The Sociopaths Among Us: How to Spot (and Avoid) a Dark Triad

Have you ever had an abusive boss, a partner who gaslit you at every turn, or a friend who always seemed to bend the truth? You might have crossed paths with someone in the Dark Triad. On this episode of Office Hours, I’m diving into a topic that doesn’t create happiness but often destroys it: the Dark Triad personality constellation. These are the people with three characteristics: narcissism (it’s all about them), Machiavellianism (they’re willing to hurt you), and psychopathy (they feel little empathy or remorse when they do). Drawing on behavioral science research and evolutionary psychology, I explain what makes Dark Triads tick, how to recognize them before they hurt you, and why avoiding them is essential for your well-being. I also share what to look for instead—the Light Triad, people who trust others, believe in human dignity, and leave you feeling warm and uplifted in their presence. I discuss: • The core traits of the Dark Triad and how they drive destructive behavior • Which careers and environments attract dark triads and how to spot the red flags • How Machiavellianism shows up in politics (on both sides) • The science of emophilia and why people who fall in love too fast are Dark Triad targets • How Dark Triads thrive on social media (and the “first-date test” that can save you heartbreak) • The telltale behaviors that reveal a Dark Triad in work, love, and online • The defense tactic Dark Triads use when caught in a lie • What the Light Triad looks like • Audience Q&A on the connection between happiness and intelligence and how to comfort aging parents You can take my Dark Triad quiz today to find out where you fall https://www.arthurbrooks.com/quiz/dark-triad-personality-test We’d love to hear any feedback you have. Please email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. And please leave a review on Apple or Spotify. Thanks for listening! — Where to find Arthur Brooks: • Website: ⁠⁠https://arthurbrooks.com/⁠⁠ https://arthurbrooks.com/ • X: ⁠⁠https://x.com/arthurbrooks⁠⁠ https://x.com/arthurbrooks • Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/arthurcbrooks/⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/arthurcbrooks/ • Facebook: ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/ArthurBrooks/⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/ArthurBrooks/ • YouTube: ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGuyFRjJQFGCKzfHTBvWM6A⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGuyFRjJQFGCKzfHTBvWM6A • LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-c-brooks/⁠⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-c-brooks/ • Email: ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠ mailto:[email protected] — Timestamps (00:00) Intro (02:04) What is the Dark Triad personality type? (06:09) How to take the Dark Triad test (06:37) Why Dark Triads are more common than you think (11:03) How to identify Dark Triad types (15:24) The five things Dark Triads do in the workplace (20:00) The five traits of Dark Triads in romantic relationships (28:11) How the Dark Triad shows up in politics and activism (32:11) Why social media is the perfect place for Dark Triads (34:34) The nine red flags that reveal a Dark Triad (37:05) DARVO: The defense Dark Triads use when caught (38:38) The light triad: What to look for instead (40:12) What’s the difference between joy and happiness? (42:35) What’s the connection between intelligence and happiness? (44:22) How do I comfort my ailing and aging parents about their imminent death? (46:30) Wrap up — Referenced: • Leadership and Happiness course: https://www.hbs.edu/coursecatalog/1885.html • How to Build a Life: https://www.theatlantic.com/projects/how-build-life/ • The Happiness Files: Insights on Work and Life: https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Files-Insights-Arthur-Brooks/dp/B0F4MFQ6VN • The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092656602005056 • The Prince: https://www.amazon.com/Prince-Niccolo-Machiavelli/dp/1503017826 • Take the Dark Triad Quiz: https://www.arthurbrooks.com/quiz/dark-triad-personality-test — Production and marketing by ⁠⁠⁠https://penname.co/⁠⁠ https://penname.co/⁠. Production provided by ⁠www.thebluewave.net⁠ http://www.thebluewave.net/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:29Speaker 01

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• 0:59Arthur Brooks?

  I want to talk to you today about the people around you who might have made you the most unhappy you've ever been in your life. They took your money, maybe they escalated the breakup, and it was the ugliest thing you've been involved in. "What's wrong with that person?" you might have been asking yourself. "It's all about me. Everything is all about me. Everybody look at me. I'm the most important person." A lot of politicians, they tend toward the dark triad constellation, and, you know, no kidding, right? Dark triads think that rules don't apply to them. That's why.

• 1:33Arthur Brooks?

  Hi friends, welcome to Office Hours. I'm your host, Arthur Brooks. I'm a behavioral scientist dedicated to lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of happiness and love using science and ideas. And this is a show about how to do just that. Not so I can, but so that you can, armed with the science and information about the art of happiness and the science of happiness, and how you can use it in your ordinary life. So you can be a happier person, and you can help other people to be happier as well. I'm a professor at Harvard University, at the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School. I'm also a columnist at The Atlantic, where I write a column called "How to Build a Life." You can read that column every Thursday morning.

• 2:16Arthur Brooks?

  Thirty-three columns that are most popular in the past five years have been compiled in this book, right next to me, right here, The Happiness Files. It's new, it's on the market, as of just a couple of weeks ago. So pick up a copy. It talks about how you can be happier at work and happier in life. Since this is a new show, I'd love to hear your feedback. Send us an email at [email protected]. It's right here, printed below me right now. And you can also leave comments if you're looking at this on any of the major platforms, most notably YouTube or Spotify. And I'd love it if you would just like and subscribe and follow us. And most importantly, if you could bring 2 million of your closest friends. That would be great. That's how we build a movement, and that's how we build a happier world.

• 3:01Arthur Brooks?

