can increase agreeableness and reduce dark-trait expressions over time.
- •Healthy framing: most people aren’t extreme, but few are zero on all traits
- •Best control point is self-regulation—turning down your own ‘dial’
- •Hudson’s intervention: daily/weekly prompts to practice gratitude, kindness, perspective-taking
- •Result: increases in agreeableness and decreases in dark traits across weeks; hope and prevention, especially early
