Modern Wisdom - #1068 - Dr Peter Salerno - How Narcissists Hijack Your Brain

Episode Date: March 7, 2026

Dr Peter Salerno is a social psychologist, professor, and researcher. Why are narcissists so manipulative? At some point in your life, you’ve probably encountered a narcissist. They can take control of a situation so subtly that before you realize it, you’re caught under their influence. So how can you spot a narcissist early, and what can you do to protect yourself from their manipulation? Expect to learn why people repeatedly tend to hurt others deliberately, which parts of the brain are actually involved in empathy and self-control, why the idea that “hurt people hurt people” is so attractive, why narcissists often pull someone close and then suddenly push them away, how to spot when flirting or drama turn into manipulation, if someone can be genuinely in emotional pain and still choose to hurt others and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/deals⁠ Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get 15% off your first order of my favourite Non-Alcoholic Brew at https://athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom New pricing since recording: Function is now just $365, plus get $25 off at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/books⁠ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: ⁠https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom⁠ Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: ⁠https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59⁠ #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: ⁠https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf⁠ #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: ⁠https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp⁠ - Get In Touch: Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast⁠ Email: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/contact⁠ - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you describe what you do? Someone hasn't met you before. They don't know much about you. You're at a cocktail party. How do you describe what you do? I mean, my work focuses on, I mean, I'm a psychotherapist. That's kind of like my trade. I'm licensed as a psychotherapist. I have a doctorate in psychology. So my background is in psychology and mental health. I would say what I do specifically is I do extensive research on the etiology or cause of personality disorders. That's the that's the, that's the, that's the, type of diagnosis that I specialize in assessing understanding. But one of the reasons I do it is actually not necessarily to treat personality disorders. I do it so that I help people understand in relationships where there's a personality disorder. There's often toxicity and conflict and strife and abuse, right? And so what I do is I help people restore their, what I would call their reality confidence following a toxic relationship. Because in these relationships, what happens is the individual who is the victim of somebody

who is intentionally manipulative, deceptive, controlling, what happens is the victim loses their sense of what's actually true and real and what's actually being manipulated. okay and so i i help people following these types of high conflict or problematic abusive relationships kind of get their reality confidence back and one of the ways i do that is by resolving what i call traumatic cognitive dissonance which is what happens to the brain when you're forced to hold two contradictory realities at the same time because someone is trying to convince you that two things could be true at the same time when they can't can't be. And so when I'm consulting with people professionally, I'm helping them regain their

understanding of what's actually real, what happened to them, and what they were convinced happened to them because it was convenient for somebody else if they believed that. So it's almost like people that have spent a good bit of time intimately close to these other people, their reality gets warped around them to the point where it's difficult for them to re-enter normal reality without the old version creeping back in. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the reasons for that is because the individual who is the manipulative person has done such an exceptional job of making a lot of the deception and the evidence invisible. So it's not like there's somebody overtly trying to manipulate you and you're

aware of it, right? Like it's not like there's somebody saying, hey, I want you to buy this product for me. Here's why I think it'll improve your life. And then they pressure you. It's actually more like, no, I'm not actually up to anything. You're free to come and go as you please in this arrangement, all while underneath the surface covertly trying to gain an advantage over this person for selfish reasons, exploitative reasons. And so even if the relationship has ended, they still might perceive the relationship even years or decades later in a way that's not accurate because their reality was distorted. What are the personality type?

What are the sorts of people, the kinds of psychological profiles? What are we talking about here? How does that show up in behavior? Yeah. So, I mean, I would say the personality disorders, and I'm just the messenger here, okay, but the personality disorders that we most often associate with interpersonal conflict, abuse, harm are what we call the cluster B personality disorders. And so the reason why we cluster them together is because they have a lot of overlapping features. So it's not really accurate to say that it's convenient, but it's not fully accurate to say that some, just fits into one concrete category of disorder and we can just label them as such and then

there's nothing else going on usually what's happening is there's quite a few traits or features of multiple personality disorders that are overlapping in one individual and so it makes it even harder to really pinpoint what really is this person all about but but i would say that the pathological traits the personality traits that we find common in the the cluster B classification of disorders are the ones that you're going to find causing the most interpersonal trouble in conflict in relationships. What are they named? So we have one of the main ones that's sort of like an umbrella term is what we refer to as antagonism. Antagonism is a personality trait where people are in oftentimes intentionally

putting themselves at odds with another person or they're putting two, other people at odds with one another, literally to create drama, to create conflict, to escalate problems rather than solve them. So an example of antagonism is something that we refer to as like triangulation. So one person is intentionally going to tell another person something about someone else to create a rift. And then they're going to deny that they did that. and so now the two people that didn't even speak could be having thoughts and perceptions about each other based on this other person. That could be completely a fabrication. It could just be a lie. And now those two people are at odds with one another and they haven't even communicated necessarily. It's just this other person is deciding I'm going to create a rift in here because it might benefit them for those two people to not get along. And so they're going to strategically create a problem in that dynamic and then deny it ever have it. I didn't even know antagonism was a personality trait or a potential personality type.

I don't know. I mean, I've thought about somebody that is antagonistic. You know that, but I didn't realize that it would be something more definable, something that had its own little bucket. Yeah, and that's actually a big bucket because what's underneath antagonism is, things like grandiosity, which we see in narcissism. I'm sure you're familiar with that term. It's a big popular term. Most people who get accused of being narcissistic, what's actually, what they're actually being accused of is antagonism. They're being accused of the problematic aspect of narcissism in a relationship is somebody's grandiosity. So their entitlement, their arrogance, their inability to see other

people as an equal. Well, the only way you can be in a relationship as a narcissist, and to maintain that position is if you antagonize people. Because you need to put people at odds with you. They need to be beneath you. They need to be aware that there's a hierarchy in the relationship that you are, whatever the case may be smarter, better. They need to be above. There's no such thing as equality in a relationship where one person is truly narcissistic. So yeah, so antagonism, is actually the big bowl that a lot of the other traits that we often hear about,

they actually are falling under the category of antagonism. What else is in the cluster? We have hostility, so people that have kind of tend to hold like a contempt or a spite towards others to where they're not actually

collaborating to make relationships better. They're resentful of the person. They might envy the person. They might be jealous of the person. So they're hostile towards them. And it's, again, this isn't always being admitted to. They could be smiling and winning favor and ingratiating and being kind to the person all while sabotaging something covertly through their, because as a result of their hostility. So they might be deceptive.

That's another feature of antagonism is deceit, obviously manipulation, failure to fulfill obligations, all of these things that we see and if they're consistent chronic behaviors, we're really dealing with an antagonistic person. Well, I suppose all of us have done some of this, some of the time. So when we talk about personality disorders, what we're really talking about is, is this trait, so we'll just use antagonism because we're talking about antagonism. Is somebody antagonistic in like one or two specific contexts? So are they, do they, do they, do they tend to become antagonistic when they're only talking to their mother and they're an adult,

right? But no matter how much time goes by, if they go home to the house that they grew up in, they start being antagonistic. Are we talking about that? Because that's kind of a normal thing that we could see in humans. Or is this person all day, every day, plotting to put people at odds with one another because it benefits them in some way for people to not get a law? They seem to be the common denominator of helping everybody pick up the pieces back together. So there could be some motivating factor why the person operates in an antagonistic fashion all day, every day.

We would say that that's more related to abnormal or maladaptive personality. But if you're antagonistic once in a while with a particular person because you have a history, that's just being human, right? What we're looking for is how much is this pattern interfering with the life of the individual and the lives of other people. So there's a distinction there. What's the root of this? What are the root of much of the cluster B disorders?