  Today, my topic is not exactly happiness. It's actually kind of unhappiness, as a matter of fact. I want to talk to you today about the people around you who might have made you the most unhappy you've ever been in your life. Baffling relationships that you've had with people that seemed wonderful and then weren't. This is a show about dark triads. Specifically, that dark triad personality constellation. This is a very strange phenomenon, but very common nonetheless. Think about it this way. Imagine somebody that you've been in a romantic relationship with. Somebody who swept you off your feet. The most wonderful suitor you've ever had in your life. It looked like it was going everywhere.

• 3:45Arthur Brooks?

  The person was in love with you. It was so great. But before long, you started to notice there was a little bit of shading of the truth. A little bit of grievance mongering. Maybe you found that they were actually openly lying to you about their past. And little by little, you find out that they're probably still in contact with somebody they used to go out with. They were kind of cheating on you emotionally and then later on, maybe even physically. And then it got worse from there. They took your money, maybe they escalated the breakup and it was the ugliest thing you've been involved in. What's wrong with that person, you might have been asking yourself? Or let's just say that somebody came to work with you, a colleague. The best colleague you've had in years, as a matter of fact, really charismatic, but you found out

• 4:30Arthur Brooks?

  pretty quickly that that person was willing to take credit for your work and to lie about it. To exaggerate their own importance. And then when you confronted them on that, maybe they escalated the conflict and took it to HR. Just a weird reaction. Why would somebody behave that way? Somebody who looked so wonderful, you know, really terrible. Or, or, or maybe a fascinating new friend. Somebody who really appeared to like you for who you are as a person, but your first and minor disagreement with that person made them trash you to all your other friends, or maybe even denounce you on social media. Why would somebody do such a thing like that? Well, there's an answer to that and that is that the prob- the person you're thinking of,

• 5:11Arthur Brooks?

  the person with whom you had such a bad experience was a dark triad personality. Now, I need to define that. The dark triad personality constellation was first identified in, in, in 2002 in a very famous article in the Journal of Research and Personality. That article was called "The Dark Triad of Personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy." Great combination, huh? That's Paulus and Williams wrote that and is of course in the show notes. Go read it, it's the first article and it really set off an interesting body of research. Now, let me define the terms. A dark triad person, or a person with the dark triad constellation of personality characteristics has these three parts.

• 5:54Arthur Brooks?

  Narcissism, which is to say, "It's all about me. Everything is all about me. Everybody, look at me. I'm the most important person." Machiavellianism, which is a, a personality trait named for Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote The Prince about 700 years ago. And the concept is it doesn't matter who you hurt if you're serving your own objectives. So that personality trait means, means, "Look, it's all about me and if you get in my way, I'm willing to hurt you." The linchpin is the third part of the personality dark triad, which is psychopathy, traits of a psychopath. Now, that sounds like I'm talking about ax murderers, and that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about people who simply are very low in empathy and don't feel remorse when they hurt you.

• 6:40Arthur Brooks?

  Okay, so here's what we're talking about. A person with a dark triad personality is somebody who only thinks about themselves, or primarily so, who, to get what they want, are willing to hurt you, and when they hurt you, feel no remorse or empathy for doing so. They're above average in each one of these things. Now, they can be just slightly dark triad or extremely dark triad. It's the people who are above average in each of these three personality traits. You can take the test to see if you are a dark triad. I kind of think you're not, if you're still watching. Or you maybe might want to take it on behalf of a boyfriend or girlfriend, or a colleague, or a friend, or a parent, or somebody in your life. And you can do that at my website, arthurbrooks.com.

• 7:24Arthur Brooks?

  Okay, I'll put that website here. That's the website for all my stuff, as a matter of fact. And you can go take that, the test. And it's a psychometrically valid test that's been tested in a lot of academic journal articles. Now, how many of them are out there? And the answer to that question comes from really the best researcher on this topic that's currently going. Now, Scott Barry Kaufman, friend of mine, he also has a great podcast, I recommend, called The Psychology Podcast. So go check that out, and you'll find his latest stuff every single week. He's really the research expert on dark triads, and he's estimated how many people score above average on these three traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. And he finds that about 7% of the population, 1 in 14. You know what that means?

• 8:09Arthur Brooks?

  That means that you meet them all the time. They're in ordinary life. You've almost certainly dated one. You've worked with a bunch. You've probably worked for one. You might be in a family with at least one of these. And it's important to understand how they check. What makes them act the way that they do? And when you can, how to avoid them. Once your family member, it's not so easy, to be sure, or maybe not even possible. But one way or the other, you need to defend yourself. Because if you don't, you're not gonna like actually how things turn out for you. And I'm gonna show you why that is in fact the case. Now, first question. Are dark triads fixable? Or is this some immutable set of personality characteristics? And the answer is, we can fix ourselves of anything. We absolutely can.

• 8:52Arthur Brooks?

  But here's the thing, you gotta wanna change. That's the most important thing. If you drink too much and you come to me and say, "Hey, Arthur, I drink too much." I'll say, "Well, do you wanna change?" And if you're like, "No, not really." "Okay, well, thanks. Thanks for your input." "I used to smoke cigarettes and I knew I needed to stop, but for a long time, deep down, I didn't wanna stop. And so I didn't. And it was only when I wanted to that I was able to do so." The problem with dark triads is they're not very motivated to change because of these personality characteristics. And that's why this set of traits seems so hard to fix. It is fixable, but people have to understand it and wanna change themselves.

• 9:35Arthur Brooks?

