0:00 I don't care if they had a horrible event in their life. That's who they are. They've had many decision points. There's been a lot of hostility related to me even mentioning the possibility that this isn't all just environmental adversity. That it's a good idea to educate on intentional abuse. Why does it even matter? What caused it? That's how they are. They're not changing. They know what they're doing, you know, planned out, mapped out, chess style, because they know when not to do it, and they know when to, you know, deploy. They know who to deploy around and when it's safe to do so. Come on. So, who gives a rat's ass? But no, often times people get invalidated and then they get labeled something that could potentially be a side effect of the abuse as if it originated in them. Like, so they get labeled codependent. And I think that victims are the
0:49 ones who carry the shame. And I think that the perpetrators could stand to have some. Welcome to the Brad Carr podcast. In recent discussions about personality disorders, the question arises, why did human evolution allow for the rise of dark personalities and psychopaths. My guests today have two theories of the case. Dr. Peter Salerno is a longtime psychotherapist specializing in personality pathology. His books such as The Nature and Nurture of Narcissism blend rigorous research with survivor testimony to illuminate neuroscience and practical strategies that drive abuse by people of dark personality. Dr. Deborah Lieberman is a professor at the University of Miami and editor-inchief for the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. She researches how evolution
1:40 has shaped the social mind. And I wanted to have them both on because their fields and their work seem to talk to each other. They feel like they're describing something similar but in importantly different ways. And so I wanted to think through their theories and how we can better deal with people of dark personality. Peter, in the past we have talked about the traumatic experience of people going through an abusive relationship with someone of dark personality. Why do you think it's so important that people understand the genetic roots of these personalities? I think the main reason why it's so important is because it informs expectations of the difference between reactive and proactive aggression, the difference between, you know, the different motivations essentially like why is the behavior taking place. So when we talk about genetics, we're talking about
2:29 um a lot of the differences among individuals are related to differences in DNA, not just what they've been through environmentally. I personally think this conversation of genetic influence um predisposition propensity has been swept under the rug in favor of environmental determinism in my field um and not just in research but in clinical practice. I mean people who don't research but just practice often times are quick to default to this environmentally deterministic idea of um all psychology psychopathology. So I think I think the conversation needs to be had about there
3:16 are other factors that are just as important and often times in certain uh cases more important. And Dr. Dr. Lieberman, what perspective do you come at this from? Um what is what have you learned from your work on relationships, sexuality, status? So there's two different questions. As an evolutionary psychologist, I'm interested in what are the universal features that we all possess kind of the the human operating system we all come equipped with that typically regularly develops uh in most in most individuals. And that addresses the nature nurture question in terms of you know there's got to be some type of programming in there and then it accepts information uh from the social world, biological world, uh physical world in order to calibrate
4:07 and to develop and deploy and allows us to behave in the ways that we do. And so as an evolutionary psychologist, nature nurture isn't necessarily the question that we start with. nature, nurture, and genetic versus environment. That's more of the behavioral genetics, right? That's looking at to what extent are differences between individuals due to differences and variations in their their genetic makeup. And so I think that clarifying the advances in evolutionary psychology and also behavioral genetics uh has a good has there that's a good way to better understand personality and also to inform clinicians when they treat people who are exiting or in these types of emotionally
4:53 abusive relationships. Mhm. And Peter, how do you see that sort of science informing clinical practice or how would you like to see it informing clinical practice? Well, one way is um psycho education for clients who've endured uh this type of thing because there's a lot of invalidation um in in I would say inadvertent. It's not it's not voluntary and obvious often times it's not conscious. But um when you are trying to pro provide an explanation to somebody vulnerable who's been through something abusive and you're telling them that it's likely that the person that inflicted the harm went through something similar. So here's, you know, when you when you hear that narrative, it's it can be very invalidating for a victim who has evidence um albeit maybe
5:44 it's dissonant, but has evidence that a lot of the abuse was intentional or strategic or patterned, right? Um so psycho education for clients who have been previously informed that they somehow contributed to this dynamic or um the person wouldn't have been this way had they not been mistreated when they were two, right? Things like that. I think that educational component is crucial. Yeah. And and Deb, as we've discussed, um you've you've been through this yourself. um what gaps did you see in the science in the education the information um in your own experience? I think there's a huge gap. Um so as a I mean as an evolutionary psychologist I