This is an excellent question. So one of the things that is going to put my answer or set my answer apart is most of the people you've probably seen speak about this topic, personality disorders or narcissism, they're going to give you a different answer than I would give you based on what causes. it. Okay. Most people have this idea or have adopted the idea that what causes it is actually childhood adversity or some sort of abuse or situation where the person learned to be this way. Hurt people, hurt people. Precisely, yeah. I mean, that's the most common answer you'll get. I would fundamentally disagree with that because there's a lot of new research that has come. out within the last 20 years even, that suggests that a lot of the traits that we use

to describe the central features of something like a narcissism are actually just as much, if not more, related to the way somebody is just intrinsically built rather than the things that happen to them. So we're going to go into like the, there's no such thing as a nature nurture debate because it's always nature and nurture. So there's no such thing as talk about one without the other. But what I've noticed in clinical research and clinical practice and just in my field in general is there is a lack of awareness among professionals of how much DNA and biology contribute to narcissistic traits and features across the lifespan in an individual regardless of what has happened to them in early life and childhood. So what I mean by that is

there is evidence to to demonstrate that people can be highly narcissistic or have a personality disorder that's more severe than we'll say mild or moderate and they could actually develop that disorder without any adversity or trauma or incidents of being hurt in their personal life so we can no longer attribute this type of behavior solely to what happened to somebody in their early formative years. I had Catherine Page Hardin on the show yesterday. You familiar with her? Yeah, wrote the genetic lottery. And her new book is Original Sin. And it's all about how people's behavior is influenced by their genes, especially maladaptive, antisocial behavior, robbing, stealing, lying, abuse. And so yeah, you're in good company. This week, apparently, it's just all about

bad personality traits and how much about genes. So an interesting. question there is, if you're saying trauma doesn't necessarily cause people to become abusers, that you can have a child who goes through a horrendous childhood and doesn't grow up to become a narcissist or an antagonist or whatever, and you can also have a childhood which doesn't have abuse and the child does grow up to become an adult, or even in childhood, is presumably you get narcissistic children as well. How often do you see somebody that becomes let's just say a narcissist or antagonist that doesn't have it in their family history where you have been able to separate out some of the heritability component of this.

How many people can environment themselves into a cluster B disorder? Yeah, that's such a great question. I would say historically in the mental health field, the answer to that question would be as many people as possible because they're operating from this theoretical lens, right, that these are created, these are designed disorders. They're not built into anybody. They're strictly environmental.

So that presents a problem if they're strictly environmental to my perspective. Because what it's saying is that under the right circumstances, you can make a narcissist, right? So to answer your question, maybe correct me if I'm not answering your question. I would say, I'm not going to say something's not possible. So do I think it's possible that somebody, based on experience alone, could develop what we would typically refer to as like narcissistic personality disorder? Could they meet that criteria at some point in their life?

Yeah, sure. I would caution to say, though, that what we're really seeing now, though, is they need enough of the startup material of narcissism in order for it to really manifest into like a pervasive disorder, meaning there has to be some biological and genetic underpinnings that set up the trade profile for that type of. They need the raw materials. Yeah, I'd say so. I don't think you could just create it from the ground up in anybody. So do you often see it in mom or dad or grandparents? Have you ever looked at this? Has anyone done his study? Yeah, so they're actually, what gives us the most information

on how genetic something is versus how environmental is twin studies. Twins, it's a natural experiment. You take two identical twins that have been raised apart, so they don't even know the other exists and they know nothing about their environment. You study them later in life or at intervals, of life. How similar are they if they come from completely different upbringings, completely different socioeconomic status, completely different countries? How similar are they in personality if they didn't

know the other exists, but they share 100% of their DNA? So those are the kind of cool natural experiments we can do on identical twins to see how much of environmental influence is there versus how concordant are their traits, even if they live the part but just share similar DNA. What we found in like some pretty landmark meta-analyses and landmark studies is across the board when it comes to psychological traits, 50 plus years of twin research covering millions and millions of different twins and covering, I don't know how many traits there are, but maybe 20,000 psychological traits that are possible, we're finding that all psychological traits, including personality traits show measurable average heritability of like about 50%.

So that's just with startup material alone, all psychological traits show about 50% average heritability. And what we've seen with personality disorders is that those percentages actually increased when we're talking about pathological personality traits. so it exceeds 50%. That's pretty significant. Well, it's on average pretty much everything is 50%.

But when you're talking about such an extreme outlier, what sounds like very antisocial, kind of maladaptive, at least at the group level, although it may be slightly adaptive at the individual level, you would have hoped that our genes might have been able to regress back to the mean a little bit more effectively to try and push this thing out. So have you got, have you thought about this through an evolutionary lens? Have you thought about how Cluster B personality traits might be adaptive?

What sort of benefits they would afford our ancestors and what sort of benefits the people who have them receive now? Because if they have stayed in the gene pool for a couple of hundred thousand years, we have to assume that they're there for a reason. So what sort of benefits do these people see? Yeah, so like why, like essentially why did these mechanisms evolve and why are they still around? Like, bingo. Okay.

So the first question that we just talked about with heritability, we were asking essentially, why do individuals differ? Why would some person have more narcissism than the other, right? Now you're asking a maybe not an even better question, but just as important as a question. Why are the mechanisms in the first place? Like did they serve some, you know, useful purpose or even, non-useful. Evolutionary psychologists, I don't want to speak for all of them, but some of them would say this is just due to random variation.

Like these traits exist in the human DNA and they're going to reemerge in future generations, even if we try to wipe them out. Just like cooperation would reemerge if we tried to wipe out all the cooperative people. So part of it is random variation. I think it's just the nature of human DNA. we have these traits that exist. I think that these traits do serve certain purposes and certain contexts that are useful

for immediate reward or immediate gratification or even solving a very particular problem that requires, could potentially require even impulse, right? We need a spontaneous, impulsive, quick decision here. So we want to look at the utility in these traits, too. they're not all bad, and I wouldn't even go so far as to say this is an issue about related to good or evil. I think these traits, even in smaller doses, could be extremely useful, and so they exist for that purpose.

When they get to the point where they're on the extreme end of the quantitative dimension, meaning somebody is existing in life and in relationships hostile to the point where it's problematic, that's when we would say, well, whatever purpose it served, this isn't the purpose. But we could even say that for positive tricks, like agreeableness, for example. If you could be too agreeable, then if you're pathologically agreeable, then, you know, it might be useful to be a bit more disagreeable in day-to-day life, right? So to answer your question, they exist because they exist. they evolve for, you know, randomness and also some useful purposes in extreme levels.

They're just harmful. In other news, you've probably heard me talk about Element before, and that's because I am frankly dependent on it. And it's how I've started my day every single morning. This is the best tasting hydration drink on the market. You might think, why do I need to be more hydrated? Because proper hydration is not just about drinking enough water. It's having sufficient electrolytes to allow.

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that you'll love it. Plus, they offer free shipping in the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of elements most popular flavors with your first purchase by going to the link in the description below. I heading to drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom. That's drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom. What about the neurobiology of this stuff? What parts of the brain are involved in empathy and self-control and and have we looked at the brains of what's going is it dopamine overload is it the amygdala is firing too much what's going on this is something that i think is extremely important to bring to this conversation because i think oftentimes psychology stops at um social and um you know caregiving contributions right like the the original environment

and things like that, but there are so many other systems involved in creating a personality or creating a trait, and you mentioned some of them. So we're talking about hormonal systems, the endocrine system, you know, the nervous system, and then all of the brain networks that are communicating. I don't really like to say that this is like, there's such a thing as like a narcissistic brain where there's certain regions that look a certain way, and so that's a narcissistic brain. That's a little too naive, I would say. But are there regions or areas in the brain that are indicative of things like a lack of empathy? Sure, absolutely. We see that in certain brains. We see that in brain imaging. We also see structural and functional differences in brains

pre and post therapy in individuals with personality disorders. They've done studies on child brains, like, you know, they scan them prior to treatment and then scan them following treatment for tasks related to cognitive restructuring, mentalization-based treatment, and seeing that the function and structure of the brain does, in fact, change with certain interventions. Okay, so this is not a complete lock-in. We can't intervene. In some cases, yeah, well, in most, I would say in a lot of cases, it's not, none of this is deterministic, it's probabilistic, and it's more influential than, and, and, it's more influential

than it is, like, just set in stone. But there are cases, I just want to be totally transparent, there are cases of individuals where there's not much hope for changing the operating system. And what does that look like from a brain chemistry perspective? What differences in brain chemistry could make someone more prone to dominance or aggression or whatever? So what we see, we see proactive or intentional forms of aggrave? in individuals who have like less activation when it comes to

fear learning or consequences. So what I mean by that is some brains operate in a way where they don't learn from mistakes through fear. The fear doesn't register when they do something pretty horrific. So there's no motivation to stop doing the behavior when the fear doesn't kick in.

There's also no arousal in the body or in systems that would normally say, okay, we need to be of a hypervision here. We just did something. We don't like the way it feels. In some individuals, those things don't happen. So they don't learn from the mistakes. So therefore, there's nothing in them registering to say we should stop doing this. What actually might be happening is it's making them feel better to do it. And it could be an antisocial behavior.