  Now, you might be thinking of a dark triad as some sort of evil genius prowling about, you know, trying to wreck people's lives and out on the loose all the time. The truth is that there's some pretty interesting research out there. Research from a journal called Jurometrics, which is really about social science and the criminal justice system. That shows that the prison population is way disproportionately full of dark triad personalities. Why? Because people who are way out in the extreme of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathic traits, they're way more likely than average people to take the risk of committing crimes that hurt other people. And when you do that, if you do that over and over and over again, you're probably gonna get caught. That's why prisons, they appear to have so many people with a dark triad personality constellation.

• 10:19Arthur Brooks?

  This is an urgent call to figure out better and better ways to treat people. So they recognize what's going on and, and, and, and, and help urge them to regret that such that they can not be dark triads, have normal lives, normal loving relationships. This is the key. Dark triads typically don't have normal loving relationships because they're predatory toward other people. However, they're really good at looking like they have loving relationships. And this is what leads to a lot of problems, not if you're a dark triad, but if you're the victim of a dark triad, which you probably have been. And I don't want you to be going forward, which is why I'm doing this edition of the podcast. Okay, now, a couple of quick ideas here that I want to bring up.

• 11:02Arthur Brooks?

  Actually, first question is, is who tends to be a dark triad more, men or women? And the answer is men. And part of the reason for that is that we're way more likely to find, um, to, to find these, these personality characteristics in men than we are in women. We don't know why, um, but that is just in point of fact, the case that men tend to score higher and especially in Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Men and women are pretty equal in narcissism, but it becomes metastatic and especially damaging when you add in those other two characteristics. In some, especially men, you find a fourth characteristic that rides on alongside it, which is sadism. In other words, it's all about me, I'm willing to hurt you. I don't feel bad if I do, as a matter of fact, I kind of enjoy it.

• 11:46Arthur Brooks?

  That's really, really terrible. And that's not the dark triad anymore. That's called the dark tetrad because it's actually these four characteristics. A number of psychologists have said that, that that's the one we need to worry about the most. But look, it's bad enough with just the three, so that's what I'm going to be talking about here. Okay, let's talk about the ways that you can find them, what you need to look out for, and how you can protect yourself against dark triads. So you don't fall prey to their behavior. Because again, if somebody only thinks about themselves and they're willing to hurt you, that means they're going to take advantage of you. And that's what you've probably found in your life, that dark triads and romantic relationships have taken advantage of you and done bad things. They've broken your heart and drained your bank account in the past.

• 12:28Arthur Brooks?

  Um, at work, they take credit for your work, for your work, they lie about. What you're doing and what they're doing and they're doing it for their own personal gain and that actually doesn't benefit you at all. On the contrary, it's really, really terrible. So let's find out where we can find them to begin with and then let's talk about what you can do about it. Now, to begin with, the research is really clear about where we find them in work situations, the kind of jobs that they gravitate to. I don't want this to be the case, but you know, I'm just looking at the research here in the public interest. Dark triads tend to work in artistic, creative, and social careers. The social part really kind of makes sense because they want to be around people. They prey on people, so they need to be in a social context.

• 13:11Arthur Brooks?

  It doesn't really benefit a dark triad very much if they're working all by themselves because there's nobody to take advantage of here. But artistic and creative careers really benefits them as well because narcissistic people in particular like to do creative and artistic stuff. They're more likely to do these things so that everybody will look at them because it's really all about them. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that people who are in creative careers are all dark triads, even all narcissists. I'm in a creative career, I don't think I am. I certainly try not to be narcissistic. I try to make sure that I have a well-balanced personality. Fortunately, I've taken the test on my own website and so far, so good, is all I can

• 13:51Arthur Brooks?

  say, but we do find dark triads overrepresented in these walks of life, especially narcissists. Machiavellians, on the other hand, they tend to add on one layer and this kind of makes the whole career decision a little bit more interesting here. They avoid careers that involve caring for other people, which makes sense. You know, they're fundamentally antisocial. Machiavellians don't care about other people, that's why they're willing to hurt other people. So they tend to avoid careers where they have to have hands-on care, you know, TLC toward others. You don't find machiavellians in nursing, for example. You don't find them in the kinds of things where, you know, physical therapy, where they're dedicated with a pretty moderate salary to helping people an awful lot.

• 14:36Arthur Brooks?

  On the contrary, those are caring professions in which people who have a lot of heart are choosing those walks of life. So the result is that we find these dark triads and professions that involve human contact and performance and applause, but very little hands-on care for individuals. So that means, for example, politics and show business, or we're very likely to find dark triads. A lot of politicians, they tend toward the dark triad constellation, and, you know, no kidding, right? Now, here's the problem. You're thinking about the politician you like the least. You got it. But you gotta think about this in terms of the person that's on your own political side.

• 15:17Arthur Brooks?

  You have political opinions, I have political opinions, that's great. This is America. Well, maybe you're not in America watching this, and that's great too, but most likely there's politicians that people are voting for freely wherever you happen to be watching this podcast from. And the key for having the knowledge that is the power of understanding dark triads is not just applying the constellation of characteristics to the people that you agree with, but that you disagree with, excuse me, but the people that you agree with. That's the important thing to keep in mind, because when you actually start to see it in the people with whom you agree, that you find attractive, then you're less likely to be taken advantage of. Look, somebody in politics that you think is an idiot to begin with, that person can't take advantage of you, right?

• 16:01Arthur Brooks?

  So it doesn't really matter if you identify them as a dark triad. Look for people on your own side, especially in politics, especially in show business, whatever it happens to be. Now, somebody in show business can't really take advantage of you, but certainly in politics they can. Now, here are, according to the research, the five things that dark triads do in the workplace. These predatory people, who are coming in to take advantage of you for their own benefit. Here are the five things to be looking for, and I'll put them up on the screen. Number one, they exaggerate their own worth. This is the first tell, is somebody who's good, maybe, but they act as if they're great, and their accomplishments don't quite add up.