6:30 have really enjoyed thinking about what kinds of programs have evolved uh over the millennia that make us human that regulate all sorts of behaviors. My focus in the science has always been in the past, right? So what are the pressures? What did ancestral human conditions, what did that look like? What kind of problems did we have to face? And what kind of solutions did natural selection engineer to solve those problems? And so for food choice, we have a very rich food psychology that allows us to steer clear of things that were harmful. Mate choice, we prefer certain types of of features and so forth. And so kind of an understanding of the basic engineering really left at least in my own my own education a a gap in okay now now look at the variety of
7:23 personalities and how people actually engage. But I I will say that the science is is progressing quite rapidly. So now we have researchers who are interested in okay what contributes to the sense of entitlement and you know the people walking around thinking that other people should defer to their needs and desires. And so one of the pieces of research by a colleague um Aaron Cell, he is has found that ancestral indices of leverage. So if you were a guy and you were big and formidable, um you could tend to get your way. People would defer to you uh in a variety of different ways ancestrally, right? Or if you were if you hide pre high in prestige and skill set and so forth and
8:12 a leader typically you also would probably also formidable and and and muscul muscular as well. But the idea is that males for men physical formidability would have been one personal dimension that would have caused other people to defer to them. For females it might have been physical beauty and attractiveness. Right? So, so there are certain types of personal attributes that might cause people to feel entitled, especially if they grow up now realizing, oh, I can get away with this. I can do this. And so, and so that's one route into all of this that has nothing to do with being mistreated as an adult. You know, in fact, it has it's just the
8:57 opposite. they've been treated really well and more or less realized this is a great successful strategy. And then you have other people who have gone through hell and are are now kind of, you know, ashamed or do whatever. Although we I hope we talk about shame because I don't know that it's necessarily shame that's driving them, but whatever. Now they're evil people and now they want to make everyone else suffer cuz they've suffered and they're empty inside and all this other stuff. But then again, they've got siblings who are perfectly fine and normal and altruistic. So that the conditions themselves are never enough to explain the pattern of behavior. In any case, the science so having gone through this um so like you mentioned I was in a relationship like this and it caught me off guard because the masks they wear are just fantastic. They are they're amazing.
9:51 And especially if you are studied beforehand and investigated beforehand, they know what makes you tick. Like it was like this guy had the Deb Lieberman playbook and knew exactly, you know, exactly the buttons to push. And at the time I was definitely needy. I definitely had maybe lower internal self-worth than I should have had if I could admit that. And that caused me to have hope and really want to cling on to it and think that it was good and really hope hope it was going to turn out the right way. And so, but I had never encountered that type of deviousness. And you
10:38 know, so evolutionary psychology is interesting in the sense that it really tells you about the components of the mind, but we need to kind of add to that the science of and there are evolutionary psychologists who are working on this to be sure. Science of personality and then how these how these systems deploy in a social environment. And now in modern worlds where you have people moving around and the kinds of things that were rewarding and and things like that and also screens and uh artificial intelligence, social media, a lot of these things could be leading more and more people down this pathway of seeing that this is a successful strategy to get what I want and and who cares about anyone else? I can step all over everyone. So, a long answer to your question,
11:25 but I think that there's a lot more to discover in terms of this this personality type, um, the programs underlying them, how they develop, um, and what we can engineer to either inoculate people to see them. I think that's just education. Um, or, you know, get people out of that. I mean, it's I mean, these are these are evil people. Empty evil people. Peter, do you think education is that drug that's going to inoculate us or rather to protect us? Is education the drug? Yeah. No. No. I mean, it'll it'll do a lot. It It'll do a lot. I mean,
12:11 it was funny when you when you said that. I was thinking I was I spoke to somebody else, another um a biomedical scientist about this and we were joking that you know there aren't there aren't drugs that change personalities and he said well I can give somebody enough drugs to change their personality. It's just you know it's not it wouldn't be ethical but we can make these people stop technically. We just have to figure out a way to give them something that, you know, puts things into balance a little bit. Um, and that's ethical. Actually, you know, I do think education is the way forward. Um, not for the people who are like this. To me, I think we put them all on an island and let them all kill and eat each other. That's my personal preference.