So some people are wired in such a way where they're motivated to continue participating in what most people, would consider a negative behavior, but their body, their operating system is telling them to keep doing it because it produces a reward, or it's just, there's nothing negative about it for them. Page yesterday said basically the exact same thing. And the funny thing about somebody who doesn't learn through punishment is that much of the time when you're a kid, if you are acting out, what happens is parents begin to, and teachers begin to ratchet a punishment more. more and more and more, but you don't realize is that that is simply the wrong pathway. It would be like somebody having a vitamin B methylation pathway deficiency and you're just

pushing more vitamin B into them, hoping that this simply does not get absorbed. And her angle was they will learn through reinforcement of praise, but not through reinforcement of punishment, which means that in your example here, it's almost like, people are kind of blind to the slings and arrows of distaste from people, and they will just continue to work through until they find something. Oh, well, that worked. That seemed to get me closer to whatever my goal was for today. I'll keep doing that.

No, you can't do that. You shouldn't do that. You've got time out. I'm taking your iPad. You're going to sit on the naughty step. Made no difference. Try it again. Maybe in a different way.

Ratchet it up a little bit more. The punishment comes back in. again, no difference. Not learning from this, not learning from this. I'm just heat-seeking missile for effectiveness without the sort of overlying social mores and the discomfort. For the people who've got Les Spirit Descalier,

staircase wit in French, that sense of, I really wish that I'd said that thing as opposed to I just don't reflect on my behavior in that kind of a manner. That's exactly right. So what we see in the operating systems of the more severe to extreme personality disorders is we see a lack of capacity but also interest in collaboration. So imagine if your starting point is I'm not interested in collaborating with people, right? That's how they, so there's a problem right there.

There's a lack of collaborative capacity or interest. there's a lack of problem-solving capacity or interest in these individuals. There's a lack of self-reflective capacity and interest, and there's a lack of self-corrective capacity and interest. So we have to stop making the mistake of thinking that there is no variation between individuals and what motivates them. And interestingly, enough, too, with the severe personality disorders that create the interpersonal strife, more nurture and empathy for them actually makes them more

exploitative. Oh, hang on. So, no, wait a second. So you're telling me that a lot of these people are immune to punishment and encouraged by empathy. Yes. now we see this in we actually see this in clinical practice which is interesting because when you work with individuals who have severe personality disorders they actively put wrenches in the therapy process they derail the process in what ways well they exploit your empathy and

your unconditional positive regard for them and you believing their narrative they exploit all that. So treating them and dealing with them in a clinical setting is one very telling of how they operate in their personal lives, where they're derailing and manipulating the narrative so that you guys don't reach a common ground. Seems like completely counterintuitive to most people, but that's what they're in fact doing. They're making it so that you can't reach a common ground with them. So there's that. Sorry, just on that, they're trying to maintain control and distance. I'll give you what I know, what I think that you want for me, some sort of performative revelation or revealing a degree of titrated information that I've given you, but that's probably

fake as well, because I understand the dynamic. I understand what your reward function is. Oh, I've really got them to open up during this session. And that's, that allows the therapeutic relationship to keep going in a manner that it's supposed to, like within the rules of the game, without actually having to play the game. Correct. Well, yes. Well, yes. Well, seemingly, and most therapists, this goes over their head.

So they're thinking that you're making, like, great strides and you're progressing because you're feigning collaboration. Have you ever worked? So I understand that you work with the victims. these people. Have you ever worked directly with the people themselves? Yeah, I should clarify. I used to. I don't anymore, but I used to for a very long. Okay, you're a little bit like an ex-undercover cop that's now turned into a proper detective or whatever. So tell me what it's like. Tell me, tell me what it's like to sit down opposite somebody who has 99th percentile cluster B

personality disorder. Just describe that experience. when we're talking about in a therapeutic context, something that's really important to mention is transference and counter transference. So do you want me to go into that for your audience? Yeah, give us a brief overview. I learned that, you know, interestingly, and I'm grinning because it's one of the few things

that I've learned from reading chick novels. I read The Silent Patient by Alex Michaeladies, or Andrew Michaeladies, and in it, one of the main protagonists is a therapist who's trying to get this patient to speak. And he goes to his head therapist, who's trying to help him get through this very difficult patient. And there's this line, tell me about the transference and countertransference.

And this was as I was starting to do therapy about two years ago. And I went in all impressed with myself to tell my therapist that I learned what transference and countertransference was. But I didn't learn about it from proper research. I learned about it from reading like an absolute, like USA Today, best-selling chick thriller. But, transference, counter-transfer.

You're sitting down with somebody with Cluster B, et cetera. Yeah. Well, I mean, just in general, we all transfer and counter-transfer in life in human relationships. It's not just exclusive to therapy, but it's important to notice

that it's happening in therapy because it gives you a lot of information as far as what's happening in the interaction. So, I mean, transference, in the simplest terms, is the feelings that are transferred to the therapist by the patient. Countertransference are some of the feelings or emotional reactions that take place inside of

the therapist while they are interacting with a patient. So the reason why that's relevant is because we get to ask cool questions like, what I have been feeling this if I were sitting with anyone else right now? Or is this feeling that just got activated in me? Is it directly related to the dynamic of this person that I'm interacting with? because it starts to tell you information about how maybe other people are experiencing them outside of therapy in their personal life, that maybe they're not super aware of. And they might actually, even a narcissist could genuinely come into a therapy office and not have a clue

why everybody thinks they're so insensitive, right? All the while, the therapist is picking up on their insensitivity and having a countertransference reaction to this insensitivity. Like, gosh, it feels hard to sit in a room with this person. incompetent. I feel scared. I feel like different than I did before they showed up, right? So it's really important. But the typical countertransference that results when you're sitting with somebody who meets the criteria for cluster B, or I should say, yeah, typical or common countertransference. So what the therapist feels in the room with them is you feel, I said a couple of them just now. You oftentimes you just start to overwhelmingly feel incompetent. Like you don't know how to do your job or you're not qualified to do your job. And remember, this is just coming as you're sitting with someone. You weren't thinking about it earlier today on the drive to work. You were thinking, oh, I can't wait to go to work.

I do a pretty good job. You know, I have a full practice. Then this person comes in and all of a sudden you feel like you can't do your job. Right. So that's what is it? What is it? What are they doing? What is it?

They're devaluing you and not telling you that they're devaluing you. But you're starting to feel incompetent. So this is something that somebody with pretty severe personality pathology can sort of just put into the environment. They can export this out into the environment without saying a word. Do you think they mean to? Is this an outcome that they want or is this a spandrel that's come along for the ride? So earlier you were asking about purpose evolutionary perspective. I would say this is an evolutionary perspective that would be important to look into. Can they put this spell into the environment and to the air for some sort of advantage for themselves that they might not even fully be aware of in the moment? But it's happening and it's starting to work for them. It makes people want to compete. Allow me to show you just how competent I am.

No, no, no, no. I will do. I will over deliver. I will over because there is this odd sense of interpersonal competition of one. It's actually of non, right? It's just you, right? It's not a competition between you. it's that I need to prove myself because you don't seem impressed by me.

Be impressed by me. Okay, I'll do a bit more. I'll do a bit more. I'll do a bit more. Be, finally, please just recognize that I'm here. Yeah. Or if I can get the professional to tell me to feel incompetent, then I get to direct the treatment,

which means maybe if they feel incompetent, they'll agree with me more. So see, I take them off their high. horse of expertise. Now I get to kind of get what I want from them a little bit. Maybe I could pull the wool over their eyes. They're a bit more vulnerable. This isn't exactly 100% conscious, but to me I would still even constant, I would still refer to that tactic as intentional abuse, because you're not, you're not showing up with the intention of playing fair, even in the conversation. You know? So what else? What else do you feel?

fear and dread. And it's not always like 100% conscious of what you fear or what the dread is, but you can all of a sudden come up with this feeling. We also have a detection or a deception detection network in our brain, which gets hijacked by these types of tactics. You feel it and you stop thinking, if you get somebody who's good enough at manipulation, You could stop thinking,

hmm, I'm feeling incompetent. I wasn't before, now I am, what's that about? You might just think, maybe I'm not as good as I thought I was. And that would be a really important thing for a victim of a narcissist to say to themselves. Maybe I'm not as well. Oh, of court, because that's dissolved their defenses

around I'm not in the wrong, they're in the wrong. Right. Yeah. and this happens in milliseconds, by the way. This is all happening unconsciously when you're interacting with someone. So someone like me, I'm a few steps ahead, but not by any means immune. And I would never tell anybody, because even the foremost experts of this would never claim that they could never be sucker-punched. Gazed, finessed.