• 16:45Arthur Brooks?

  They're gilding a lily a little bit. They're acting like they're a little bit more important than they've been in the past. You know, the kind of person where they don't need to exaggerate, but they do, that's your first tell, that you might have a dark triad on your hands. Second, Is that they don't trust others. Now, here's the thing. When, when people are not trustworthy, they don't trust others. And this is what I found all throughout my career. There would be people that, that, that when they're sneaky, they think everybody else is sneaky. A, a, a family counselor one time told me, somebody I, I was interviewing for um some work that I was doing, some writing I was doing. He said that when a, when a couple comes in and, and the husband says, I'm sure that my wife is cheating on me.

• 17:29Arthur Brooks?

  The first thing he says is, sir, how long have you been being unfaithful to your wife? Because this is the first thing that I was thinking under the circumstances. He says it sometimes fails, but doesn't. For years earlier in my life, I made my, my living as a classical musician. I was playing in the Barcelona Symphony, for example. And, and the dark triads that I most commonly met were conductors of orchestras. These are people that didn't have any TLC for much of anybody. They were really, really narcissistic. Hey, everybody, look at me. They were willing to do terrible things to others. I saw a conductor that reduced a flute player in my orchestra, a man of sixty-six years to tears in front of all of his colleagues. And he appeared to kind of enjoy it. Maybe he was a dark tetrad. Maybe there was a little sadism put in there.

• 18:14Arthur Brooks?

  We used to say, conductors, many conductors are evil geniuses, but all are evil. I didn't know what I was talking about, but I wasn't a social scientist in those days. But boy, did I see an awful lot of it. And, and you see a little bit of that and you steer clear of those people. Because the, the closer you get to them, the more you get used and the more you get hurt, as a matter of fact. Even if they're attractive, even if they have power, even if it looks like it's in your interest, stay away from a dark triad. Think about the politician that you like the least and who, they're toxic to all the people around them. Well, that's what's going on with all these dark triads, as a matter of fact. They're distrustful of the vices that they actually have themselves.

• 18:54Arthur Brooks?

  The third is that they tend to act impulsively and irresponsibly at work. They do weird things. They do things that, that people shouldn't do. You know, they might act out and, and audaciously. They might yell at other people. They might treat people with just open and blatant disrespect at times. That, that, that sort of surprises you for somebody who seems so wonderful. That's the third trait. The fourth is that they can't not break rules. Sorry for the double negative. They break rules. They can't stop doing it, as a matter of fact. Why? Because guess what? Dark triads think that rules don't apply to them. That's why. And so the result is that that that following rules might be a kind of a prudent thing for them to do where they're thinking clearly. But when they're not thinking clearly, they're not going to abide by rules that they don't have

• 19:39Arthur Brooks?

  to, that they feel like morally that they don't have to because they're above all of these things. That's a narcissist think who are willing to do things that hurt other people. Last but not least, dark triads always lie. I've actually never met a dark triad or never seen in literature evidence of dark triads that are fundamentally truthful people. They'll even lie when they act like they're telling the truth. They'll tell you things that that like, let me, let me let you in on a little secret. I'm going to give you some inside knowledge to get some sort of leverage over you in a particular way. You can't even trust that is the way that this works. So those are the five characteristics of the dark triad at work. And when you start to see these things, steer clear. If you're an employer, separate as much as you can from these people. When

• 20:23Arthur Brooks?

  you're working for a dark triad, well, figure out how you can get away from this sort of boss. That means looking for a new job if you can. And and and if you have people working for you and you work for a dark triad, then then shield the people who work for you as much as you possibly can. That's a, that's a good and honorable and noble thing to do. And get a new job if you can. Okay. Um, there's a bunch of interesting articles on this, on the dark triad at work. And I'll put one or two in the in the show notes. You can actually go read these things yourself. Now, I know what you really want to think about in in in this context, which is dark triads and romantic relationships. This is really where the damage tends to get done. And it's especially the case that that women have in um, who have relationships with men

• 21:08Arthur Brooks?

  who are dark triads are the ones who have the most horror stories. Why? Because men tend to be dark triads more than women and they're they're most predatory toward toward women that are looking for a relationship and tend to get swept off their feet. In relationships, they have these characteristics. Let me give you the five characteristics and then talk a little bit more about what they look like. Number one, they tend to be extremely confident and outgoing. Here's what dark triads are good at in romantic relationships. Knowing what you want to hear. Let me back up. When you get into a romantic relationship, whether you're a man or a woman, what do you want? You want somebody, if you're falling in love, who's also falling in love with you. What you don't want is somebody who will never fall in love with you,

• 21:51Arthur Brooks?

  but act like they will so they can get what they want out of you. If it's a, they want to use you physically, if they want your money, if they just want your companionship, if they want your status, whatever happens to be. You don't want somebody to use you, you want somebody who actually loves you. Dark triads are really good at acting like they love you, even though they don't. They're confident and outgoing because they, they have skills in figuring out what you want to hear, as a matter of fact. And, and this is really bad, especially for, there's a syndrome that we, that are written about in the past a little bit, called emophilia. I'll put, I'll put something I've written about that in the show notes as well. And that's not hemophilia, that's not with an H, that's a blood disorder.

• 22:34Arthur Brooks?