Yeah. But it's not really about becoming a human lie detector and knowing what everyone else is all. all about. That's not what you're trying to do, but you're trying to notice when I'm with this particular person, I feel incompetent, I feel dread, I feel fear, I feel insecurity, and in most other relationships in my life, I don't operate that way. What's happening in this particular dynamic that's making me feel that way? That's kind of some things that a therapist would want to certainly be aware of if they're interacting with someone who potentially has a socially maladaptive personality.

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or heading to livemomeness.com slash modern wisdom using modern wisdom at checkout. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S dot com slash modern wisdom, modern wisdom, a check-out. How you mentioned there about these people don't even mean to do it. It's happening in some forms unconsciously and in others. Of the population of Cluster B personality,

anti-social personality disorder people, patients. how many of them know what they're doing and mean to do it and how many of them are at the mercy of their programming? And I suppose this is a difficult question because what we're talking about here is agency over empathy and ability to recognize and wish to do different. But unfortunately, the very personality trait that we're talking about catails your ability to do the empathy thing. So it might be hard for someone to empathize with the damage of their lack of empathy and wish that they could do differently. Would you understand the question here? How many people revel in what they're doing and how many people are fighting against it? Yeah, that's a great question.

So these are what we call egosynonic disorders. What that means is they're comfortable in their own skin. So they're not experiencing the aftermath of these interactions as symptoms or side effects and wondering, what am I going to do about this? Every time I'm in a room with somebody, they start to feel a miracle. What's wrong with me? They don't think that way. If a person who would think that way would be experiencing something that's ego dystonia,

this is interfering in my life in a way that I can't tolerate it. It's making me uncomfortable. I want to rid myself of it. I'm going to do whatever it takes to stop doing this thing, feeling this thing, saying this thing, having this dream, whatever. That's ego-distonic. That means the person's aware that it's a problem. They don't like that it's originating in themselves. They want to get rid of it.

Personality disorders don't have that process because they have, these are egosentonic. So what that means is they're in harmony with the way they are. They just experience conflict when other people confront them about the way they are. So nothing in them is internally motivated to change because they don't think that the problem is originating with them. Okay, so that's one part of this. How intentional as a result of that, I would say it's as intentional as an introvert cultivating environments to cater to their introversion. That's how intentional it is, right? So what I mean by that is if you're an introvert, you're going to select environments that cater to your introversion, your natural inclination to be introverted.

And what does introversion entail, right? So you're going to start creating environments that cater to that trait. And that's exactly what individuals with personality disorders do. They cultivate, select, modify their environments intentionally based on the traits that they bring to. the environment. What sort of ways? What are the things that they do? Well, like a narcissist who wants to, you know, be the center of attention is going to find a way to make an environment they're in, they're going to cultivate the environment and select things to say and do and operate in the environment to get what they want from it, which is attention. So they're going to intentionally

behave in ways that are attention seeking, whereas an introvert is going to intentionally behave in ways that draw attention to others and then they're going to regroup privately rather than go get stimulated socially because that's not it doesn't do it for them um so whatever the treat is those behaviors are going to um the the behaviors that you engage in are going to be motivated to make that to cultivate how you feel with that trait why is it why is it called cluster B is there a cluster A yeah there's it's a good question I mean they're called cluster disorders because the features, not symptoms, the features and characteristics

cluster together and overlap in the different disorders. There's cluster A. The cluster A's are considered the odd and eccentric bunch. So odd, kind of bizarre behaviors, eccentric behaviors. The cluster Bs are the more

interpersonally, manipulative, exploitative, dramatic, erratic. So those are the cluster B's. And then the cluster C's are the anxious and fearful cluster. So disorders that operate around fear and anxiety being like the central feature rather than drama or erratic or dangerous, which is how we typically describe the cluster B's.

What would a commonly understood term be for people who are cluster A? What would a commonly under the term be? Yeah, you know, you're talking about narcissists and, Okay. Like paranoid or... Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or schizzoid or schizoid or schizoid is interchangeably pronounced that way. The other cluster A is schizo-tipal. So we have schizotipel, schizoid, or schizoid, and paranoid are the cluster A's.

And then the cluster C's are the avoidant, the dependent, and the I'm drawing a blink here as I'm on the spot what's the third what's the third cluster C obsessive-compulsive personality disorder is avoid it obsessive-compulsive personality

which is completely different than OCD those aren't the same okay so when we look at cluster A, cluster B and cluster C did these fit on the spectrum if you were to make a 3D or a 2D graph of how the clusters sit together? Does that exist or are these completely different universes? So they're not completely different universes because the problems that they create in the individual

and in the individual's relationships are directly related to who the person characteristically is. So in cluster A's, these individuals are characteristically odd and eccentric. Okay. In cluster B's, they're characteristically dramatic, erratic, dangerous, and severe interpersonally. And then in the cluster C's, they're characteristically fearful and anxious. So all their relationships operate based on those types of motivations or intrinsic perceptions. Okay, that's interesting. All right, going back to the sort of nature-nurture debate, Why is the idea that hurt people, hurt people so attractive? What makes that such a seductive explanation if behavioral genetics and Robert Plowman

and a couple of fucking million people from the biobank can explain otherwise? Yeah. Well, I think one is because the work of Robert Plowman, this isn't a conspiracy theory. I mean, it's admitted. It's been admittedly swept under the rug in academic circles. and clinical circles because it seems to really intimidate people that there might be

like strategy and patterns to what we have decided as a negative behavior at this point in our evolution. That the negative behavior could potentially come naturally or be ingrained is terrifying for people to accept.

So what they've done instead has created this idea that everything is environmentally determined. So the reason why there's a preference for that is if the environment created it, maybe the environment can stop it, prevent it, or modify it. Well, look, I suppose this is a debate around behavioral genetics overall, but Plumann is the fifth most cited psychologist in the 20th century. that was a century that had fucking Freud

that was a century that had young that was a century that had some of the biggest turning points invented the field of psychology as we know it today and he's the fifth most cited and the fact that the industry

he's been on the show I think he was episode 320 something it was a long time ago now the fact that behavioral genetics is so heretical to talk to talk about it just fucking blows my mind do you know corey clark you familiar with her it's an evolutionary psychologist she did a great study she sent a study out to a survey out to every psychology professor in the united states a higher education institution got them to

fill in some anonymous questions asking about a variety of things getting a cultural temperature the topography of what the psychology professor world is like the two most unspeakable this should be banned people should not learn about it the two spiciest subject areas that most professors were most likely to say they shouldn't be taught evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics and i think it speaks exactly to what you were saying there that in an egalitarian world that's a meritocracy and also a capitalist competition, if the victors get to own their successes and the losers have to own their failures, anything that doesn't feel like your future is entirely in your hands is unbelievably disempowering because it makes it feel like the outcomes in your

life are predestined before you're even born. As you said, this isn't deterministic, it's probabilistic, as Plumman says, it does not predetermine, it predisposes. But, it is it is disempowering it is disempowering to find i mean chris hemisworth did that that um documentary about his health and he found out that he's got a couple of relatively rare mutations that predispose him to alksimers that's it's just raw biology and he's now taking supplements and adjust his lifestyle on his diet and all the rest of it to try and compensate for this but to find out that as a you know you've got your kid and if you would have a child that had diabetes or autism, you're not looking necessarily for some sort of intervention

to cure their autism. You're looking to manage it. Because we don't pathologize, the pathologization occurs more differently when we get into psychology than it does when we get into what feels a bit more like biology, even though biology is psychology for the most part. It is? Yeah, it's just, I, I could talk about this all day. I think it's so fucking interesting, dude. The pushback against evolutionary explanations that basically say you are being shunted forward by forces that came about long before you and a kind of outside of your agency,

or at the very least, you're going to have to permanently fight against. That feels disempowering, and behavioral genetics is that on steroids, right? It's that times times a thousand. You can't change your genes. You can maybe turn them up and turn them down with some epigenetic stuff. But gene therapy, as far as we know, is pretty nascent. So, yeah, it's an interesting area. Something that I love about what Plowman does, though, is he talks about how everything

is just, when we look at it from that perspective, everything is then just differences, right? Which I appreciate. I like to use the word disorder because I think once you cross-examination, a particular threshold of harm and dysfunction, we have to call it something different. I mean, we can say it's like a huge difference. But clinically, it makes more sense to say, okay, this is where we're operating outside of the balance of what we can accept. And so we have to call it something other than just, oh, this person is very unique and different. We have to say, this is problematic behavior based on the type of society we're trying to collectively create, right?