  Emophilia is E-M-O-P-H-I-L-I-A. Emophilia, and that is the tendency to fall in love very, very quickly. To, to go through the stages of falling in love. And, and, and falling in love is a neurochemical phenomenon that starts with the, with the stimulation of sex hormones, estrogen and testosterone. It goes into neuromodulator activity, most notably dopamine and noradrenaline. So you get the feeling of anticipation of reward and euphoria. And then it goes into serotonin, which will make you kind of ruminate on the other person. All this is happening within a period of weeks until you're getting more of this oxytocin and vasopressin release. Those are neuropeptides that will bond you to the other person.

• 23:16Arthur Brooks?

  That takes time, doesn't necessarily take years. As a matter of fact, if it's taking years, it means it's not happening. But it certainly doesn't happen in two days. And there are people in the literature, a non-trivial number of people, especially women, who go very, very quickly through it. Dark tri, if that's you, dark triads know who you are. They know how to prey on you. And, and that's a really scary thing because they're going to say exactly what they know you need to hear because they have lots and lots of experience dealing with emo Felix. So you have to protect yourself. Now, it's a good thing to know that if you fall in love too quickly to, to how to protect yourself from that in general, but especially when dark triads come into the picture. So number one, they're outgoing and confident because they know what you need to hear.

• 24:01Arthur Brooks?

  Second, they have a strong preference for short-term mating. Okay, this is just, this is just, you know, how behavioral scientists talk about hookup culture. They want to hook up. They don't want to get married. Or if they want to get married, it's hugely incidental to the kind of relationships that they typically have. They're really, really good at figuring out how to induce you, no matter who you are, into a short-term relationship by making you feel like you've been swept off your feet so much. As a matter of fact, they favor short-term relationships so much because some would say they're kind of incapable of falling in love, which is the essence of a long-term relationship, that, uh, that they're almost incapable, as far as the, the, the data have shown,

• 24:46Arthur Brooks?

  of being, of being faithful to their partners. They cheat all the time. That's one of the characteristics of, of when, when I say, um, number two being strong preference for short-term relationships, that means infidelity, among other things. So they go from person to person to person unethically, and they tend to be unfaithful in a relationship that's supposed to be monogamous. This is a very, very strong trait in relationships of dark triads. They're extremely attractive. They're, they're, they're really, really good at coming off as extremely attractive. And, and once again, especially to women, um, because they know how to make themselves extremely attractive. So, look, somebody who's, who wants a, a mutual loving relationship

• 25:29Arthur Brooks?

  has no incentive for you to fall in love if they're not falling in love. That's just a fact. Somebody who wants you to fall in love even though they're not, that's evidence of a broken person. And so somebody who's trying to do that on the basis of superficial characteristics, um, that's going to tend to be a dark triad as well. Number four. Is that they they tend to exaggerate their success, status and commitment. Once again, this tends to be a male characteristic. There's a fantastic, one of the great social scientists of our time is David Buss at the University of Texas at Austin, who does work on, he's really the leading expert in evolutionary psychology. In other words, understanding psychological patterns with respect to our ancestral environment.

• 26:11Arthur Brooks?

  When people behave the way they do, you can usually find a reason in our ancestral environment. Why? Because our brains were really formed in an environment that suited us to what we were doing 250,000 years ago. Some, the place to see. We haven't evolved physically very much. Our worlds have evolved. So when we see weird anomalous behavior in mating, for example, usually there's a reason for it that goes back a long, long time. One of those things is that when we're looking at new potential mates for the very first time, that men tend to look for cues of youth and fertility. And women tend to look, and again, your results may vary.

• 26:52Arthur Brooks?

  I'm not being dispositive about your situation, but this is not case closed. This is a tendency that David Buss talks about in the evolutionary psychology. Women tend to look more at, because of the investment that they have to make in family life and raising children, and status and success and commitment and resources. The result of that is that dark triads, they tend to, when they're meeting somebody, to exaggerate those things. I'm more successful than they really are, higher status than they really have, more committed than they really are going to be, richer than they really are. What are they trying to do? They're trying to seduce you, is the bottom line. Typically, that's the case.

• 27:32Arthur Brooks?

  Again, they specialize in saying and doing what you want to hear, not what is authentic and honest. They're con men and con women. Now, when you have a relationship, a romantic relationship with a dark triad, and the breakup comes, and it inevitably does, it's going to, you're probably not gonna change the dark triad. I have literally never seen a case where somebody falls in love with a dark triad and saves the dark triad from her or himself. When the breakup comes, it's always ugly. You don't get out nicely from a dark triad. They're known for what psychologists call "cost escalation." They're gonna make you pay. That's what they're gonna do. Why?

• 28:16Arthur Brooks?

  Because they don't care how much they hurt you, and they feel no remorse. Look, if you break up with a normal person, and it's hurtful, and something bad happened, you know, they're not trying to hurt you per se, because they don't want to, because they have some love for you, they have some tenderness for you, and besides, they don't wanna be a horrible person. They think of themselves as somebody who's fundamentally ethical, at least not a completely horrible human being. But dark triads don't think that way. That's the problem. They will cost escalate and manipulate you, and openly confront you, because they're Machiavellian, and they have psychopathic tendencies. "I'm willing to hurt you for my interests, and I don't feel any empathy, and I don't feel any remorse." Okay.

• 28:59Arthur Brooks?

  Avoid those characteristics. Trust me on this. This is how you protect yourself. Next. I wanna talk about a little bit, one that's a little bit more sensitive, actually. I mean, sensitive enough at work and in romance. But I wanna talk a little bit more about politics and activism. Because politics and political activism is an area, as I mentioned before, where we are most likely, especially likely, to find dark triad personalities. They create a lot of damage. Why? Because narcissists in particular are motivated by self-aggrandizement over public service, and they're willing to lie. They don't feel bad about actually lying. I know what you're saying, 'cause you're really cynical. "Find me a politician who doesn't lie." Look, I know lots of members of Congress.