I don't find it surprising that those are the two subjects that are considered, you know, to be the problematic ones. I'm not sure why people are so intimidated by that. I do know that like the problem is too is like Freud kind of commanded the ship of like having this impenetrable, untestable theory. like no one can ever really prove it wrong because it just might be that much more unconscious never find it and I think that it's unconsciousness all the way down yeah but that's not I mean that's not that's not that's not science you have to be able to test it right all right let's get into some of the different ways that people can present so narcissism yeah I I see an endless number of videos online about how to know if you're in a relationship with a narcissist how to

escape a narcissist. When it comes to narcissism as a, the motivating force behind it, is narcissism about, is it really about low self-esteem? Or is it about something else? What's it about? No. Narcissism is excessive investment in one's image, the image that they prefer. It's excessive investment in that preferred image at the expense of any authentic self. So it's not that they have low self-esteem in this void of shame, which is the most common idea. I can direct you to behavioral geneticists and evolutionary psychologist that can blow that theory out of the water if you want, but it's not a shame-based disorder. It's excessive investment in one's preferred image at the expense of cultivating a true self. So yeah, they get hurt and wounded and offended and defensive

and they get triggered and they get injured because they haven't cultivated anything to receive a disagreement underneath that thin layer of reflection that's on the pond that narcissus is gazing at. There's nothing under there because nothing has been examined

or cultivated. So it's like they're emotionally thin-skinned, but it's not because of shame. It's because they didn't, put any emotional muscle underneath any of that. But they prefer to be the way they are. I think this really bothers people. Why would anybody prefer to be someone who doesn't get along with anybody?

They're entitled. They don't believe in equality. So in a way, they expect not to get along with anybody because everybody has to accept that they are better than them in order for them to get along with everybody. Somehow, this got morphed into this idea that it's all compensatory. that it's all compensation for low self-esteem.

Those are just theories. Based, by the way, on the reports of the narcissists telling professionals that. Perhaps an unreliable self-witness. Perhaps. Before we continue, I am a massive fan of reducing your alcohol intake, but historically, non-alcoholic bruise tastes like ass. You don't need to be doing some big reset. Maybe you just want to crack a cold one without feeling,

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slash modern wisdom. Difference between vulnerable and grandiose narcissism, does this show up? Because I know these terms. I can pretend that I know what I'm talking about with narcissism, but is that bullshit or is that clinically validated? I'm sure you know exactly what they are. A grandiose narcissist is somebody who you see their grandiosity overtly, meaning they're not concealing it. Vulnerable narcissism, depending on who you ask, one definition of vulnerable is they're concealing their vulnerability. So a covert narcissist is someone who conceals their vulnerability. To me, a covert narcissist is somebody who covertly is grandiose. They acts like they're not, but they actually are.

So you're using the term covert rather than vulnerable. Is that the more clinically accurate term? Covert and vulnerable narcissists are used interchangeably for a lot of people because of the concealing of the vulnerability. An overt narcissist is somebody who doesn't hide the fact that they believe that they are entitled to special treatment. So you're going to see them a mile away. Do you look at them as... having different origin stories coming from different places, different motivations?

No, I personally don't. I think that grandiosity is just being expressed differently in those two individuals. But the central feature of both of those individuals is still their inherent grandiosity. But their self-belief in that is different, right? No, I would disagree with that, too. I think their belief is that they truly have a sincere conviction that they're superior to others, and entitled to special treatment. That's when we're going to get into heterogeneity or the expression of that belief, it looks a lot different.

Interesting. So my understanding of vulnerable or covert narcissism was that the grandiose narcissist genuinely believes I'm the best in the world, and I believe that I'm the best in the world. The vulnerable narcissist would present, I'm the best in the world, to try and cover up the fact

that I don't think I'm worth anything. They're the compensatory one who's secretly suffering from all this hidden shame, right? I disagree. I think the problem is they're not shameful enough. They don't have enough shame to put on the brakes to stop mistreating people. There's no motivating factor in their operating system that puts on the brakes because they're lacking in empathy and lacking in conscience.

They've done recent studies, too, to show that what we've historically referred to as the vulnerable expression or the vulnerable presentation of narcissism is 90% identical to borderline personality disorder. In criterion variables, traits, borderline personality disorder is another cluster B disorder that is often associated with. Most people, when they hear the term borderline personality, they think of fear of abandonment, lots of suicidal gestures or suicidal attempts. There's this chronic feeling of emptiness,

and these attempts, panic and frantic attempts to avoid abandonment. But what actually is underneath a lot of that are, if you look at the traits underneath the borderline personality, are how we see vulnerable narcissists operating in relationships and in general. There's a lot of neurotic traits, negative affectivity. And so there's this impulsivity. There's a lashing out.

There's a pathological levels of anxiety. Is that the same in the grandiose? Well, no, it's not the same in the sense that they're not experiencing themselves that way. But, you know, there's just like we have people who, look narcissistic very externally. There are also people who are narcissistic internal. How come, okay, so one of the common patterns that I see people talk about online is narcissists pulling somebody in close and then suddenly pushing them away.

Why does that seem to be a pattern? Well, because they all, narcissists live in a dichotomous world where something is either everything they want or nothing they want. They don't have the gray area. break, pedal, pause, limitation mechanism in their operating system. They don't have the function to use that properly. So somebody's either idealized, which means they're everything that's someone that they could have ever wanted, or they're devalued and then discarded, which means they're not ideal,

so they're useless. Narcissists see human beings and relationships as far as utility, not worth. They don't look at people how much they're worth. they look at how useful they are. What about psychopaths? What makes... So I'm trying to find what the acceptable level of something is and then turn it up to what the dysfunction is.

So what makes a psychopath's harm different to somebody who's just losing their temper? Excellent. Everybody's lost their temper. Right. And that's a reaction and that's a defense and that's part of being human. I would say to differentiate between these two

that we're talking about, With narcissism, we see grandiosity at the expense of equality. And that's the engine. Grandiosity at the expense of equality. With psychopaths, what we see is exploitation of others at the expense of any sort of honor. They don't honor humans.

They don't have any value for human life whatsoever. They don't see another person and think, this person should be alive or has the rights be alive. What they think is, I will exploit this person. It's a dog-eat-dog world. If something bad befalls them, they should have known better. That's kind of a psychopath's mentality. Psychopaths, for the most part,

have more of an active grandiosity. So if you do cross them, they're going to show you. like they're going to make you pay. Some narcissists have what's called a passive grandiosity where they don't care enough about you to make you pay. You should have just known they were better than you. And so they're not going to bother themselves with you. Oh, that's interesting.

So I imagine this means that in some situations, psychopaths are more dangerous, retributively. But there must be some situations where narcissists or certain types of narcissists might be more dangerous. So you venture into the malignant narcissist is when you're starting to move more into the exploitation and conning that you see common in psychopathy or antisocials. So there is like a sort of a bridge to that

where the malignant narcissist is kind of the bridge between NPD and psychopathy. Again, not across the board, but just to give a visual, that yes, there is a severe degree of narcissism. And then that's what we would refer to more as like the dark triad narcissism, where you have psychopathy, machiavellianism, and narcissism. The Dark Triad thing's kind of fascinating.

It's between Peterson and a bunch of other people that do podcasts, it's become like the hot new girl in school that everybody wants to talk about. And the dark tetrad, right? What's that one? That's Mel. What's that one? Sadism? Is that one?

Yeah. Is that the fourth one when you go for the, when you add another? Anyway, how common is it for somebody who has got narcissism to also have psychopathy, to also have Machiavellianism, to also have sadism? Not all narcissists and psychopaths are Machiavellian. Okay. All psychopaths are narcissists. All psychopaths are pathologically narcissistic. not all narcissists are psychopaths.