• 29:43Arthur Brooks?

  The job that I had before I was doing what I'm doing now is I ran a big think tank in Washington DC. I knew tons of senators and members of Congress. They're mostly awesome. They're mostly people like us. They just felt motivated to engage in public service. And I realized that that's not how people think of them, but it is the truth for most of them. The problem is that a few kind of spoil the bunch. And, and who are the few spoiling the bunch? The dark triads. They can be really, really successful, especially when they're well spoken and smooth and intelligent, et cetera, et cetera. Once again, you're thinking of somebody right now. I know you are. It's the person on the other side. Look for the person on your side. That's how you'll be able to protect yourself. Now, what we find

• 30:26Arthur Brooks?

  is that, that, again, you can find some papers that talk about, you know, certain dark triad characteristics are more on one side and other dark triad characteristics are on the other side. But what, what we really find is that people with psychopathic characteristics, they're most attracted to extreme positions in a radicalized society. And that's, my friends, that's now in America and in a lot of other countries. We have a very polarized politics, which means that we are tending to be manipulated by people in the 5% margins on the other side of politics. And again, I got my views and you have your views, but we need to talk about this as, you know, behavioral scientists that we are and people trying to be in the happiness movement. We want a happier world, including the people

• 31:10Arthur Brooks?

  who disagree with us, right? Right? Anyway, you get my point here, that, that, that when we have a polarized environment, an ecosystem that's highly oriented toward rhetoric, that's over the top, when we have policies that are not just about winning, but the other side losing, the people that are drawn into that are dark triad politicians disproportionately. And that's what we find today. The people who are most audacious, the people who are loudest, I'm sorry, they have the dark triad characteristics. They just do. So when we see this, we need to be more active in making sure that we're not hitching our wagons to

• 31:50Arthur Brooks?

  those people in, in, in political activism, or in politics itself, or let alone the media, who are saying those forbidden things that we think on our worst days. Because, look, we all have a little tiny bit of dark triad in it, in us, but, but we're not. overwhelmingly that personality constellation, so we try to suppress it as we should. That's a good thing to do, but there's always somebody who gives you that sort of forbidden fruit. A little bit in the way they talk. That's what to look out for. That's really what to look out for because in times like ours, then all the people represent us are the choices between dark triads on this side and dark triads on that side. And that's very bad for our society. That's very bad for our countries and very bad for, quite frankly, our future.

• 32:34Arthur Brooks?

  Okay, another area I want to talk about. And, and, and again, there's a bunch of interesting research out there on, on dark triads, not in politics, but in activism per se. People in, again, in highly charged times, who are the heads of, you know, activist movements, they're more, way more likely than average to be dark triads. To have these characteristics. So look out when somebody's trying to fire you up for their cause. That's the bottom line. Protect yourself. Because we need you to, we need a better world. What about online?

• 33:07Arthur Brooks?

  You know, what do you think? Online dark triads are ever present. Social media is the perfect place for dark triads and the best place ever for the dark triads. Why? Because it's anonymous and you can scream and you get an automatic platform. And the more outrageous you are, the more people actually will follow you. That's what's going on. It's kind of outraged theater. It's the perfect place for all three narcissists to love social media because it's constantly looking in a mirror. How many likes did I get? How many followers did I get? That's, that, that's classic narcissistic behavior is to be over involved in social media, especially checking your mentions all the time. Machiavellianism, you can hurt people with almost complete impunity and you don't have to feel bad about it at all because you're never held to account.

• 33:51Arthur Brooks?

  It's perfect for the dark triads. Basically, internet trolls who get their jollies from hurting your feelings or, or frightening you or insulting you, they're all dark triads. I mean, and, and again, there's a There's a, there's a good paper out there, I'll put it in the notes. "Trolls Just Want to Have Fun" is, is, is the name of the paper. And it, it shows that people who troll on social media, um, on sort of any place on the internet, anonymously writing things that, that stir up controversy and stir up bad blood, that they, they almost all have especially psychopathic characteristics. Uh, they're kind of psychopaths, as a matter of fact. And, and they don't have to be held to account because nobody knows who they are.

• 34:36Arthur Brooks?

  That's the kind of the whole point of trolling. They usually exhibit also social media disorder, they tend to have really disordered lives. They actually are quite pathetic, but you know, be that as it may, they're gonna be, make you miserable as much as they can. One side note on that, um, to put two of these things together, relationships and social media. When you're first out on a date, um, ask this question, just like this. Do you like to post anonymously on the internet a lot? Do you like to go, you know, have, have some laughs by kind of stirring up trouble? On X or on Instagram? If they're like, "Yeah, I love that." Get away. You have just detected a dark triad. That person's gonna create a whole lot of problems for you.

• 35:18Arthur Brooks?

  Just throw it out there innocently. This is a great test. Okay, so, let me talk about, in general, how to detect a dark triad. I've given you kind of the characteristics in relationships and in politics and online, and certainly at work, but let me give you the kind of the, the meta list of things to look out for, to detect a dark triad, so that you can protect yourself through avoidance, most importantly. Number one, self-importance. I'm the most important person in the world. When they, when they, when they exhibit traits of self-importance, be very wary. Second is a sense of entitlement. Look, it's, it's all about me and, and when, when things aren't going my way, they should be. Come on. Number three is vanity.

• 36:01Arthur Brooks?