Okay, necessary but not sufficient. Yeah. Yeah. And then Machiavellian, I would say they're psychopathic, narcissistic. So they're both. So I mean, as far as not all narcissists are Machiavellian, not all narcissists are psychopathic. All Machiavellian and psychopaths are narcissistic. Are all Machiavellian psychopaths?

Ooh, good question. I guess if they're practicing, I guess you could be Machiavellian in theory, but you wouldn't ever do the things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What about sadism? I imagine it must be difficult to be a sadist and not be a psychopath.

Yeah, well, I mean, sadism is all about deriving pleasure from the harm you inflict on others or the harm that others are experiencing that you just witness, you could experience pleasure from the pain they're deriving. So, but,

Again, you know, not all narcissists are sadistic. You could have a narcissistic. Okay, so it seems to me like narcissism is kind of, I don't know, it's the big, it's the front end of the funnel. It's the front door to the house. It's the white belt. It's the white belt of much of what we're talking about here. Well, to a degree, yes, because in order for you to graduate to these other, you know, whatever you want to call, just. anti-social, not pro-social. If you want to graduate to, you know, a way of being where you're not

interested in pro-social emotions or behaviors at all, you could start with narcissism. Because narcissism is something that primarily we're supposed to outgrow when we realize other people exist, not relationships aren't symbiotic. You know, there's others who have a subjectivity to them. Once you discover that in life, and that usually happens very early, someone says no to you. once you discover that someone else has autonomy and subjectivity, your narcissism is supposed to be challenged and you're supposed to start trying to find ways to outgrow it in favor of equality, right? Right. So you're saying that all two-year-olds are narcissists and I think all-year-olds are self-centered because they don't have the brainwiring to be altruistic because no one can explain it to them in a two-year-old language that they understand. I'm hungry. I don't care that people are tired. I'm hungry. And after a while, you realize I'm hungry, but mom and dad are busy at the moment, so maybe I'll delay this.

But with the narcissism, that lesson kind of never really gets to learn. But even that hunger is not pathologically narcissistic. Because you... It's transcendent. Yeah, because you don't... Because does that baby have the capacity to learn the lesson that you just described that, okay, well, it's not going to happen every time? on command or on demand. You're going to have to wait a little bit, cry a little bit.

You're going to have to be a little uncomfortable in that diaper until human mom can come over and be human with you. Now, a pathological narcissist or somebody that I would say has inherent trait narcissism, they'll never learn that lesson from mall. Oh, mom's too tired. She's got stuff to do before she comes here. They can't, for the life of them, figure out why the diaper isn't changed like that. and then they hold resentment, and then they punish mom for it, and they feel entitled to do that.

And then they can't for the life of them figure out why somebody would ever have a problem with them, punching mom for that. That's the problematic narcissism. That is a complete, to me, it's a completely different trajectory than the primary narcissism that we all outgrow when we see that other people exist. There's something different from the start. Of all of the different traits here, which is the hardest to treat or treat? change, which is the hardest to have an intervention on. Is it psychopathy? Is that the hardest to try and adjust? Well, there is no known cure or successful treatment for psychopathy. They don't, they can, you contain and manage psychopathy, you don't treat it. There's no treatment

for it. They haven't figured something else out yet that can actually cultivate change in the personality of a psychopath, even an incarcerated psychopath, they don't think differently. They just behave differently because they're confined. So at this point in history, antisocial personality, psychology, there isn't an effective treatment other than some behavioral containment and management. So that would be the hardest one to treat or to, you know. But I would say that just in general, not clinically, but in general life, somebody who really doesn't understand the concept of equality, I'd say that's the hardest thing to overcome. So grandiosity to me, practically speaking, would be the most difficult trait to deal

with because this person seriously is convinced that you should be treating them differently than they should be treating you because they are worth more and you and you need to find a way to come in terms with that. That to me is the most challenging one. because the the sort of presence of it precludes the fixing of it by nature you would have to accept that you're less than in order to improve

my perfect as I am yeah yeah it's kind of like being immune right in some way to to what the treatment would be like a therapy resistant bacteria or something right which those exist So I think they exist in human personality too.

There's a resistant personality. There's a personality that's resistant because they don't see any benefit from changing. They like the way they are. They're just waiting for everyone to accept them. We'll get back to talking in just one second. But first, if you have been feeling a bit sluggish, your testosterone levels might be the problem. They play a huge role in your energy, focus, and performance. But most people have no idea what theirs are or what to do if something's off,

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Talking about how this shows up on the other side of the fence, on the side of the recipient, the interlocutor with the person with the particular disorder. what are the main tools of control? What are the big levers that these people push and pull and the dials that they turn in order to enact change any other person? The first thing that they typically do is they either naturally or they become highly skilled at mimicking the pro-social emotions that most human beings think everybody possesses and operates

under naturally. So what that means is like when you meet someone and they are friendly to you, you don't think to yourself, I wonder if they're being friendly to manipulate me. What you think is, that person's friendly. And so they mimic that. They mimic the typical cues

that would indicate that they're a human. They mimic them, and they do it very well, so that you let your guard down. and they do it long enough for you to completely give up on the possibility that it's insincere. They do that long enough. And we call that the seduction phase or the love bombing phase. They are an ideal partner. They have the same trauma you have, the same interests you have, the same lifestyle and life goals as you have.

They're practically getting, they're reflecting you back to yourself so that you'll give them the time of day. that's the first thing to look out for because the moment you see that slip or there's an inconsistency or a contradiction is when you can't just take it as oh maybe they're having a bad day. You have to start doing sadly. You have to start doing this

skeptical scientific investigation on that behavior to see if there's any convergence, to see if this is something that could potentially result in a pattern or a strategy. you know okay so that's first step they um lop as a normal human yeah proso notions or effort that's all that's almost always the first because presumably if you

steamed in with psychopathic manipulative BPD behavior before somebody is invested in you the you know the bad first date nobody nobody sticks about just because it's a okay, that was a bit much on a first date. Right. Whereas a bad seven month anniversary, you're like, I can give them a little bit more tolerance here. So that kind of,

we need to invest in people before we can accommodate them. Correct. That is kind of the... Very well said. Very well said. You need to invest... Yeah, you need to invest in them

before you just accept them at face value. Cool. Okay. What next? Okay. So when there's a slip that we typically, in hindsight, call a red flag, but as it's happening, we have confirmation bias. No, it's not that. It's just, they're just human. You need, when there's a slip, so when the mask slips, when there's something that's blatantly, in contrast to their pro-social presentation that they gave you on the first or second or third date, where it was flawless and they're the person of your dreams, at the moment there's something that's a contradiction or inconsistency. no matter how benign or incidental it seems,

you have to take it very seriously and you need to start developing this idea in your head that you're going to see, you're going to repeat this investigation to see if a pattern converges, right? It's a one-off, if it's an isolated incident, then, you know, stay reasonably alert but not hyper-vigilant, just, okay, I noted.

But this is where people go wrong. we naturally are not neutral information processors or not. So we're biased to information, is my point. So if you want a relationship to work, because you really like that person on the first date, and you really thought they were cute, and you really like that they live close to you, if they slip up,

you're going to use the prior information that you know about them to justify why you should, still be with them. Humans don't justify why they should not be with some typically. That's part of kinship. That's part of evolution. That's part of, you know, loss avoidance, right? So the first time there's a red flag, you have to be counterintuitively, like, attunes to it. Because it's not going to come naturally for you to investigate it. What's going to come naturally is for you to erase it and forget about it. That's the second thing you do, is the moment there's an issue that you could potentially test for a matter, you need to investigate it. Don't,

don't resolve the dissonance by saying, oh, well, there's more good than bad. That would be the second step. It seems like attention, where attention is being drawn and where it's being put is a really important tool of control here. Is that right? Absolutely. Well, because just think about how you've done your past relationships. You don't think you should have to add this step of analysis. You just think, that felt good. That was cool. Oh, they showed up again a second time. That felt good. That was cool. I might be falling in love here. Or this person's a really good friend. They're really generous twice now. We have to accept the sad reality that people know and bank on you thinking that way, and they're going to exploit that from the beginning. You just have to introduce that into

your worldview. Or you run the risk of getting duped or manipulated by you. one of these people and and and and it could be financially devastating emotionally devastating uh devastating with your time your resources is there a particular profile of victim that these sorts of people tend to go for good question i would say no and here's why oh they're an equal equal opportunity attacker i think they vet everyone and the analogy i use is often in like the use car salesperson. Anyone who shows up on the lot, they're going to try to sell a used car to.