  You know, the whole idea of the vanity of wanting, wanting everybody to look at them is, uh... And again, that can be as simple, by the way, when you're going out with somebody for the first time. Every time they go by a car window, they look at themselves. Like, that's a tell. I mean, that doesn't mean they're a dark triad, but at least you're... Your spider sense should be tingling about that. Number four is a victim mentality. People who are willing to hurt other people are always suspicious of the motives of others, and they tend to think that anything that goes wrong for them is because people had it out for them. They tend to be paranoid, they tend to be aggrieved, they tend to act like they're victims, which activists always do, by the way, and so do politicians, generally speaking. Not all politicians, but a lot. Number five, they tend to bend the truth or even openly lie. Why?

• 36:45Arthur Brooks?

  Because they don't care if they're doing something that hurts you, something that's damaging. What they don't realize, of course, is damaging to them, because ultimately, people are going to figure it out. Number six is manipulativeness. They want you to be bent to their will, and they will manipulate you with pretty untruthful means, if necessary. Number seven is grandiosity, because they're going to exaggerate. They're going to exaggerate their accomplishments, they're going to exaggerate their past, they're going to exaggerate their status, they're going to exaggerate their ambition. Why? Because they want to insinuate themselves with you. They want to get into your good graces as quickly as possible, not because they love you, because they want you to love them. Number eight is a lack of remorse when they do things wrong, which is baffling to normal

• 37:30Arthur Brooks?

  people. It's so weird. I've met people who, they do something, and I think, "It's impossible that they did that. I would never do that." Well, it turns out, that doesn't work when you're working with a dark triad. And number nine is an absence of empathy and remorse. They don't care when they do these things. Those are the nine characteristics of when you're dealing with a dark triad, and generally speaking, if you have a long-term relationship, sorry, but you're going to see all these things. One other thing that actually shows up in the literature that's really interesting, that is a technique that dark triads use when they get caught. So let's say that you're in a romantic relationship with a dark triad. Ugh, terrible. You're going to... Probably find this person is unfaithful to you emotionally or physically is being unfaithful

• 38:13Arthur Brooks?

  to you. And, and, and when you confront the dark triad, they have a technique that's called DARVO. D A R V O. That's an acronym. It means deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender. Number one is they lie, say they didn't do it. Then they turn the whole thing around and attack you. Then they reverse the victim and offender by saying you're the offender and they're the victim. And so it goes something like this. Um, no, no, I didn't, I didn't sleep with that person. No, I've been completely faithful to you. Well, I, I got the receipts, man. I got the receipts. I mean, it's like, what, what is this Marriott bill, you know, in our city? And it's like, oh yeah, well, look, it's really your fault because you've been driving me away.

• 38:58Arthur Brooks?

  So the first one is deny, and then when you can't anymore, it's attack. And then they say, and you know what? I'm pretty tired of this line of questioning all the time and the suspicion that we have. And that's really what's been driving me away. And it's been, you've been a pretty terrible partner for a long time. You know, I'm the person who really is the victim here. So if you start seeing that, you know, you're a full-blown dark triad, and you've gone down the path, um, to the point where they're actually using DARVO on you, um, so I move on. I don't see too many, um, exits besides the big exit, uh, uh, of the relationship itself. I want to end on a, on a happier note. And then I want to go to some questions that you've written in. The questions are great. Really appreciate

• 39:39Arthur Brooks?

  it. What should you look for instead while you're trying to avoid the dark triad? Scott Barry Kaufman, I talked about him earlier. He talks about something called a light triad. That's the opposite of the dark triad. This is somebody who has faith in humanity. They trust others. Humanism, that's what Scott Barry Kaufman talks about, you know, believing in the dignity and the worth of every individual and, and a belief that there's a universal moral law. There's just right and wrong, things you shouldn't do to anybody, even if you don't like them. Those three things he finds actually are characteristic of about 50% of the population. And that's where you want to look. Authentically good people. And how do you know? There's a lot of work in psychology on something called moral elevation,

• 40:22Arthur Brooks?

  where when somebody has these characteristics, you feel warm inside. Not the kind of warm inside like, "I think this person is falling in love with me, because this is a dark triad trying to manipulate me." But because that's somebody I really morally admire. That's kind of a tell on that. It's a beautiful thing, and you've all felt that. That's what to look for. A colleague, in a friend, in a partner, romantic partner, those are the people you should actually look for. Look for that. And when you do, they might not be displaying all the things that you want to see in the very first moment you meet them. And the reason is because they're trying to figure out if they like you. And that's exactly what you want. Have a mutually beneficial, mutually loving relationship. That's what we all should be looking for.

• 41:07Arthur Brooks?

  Look for the light triad, just as you avoid the dark triad. Okay, a couple of questions I want to get to. Some great questions this week. The first is from Catholic Coffee Time. "I'm Catholic and I like coffee, so what's not to like about Catholic Coffee Time? What's the difference between happiness and joy? Joy is an emotion, and happiness is not. Happiness is a combination of three phenomena, elements, macronutrients, if you will. Enjoyment of life, satisfaction with activities and accomplishments, and the meaning of life. Those are the three things to be looking for. And all three of them have an enormous scientific literature behind them. So when we're getting happier, we're also going to bear up under a lot of unhappiness

• 41:50Arthur Brooks?

  and be fully alive in our lives. Why? Because enjoyment, you know, sometimes it means passing on transitory pleasures. They're not the same thing. Satisfaction means deferring your gratifications, which sometimes can be hard, even painful. And the meaning of life, it means learning and growing through suffering. In other words, what I'm saying is that happiness and unhappiness are not incompatible with each other. You actually need some unhappiness to become happy so you can have enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning in your life. Okay, so what's joy? Joy is the feeling of ebullience that you get because of the activity of your limbic system. The limbic system of your brain is a console of tissue deep inside your brain that was evolved between 2 and 40 million years ago. It gives you your basic emotions.