They're not going to try to figure out how vulnerable you are. They're going to just start doing their things, their pitches first. They will stick around the people who take the second, third, fourth, and fifth pitch. I mean, the one that just walks away outright,

they're not going to necessarily follow home. Oh, they're just split testing for who's got sufficient resilience to put up with them. There will eventually be somebody who is resilient enough, not because they're flawed, but because they just have a lot of resilience. Who will take the fifth and sixth and seventh piece of BS

and not like fact check or do anything? And then those are the ones they'll latch on to. Actually, it is not necessarily that they're, well, it is a kind of selection, but it's closer to natural selection than conscious selection. Yes. They're going to put out a particular type of behavior and there is going to be a drop-off

and a survival bias is going to be. kick in and whoever is left. So this is a different way for me to ask the same question. Yeah. Who are the people that end up in these situations? Because it seems to me, it would be counterintuitive to think about somebody who is mentally resilient, because a lot of the time, when I think about people who are in relationships with BPD, narcissism, personal, it's that they were almost a kind of vulnerability, there was a vulnerability that was manipulated by them. So how do you square, is it resilience? Is there something else? Who are the people that end up going deep. I would say it's an emotional resilience. They can take a beating long, long enough to where

by the time they even start entertaining the possibility that they should exit the relationship, they're already kind of biochemically hijacked, hypodynamic. But I'm cautious to have this conversation to say that I think that you should be less agreeable or less conscientious. or less kind, because those aren't the things that got you into the bad situation. What got you into the bad situation is someone exploiting those things. Well, that's exactly what I was thinking as you were talking. You know, you're saying, well, you must be careful about this thing at the first stage and this thing at the second stage.

I go, wow, you know, what a difficult, how skeptical and cynical and highly scrutinous I must be of all of the different people that I encounter in case they're going to. And what you're suggesting is that the issue is not. not your positive traits. It was that there was a vector of weakness, perhaps a strength turned up too much, your psychological resilience, your preparedness to turn the other cheek and forgive, your perhaps leaky boundaries, inability to assert. I have to assume that a lack of assertiveness is maybe one of the things that would be

quite common here. Well, yeah, I mean, fear that if you assert yourself that you're going to, like, offend the person or that. if standing up for yourself means that the other person is going to be disappointed. I mean, I think that there's always going to be room for all of us to investigate our own character and our own vulnerabilities. I just personally, I've seen people who have been, who have come from very well, well-to-do and emotionally stable upbringings get duped by this, you know, following the death of their spouse, let's say. they're vulnerable in that sense but they were never somebody who was like a pushover

or somebody who like gave everyone gave everyone everything they ever wanted they just so happened to be in a vulnerable spot at 60 when they're widowed and now they want to fall in love again and somebody swooped goes into their orbit and exploits them

you don't need a history of being a dormant or a history of being abused as a child to fall prey to these individuals they will vet anyone you know that's just important to realize. And I'm cautious to, I don't want people to think that they have to do a personality makeover to avoid this either. I think that's what a lot of,

unfortunately, a lot of people that I've worked with and that I've consulted with, they tell me that they've gone to three or four therapists who have told them this only happened because you're codependent or because you haven't had your attachment or because you didn't work out your childhood issues with your mom. and you were vulnerable to this. That's not necessarily true.

It might be that we have to come to terms with the fact that there are people who don't play by the social rules. We've decided are beneficial. And so they're going to pretend to play by them, and then they're going to exploit you. And it's not that you had a bad childhood or your relationship with your dad wasn't strong enough. It's just a person found an opportunity.

They're preferential and opportunistic. With other bits of behavior, What about flirting or creating drama to manipulate people? When does flirting and drama turn into manipulation? In the cluster B personalities, seduction is kind of like a central feature of that. Charm and seduction and charisma. So I would say, I mean, that's kind of a hard question to end. answer because they use that as of that flirtation is manipulation they use it to begin with

even if they're sincerely attracted to you they're still using flirtation as a weapon are people with cluster B personality disorders are they more attractive on average physically why do you ask that's an interesting question I was wondering whether there is a physical manifestation that goes along with the behavioral trait. Yeah, that's a good question. That'd be a good question for an evolutionary psychologist, too. But I mean, I'll answer it kind of generically, if you will. I think there's an interesting correlation between, like, you know, it's common for them to be attractive.

There's not a particular physical type, though. I don't want to give off that idea. Short, tall, big. I think what it adds more to do with is someone's not their actual physical appearance, but their self-concept. They have a very high self-concept. So it's almost like they have this way of convincing you to believe about them

what they believe about themselves, even if it's not objectively true. So that's why I'm kind of hesitant is because somebody who is objectively unattractive could be a cluster B and actually be very attractive. Like people would find them very attractive, even if they're not traditionally

what we would constitute that's their presentation it's their beguiling, endearing, charming. And it's also their authentic belief that they're that great. I mean, it's a sincere belief. That's why I say it's not a compensation

because they truly are, they're feeling great. Well, we use confidence as a proxy for competence. Like, it's typically confidence is a lagging measure of somebody's level of development in whatever they are confident about.

Our confidence is in some way supposed to be associated with whatever the fuck we're confident about. And therefore, if somebody turns up and they're full of bravado and they're very seductive, that can give the effect of being attractive without the challenge of having to be attractive. Correct. And it's, I guess, messy or at least complex, the way that humans become attracted and it's not raw physicality.

That's an important aspect. I think a lot of times what we mistake, what we mistake arrogance for confidence in these individuals. So they are very relaxed and they're like they're calm and we can think, oh, they're comfortable in their own skin. You know, maybe they're really confident. They could actually just be arrogant, right? So the difference between confidence and arrogance,

Confidence is an earned self-esteem or self-regard. Like, you're confident because if someone asks you a question or puts this to the test, you're confident because you could perform it and demonstrate your ability or capacity. Erigants is just saying shit. Like, it's saying I'm good at something, but not actually backing it up. But the problem with a narcissist is they believe they're great at things that they can't back up. So it's very convincing because they're not asking. actually second-guessing themselves when they're trying to sell you something,

they're sincerely believing they're good at something that they could be terrible. The sales pitch is authentic. I'm wondering how many... Actually, that's a good question. Of the people that we're talking about, of these Cluster B people, what are the things that they would almost never do? because you've mentioned these personalities will behave in a manner that kind of breaks down defences, that LARPS as a normal functioning human, and then after they've got investment and you're prepared to accommodate more,

that's when the veil tends to get revealed. Or I guess in the version of narcissism, it's that they want you. They are trying to get you because you were everything to them, but once they've got you, perhaps you're disposed of. I'm wondering if there are any behaviors you mentioned calm sort of in control I'm wondering if there are any behaviors

that are very rare to see manifest in these people would ever seeing them be very, very loud and out of control and is that a rare thing? Are they rarely funny? Are they rarely what are the potential behaviors that if somebody does do it

that would be a suggestion that they're not or that is much rarer to see. That they're not what? In this cluster B. Oh, like ways to determine if somebody wouldn't fit the criteria, like by a particular... Based on something that they do do. I'm aware that this is difficult

because the LARPing as a human thing means that all of that can be performed. But I just wondered if there was something that these people typically don't have access to, even in performance. Yeah, that's really... That's a great question. And that, I mean, that's certainly...

a relevant question across the board because personal relationships but even clinical practice I was thinking it's important to know these things I'll tell you I'll tell you this there's something called there are some and I'm not going to go into detail in this just kind of introduce the topic and then people can research it but neurological soft signs are these psychomotor sort of like behaviors tendencies that are operating in the body some people who have have a disorder like this, you can actually tell by that some mannerisms and ways in which their system is operating from just a neurological perspective where there's signs that you can

see in their psychomotor behavior, how they would respond and make eye contact after a particular type of question, their body, their face, their eyes. I mean, it sounds kind of crazy almost woo-woo, but there's certain things that can show you how they're processing or perceiving information. This would require like a lot of study and skill. But it is a thing that there are these sort of signs, if you will. Not across the board,

but there's that. Something they wouldn't do often is collaborate or take accountability. Even performatively, rather than. Yeah. I mean, they don't really have the capacity to do it all the time. even in a feigned way, where they're constantly in character. I mean, it'll slip eventually.

There'll be a contradiction or an inconsistency. Because they lack the function to use a thought properly long term to say, oh, you know, this is probably a time where I should be agreeable. They lack that function. They can do it temporarily, but they can maintain it permanent. Is it possible for someone to sort of genuinely be in emotional pain and still choose to hurt others? I guess hurt people, hurt people is the meme, but is that something that actually can happen? Can people who are in a state of feeling profoundly hurt react by hurting others?

Yes. Yes. But yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. It's just not the causative factor of personality disorders. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I think I'm thinking about the lineage between. So actually, that's another point that we probably didn't get on.

The environmental catalyst for potentially the raw material of someone's genetic predisposition, let's say that you were going to maximize the expression of someone's potential cluster B personality disorder. what would you do to a child in order to cause that to happen? What would be the sort of environment that that child would grow up in? That's a great question. So what would be the environment to ideally produce a cluster B? Yes, let's say, as we've identified earlier on, the raw materials need to be there in some form or another.

Let's say you've got a good raw material child, and you're going to try and maximize the, expression of that through childhood into adulthood so that it's the most cluster B person that we can get out of these raw materials, what would you do to that person in early childhood, adulthood, everything? Yeah, it depends on the disorder, but it's such a great question, such a great thought experiment. If it were a narcissist, you would challenge their superiority and their grandiosity every time. So you would enforce boundaries. You'd tell them people are equal, you would nurture them with kindness and love when they felt misunderstood.

Those things would actually exacerbate their narcissism. If they have the trait profile, it's startup for narcissism. So you would challenge their superiority. You would try to convince them people are equal. And then you would nurture them with love and affection when they have tantrums. If it were a borderline personality, you would inform, you would threaten that they could potentially be abandoned or you would invalidate them on a chronic basis

if they already had the biological underpinnings to perceive abandonment and slights that don't exist you would actually increase that fear by like trying to abandon them or pretending to abandon them or threatening that you're going to leave them because that's that's the mechanism that terrifies them. If it were a

histrionic personality, you would deprive them of attention. And if it were an antisocial or a psychopath, there's not really anything. I mean, you could disagree with them, put up a boundary. I don't know. It's kind of hard.

There's nothing, there's nothing really that you could do in the sense that I doubt any of those things would be like not doing those things would be preventative. right? Because we're still talking about significant heritability and just the way these

traits operate if they're intrinsic you're going to have those tendencies or behaviors no matter what. I mean there are certainly ways to exacerbate it. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I often think about

one of my favorite question framings on the show is what do most people get wrong about X? Or if you were like, for instance, instead of saying, how do I get the best night's sleep? It's, let's say that you were in charge of me for 24 hours. What would you do to ensure that I got the worst night's sleep? And I think that framing is really interesting. It's just, it's a nice inversion.

And what it usually gets at is the important Pareto big movers in any case, which is what the first question. Like, I have a child and I don't want them to become a psychopath. What should I do? That's kind of a messy, but I, I want my child to become a psychopath. For some reason, it just seems to be a little bit easier to access. You're absolutely right.

Actually, now I have better answers for it. As you explained it to me now, I would say, if you want your child to become a psychopath, you challenge their authority, you challenge pretty much anything they want to do that feels good for them to do. They don't like being told about anything related to limits. Okay. Histrionic, that's, that's like hysteria, loud, dramatic.

That's the word that it's derived from and essentially like hysterical. But yeah, they are the, they are the typical highly, highly, highly attention seeking to a point, a point where they're like ruthlessly extort attention. So it's not just I want to be seen. If it's your birthday and you're getting the attention, I'm going to find a way to make your birthday about me. And actually what they're lacking is shame. They don't have enough shame.

They do things in public and say things that most people would be humiliated to do or say. They actually do them because their end goal is getting the attention. It doesn't matter if it's negative or positive. so they can behave very shameless shamefully in order to get the and that's the goal what's the percentage of the population that's got something that would fall in the disorder beyond the disordered threshold for these traits um i would say in the general population based on um most recent numbers and trainings that i've attended

related to this, to prevalence estimates and stuff, like 15 to 19% of the population. So one in five, nearly one in five, one in six. Does it skew?

Is there a sex difference here? Not significant. No more female psychopaths, no more female narcissists. In certain population samples. But I would say most of the time, I would say in the general population, it's probably

not too outrageous to say that it's almost even, it's almost half. What about when you drill down into a few other population? That's why I'm kind of hesitant because if we look at like the borderline personality, which is a cluster B personality, the prevalence estimates are gender prevalence is 54 and 46 with it being more predominantly female.

Historyonic is depending on who you ask, but the prevalence estimates that I recently received are like 50-50 in male and female for histrionic. Interesting. Again, derived from hysteria and wasn't female hysteria diagnosis for a long time and just as many guys waving the flag. But what must be interesting is the way that a male histrionic demonstrates their drama. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, it could look different. So you could then say it's a completely different thing. That's an interesting question.

So what are the biggest sex differences in the ways that the same pathology, that the same disorder shows up in the sexes, like female narcissists, X and male narcissists, why and female psychopaths, what are the ways that they diverge the most? You know, I'll be honest. I think that there's less sex differences in the traits than there are gender differences. And so I think it's more socially and culturally different. Like, so somebody might use a gender stereotype who has, like somebody who has one of these disorders might use a gender stereotype to make it more believable to conceal their manipulation more. So they might operate within the constraints of a particular stereotypical gender,

but I think the traits themselves are gender or sex neutral. I think a callous female is similar to a callous male in the sense that they don't feel the slightest bit of the slightest bit unnerved when other people are experiencing pain. Surely the capacity of the female for social manipulation, like if you control for psychopathy or if you control for narcissism, the female is going to have better interpersonal skills on average. The female is going to be more conscientious on average. The female is going to be a better liar detector on average. The male is going to have more body strength, body mass on average, so they're potentially going to be able to use their physical size. So there have to be some, just the tools that are at the disposal of the man and

women are going to differ. Yeah, they differ. And I mean, the research that I've, you know, explored and kind of stumbled upon shows that what they'll do is they will study the best case scenario. Like, is it in my best interest to be this stereotypically vulnerable because I am a female? Is it in my best interest to be this stereotypical?

typically like formidable and and and right it's all a meta game of where am i and where did they think i am and how yeah yeah yeah there's so many steps that they take to be ahead i don't think they're effortful steps i think a lot of times they're effortless they come naturally to them but they do put in a lot of effort to create an impression that's not accurate and all in the hopes that you succumb to it and then they can get what they want from you and Again, we're not talking about good and evil. A lot of people would say that's evil. From an evolutionary perspective,

it's like there's an absence of collaboration and cooperation in these individuals. I would just say be advised to know they exist and stay away from them if you can and escape them if you find out. But I wouldn't try to ruminate over this any sort of a moral argument. You know, then you're going to just be lost. Peter, you're fucking awesome, dude. Like, this is so, I think, I think this is so interesting. I want to do another episode, and I want to do another episode all dedicated on the recipient's side, how people can sort of detect, evade, recover, recuperate.

I think that would be awesome. But this is, I mean, I've seen these videos, your videos, you crush it online. I've seen this stuff pop up. And I can see why people are pretty fascinated. It's kind of, it's sort of a bit like studying. an alien, but it's your own species in a way? Yeah. I imagine this must be a pretty compelling work for you.

It's compelling. I actually have a quote. It's interesting, you mentioned that. There's a quote in one of my books about, like, when you really look at how different these people operate and you accept it, like if you let yourself accept it, which is kind of hard to do,

it almost feels like you're talking about of different species because everything that we've decided collectively is beneficial for our humans they don't they don't think that way so it's bizarre um i'm not saying they're not human i'm just saying it's it's an interesting social experiment yeah dude let's bring this one into land uh i feel like i could talk to you for the rest of the day so let's let's cut this one off now and we can we can run it back again in future. Where should people go to check out everything you do? Yeah, I'm on Instagram at Dr. Peter Salerno. I have a YouTube channel. I have some books on Amazon. I have a website, Dr.Petorselerno.com.

Yeah, dude. You're awesome. I appreciate you very much. Thank you. I appreciate your time. Thank you. This was fun. If you are looking for new reading suggestions, look no further than the modern wisdom reading list. It is 100 books that you should read before you die. The most interesting life change. and impactful books I've ever read with descriptions about why I liked them and links to go and buy them. And you can get it right now for free by going to chriswillex.com slash books. That's chriswillx.com slash books.