• 42:34Arthur Brooks?

  It takes the signals that you're perceiving around you, and it translates them into negative or positive emotions, simply so that you will have information about whether you should approach something or avoid something. That's what it comes down to. That's what feelings are. People talk about good and bad feelings. There's no such thing as bad feelings. You need all of your emotions. One of the positive emotions that people really, really want is joy. And how do you know that you're experiencing a lot of happiness, which is not a feeling? It's that you have feelings that are associated with it. So think of joy as the smell of the turkey on Thanksgiving Day and happiness as the turkey itself. Okay, happy, the happiness is the dinner and it's tangible and you can make it and

• 43:18Arthur Brooks?

  you can get better at making it. And the smell that says something special is going on is Thanksgiving Day, but it wears off and it's evanescent. It's just evidence of dinner. That's the feeling. That's joy. That's how the two things are related. Second question.

• 43:34Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

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• 44:33Arthur Brooks?

  Kristidoulidis Christos asks, what's the connection between intelligence and happiness? I've looked at that a little bit as a matter of fact, and I've written about that. In the past, and the answer is not much connection. You find little things, you know, you find slight variations as people go through the, go through education, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that, that, you know, perceived intelligence is also quite connected to whether or not people are comfortable materially. And when people are more comfortable materially, especially off low levels, they have lower levels of unhappiness. And so unhappiness is relieved when people are better able to take care of themselves, but up to very low levels.

• 45:15Arthur Brooks?

  Here's the real connection between intelligence and happiness. When you use your intelligence to benefit others, you will get happier. That's the bottom line. When you use your intelligence only for your own benefit, you'll get unhappier. I mean, I guess it's probably scant comfort, but comfort nonetheless, that, that genius dark triads, they tend to be incredibly miserable people. Why? Because they're using their talents only for themselves. They're isolated, they're lonely, they're miserable, they're all alone, and, and at the end of the day, people don't like them. People don't like them because they shouldn't. And they've hurt a lot of people to boot, which means that they've burned a lot of bridges, whether they care or not. They don't like the cost that comes from having done so. On the other hand, if you use your manifest talents, your creativity, your time, your

• 46:00Arthur Brooks?

  talent, your treasure, and you use those things, especially your, your cognitive horsepower in the benefit of other people, you'll gather people around you, you'll have more love, and you'll have the satisfaction of having made the world a better place, which is exactly what we're trying to do with this podcast. Question three. Ritz Baby says, how do I comfort my ailing and aging parents about their imminent death? I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you're dealing with this. And it's a really hard thing. I mean, look, we all know the natural order of things. You get older and you die. And it's not, in a way, it's not a tragedy, but it's still really sad. And it can be really hard and scary for your parents themselves. I get it.

• 46:43Arthur Brooks?

  It turns out that the fear of death is most acute for people who've spent a lifetime living in the future. This is one of the reasons that very successful people, strivers, entrepreneurs, they struggle the most with the end of life because they've spent their whole lives thinking about a better future for themselves and for others. Better future, better future, better future. And when they're confronted with no future, at least no future on earth, it can be really, really hard. And so that's the case with your parents, where they've been very future-oriented, what we behavioral scientists call prospective, very prospective, thinking about the future themselves. Side note, the average person spends 30 to 50% of their time thinking about the future. Entrepreneurs, some estimates suggest, they spend up to 80% of their time thinking about the future.

• 47:27Arthur Brooks?

  So if that's your parents, that's going to be really, really hard. And there's two ways to deal with this. The first is to be here now, to do the best you can to bring your parents back to right now, thinking about what's happening now and beautiful things that have happened in the past. Help them to time travel in a way that's less deleterious to their happiness. The second, if you're religious, is thinking about what the future brings, not here. If you belong to a religion that believes that there is something better waiting for us, this is a very beautiful way to explore their beliefs on that, to share different readings and points of view on a better future, not here, but in paradise, whatever that means to you. Well, we've come to the end.

• 48:11Arthur Brooks?

  I hope you've learned a lot. Don't be a dark triad, but protect yourself and the people around you who have these characteristics. Again, 1 in 14 is no joke, you know them right now, but you need to avoid them for your own happiness, and you need to protect your loved ones as well. Be on the lookout. You don't need to be a jerk, you don't need to be terrible, but you can do a lot to protect yourself from predators around us in ordinary life.

• 48:35Arthur Brooks?

  Remember, if you want to read more of the kinds of things that we're doing in this podcast, my book right here, The Happiness Files, gives all kinds of information that I hope you can use about work and life. Pick that up. Thirty-three essays, all of which were pretty popular in Atlantic over the past five years, in one simple place. And if you want, I'll even read it to you. Well, actually, I read the first chapter and somebody else read the rest. But you can go to sleep with the dulcet tones of my work on happiness, if that's what you like to do. Please, once again, feedback, [email protected] is our email address for comments. Like and subscribe and leave your comments. And even if you have critical comments about, I don't know, my T-shirt, anything, my looks, you don't

• 49:19Arthur Brooks?

  need to do that. But anyway, I'll take your comments seriously and change whatever I can. I want you to have a good experience. And please, please, please do recommend this podcast to your friends, especially if you're finding it beneficial. And until I see you next week, you don't have to leave your happiness up to chance. Thanks for joining me at Office Hours.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

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