12:57 But in terms of education, uh, educating people to understand a that there's a variety of personalities out there. That's critical. And second, here are some of the ways that you can identify them. Here's some of the things that you can do. But even more important, are you solid as a person? What is like how is it that we can shore up people's own internals so that they're never going to that they feel like they have the boundaries and the ability to, you know, cut bait and run and not look back. It's not you. And if you're wrong, so what? There's no there is no wrong in that in that way. And so I think that that's that's the way we educate uh and mentor people forward. I would agree I would agree with that. But I want to add to that too. Part of
13:45 the education is um because there's confirmation bias and there's cognitive dissonance unrelated to relationships like this. It's difficult to even explain to people and convince them that they're that this exists. Like that's a that's a challenge is to educate in a way where people are now they're willing to believe that there's a type of person out there that even like even if you're not suffering or you're down in the dumps even if you know there's such a thing as positive vulnerability where everything's going right in your life and then the next best thing is to find that special someone. They they exploit that. They exploit you when you're on on your best day. So, it's important for people to know and that there are human beings that exist out there that for one
14:32 reason or another um benefit from exploiting more than they benefit from connecting. They benefit from deactivating attachment while you're completely attached. I mean, I think one of the hardest things is convincing people um that they have to treat different individuals differently depending on how they've come into their life and and depending on all the things that Deb mentioned earlier, depending on their startup material essentially, right? Deb, what else do you think? I I it looks as though there's a little more brewing. So as a professor at a university, I think that it's really important that we provide students with the ability to this
15:19 mentorship to understand better themselves, where are they in their own personal journey, but then again understand that there are these people out there and how to how to deal with it. And I think that there are communication styles that can deal with with them. There are there are strategies for being able to have a person like this in your life even if it's unpleasant but maintaining boundaries and I think that learning that skill set is really important and will become more important you know in this AI social media mediated world why why AI and social media because I think that people are become going to become the more you're attached to a screen the more uh the less face tof face interactions you're having, the less calibrated you're getting to
16:08 humans in general. I think ancestrally, we were we were face to face when I when if we were talking face to face, I would be able to take in the whole kind of all the information. So, the verbals, the nonverbals, um I'd see what potentially if you were sweating, you know, maybe even smell and get some idea. All my senses would be able to collect information about you to understand the situation, how you're reacting to me personally and that would be invaluable feedback and it would be very certain with with good probability I can assess how you regard me and and our interactions would be based on a very sure footing in a in a sense. If you were trying to deceive me, chances are I would be able to triangulate very quickly, you know, uh, based on, you know,
16:56 information from the elders, from the community, the family members. Watch out for them. Like, there's a lot of kind of community and social information that would have been transmitted. So, I think that the face-to-face interactions allow us to understand how to communicate and how to interpret signals. And I think that with the absence of that type of training and calibration, I mean, kids from really early on are just stuck here rather than looking at faces and and calibrating. And that's that's kind of the environment that we evolved in is really being able to take in information from other people. But in any case, as we move further and further away from that natural environment, we're just going to be less able to read people and understand their intentions. we might be more susceptible to going with their words rather than their faces and
17:45 their other body language uh the body language that they are they are they're showing us and the words are always you know like oh I I I'm not lying to you or I you know don't worry about this and and so I I just I think that words are less reliable than behavior and if we're not in front of people we're not going to be able to read behavior as well as we have been in the past. So that's how I think social media potentially has I mean there are a lot of benefits to social media, don't get me wrong, but one of the downsides to be sure is the abil is the idea it's taking us away from in-person interactions. Peter, what do you think? Is technology going to make this worse? potentially because the the pe well I mean I would say you know um if the people using the technology
18:37 and designing it and let's say people with the most uh clout with it if they were collaborative cooperative problem solvers who had the best interest of everyone um they would put regulations on it and standards and balance it out so it would be useful and healthy and then know when to, you know, call it quits and then have what, you know, the the other types of interaction. But there's a lot of people who um who benefit from it being something that can be again exploited, that can be excessive, that can detach people, isolate. Um so it it it's it it can turn into an evil in that sense. Um, I don't know if social media necessarily would make the the problem of
19:31 um like socially maladaptive personalities any worse. I think they've done pretty good job on their own historically of doing incredibly horrendous things, you know? I mean, um, so I think it's just another way that it's going to be expressed. I don't think it's necessarily going to be the the downfall or anything. we would have found another way. I I would, you know, it's not like you could say, "Hey, Deb, I'm go on social media and social media is going to turn me into a, you know, a narcissist or someone who suddenly like, oh my god, I can exploit people and I can like make people love me and I can do all these things and I can devalue other people." Like that that that no environment is going to make that an option, an attractive option for me, right? So the idea that I'm kind of, you know, I'm I'm who I am and
20:21 most people are who they are and certain things are preferable versus less preferable in how I treat other people and how I'm treated myself. And so no, I don't think that it's necessarily going to turn people who don't already have that tilt um to, you know, into into anything they're into anything they're not. Um, I guess it's what I find is just how many people are tilted towards that direction. Yeah. So, Deb, we we're talking about how things might be changing in the future. How in the past and through evolution, if we've had in the past more cues, more of a sense of tribe? How did people like psychopaths continue to exist and and slip by and reproduce?
21:09 Um, so their behavior stands out like the the group knows. So I did some field work um when I was early on when I was first starting out as an assistant professor in a small community uh on an island and I um and people basically pulled me aside said just be careful of that guy. He burned down his parents' house. And I was like, and I have to walk how far in the dark back to where I'm staying. Like it was just like it was I mean like these people are known. It I mean like they they have a little you know um people know who they are. So it's wouldn't have been common. Here's so here's you're asking a really good question and I wouldn't say that I have a definite answer like
21:58 I I don't know with any certainty about these things. However, here is what is interesting. the systems that seem to be broken in psychopaths. And so I should say I think that there's these names. So clinicians come up with names for these things. I as an evolutionary psychologist I'm more interested in if you were to open up the hood like what what waiting you know what system is either you know impaired didn't develop properly um or weighted differently individual differences in terms of how things are interpreted and so forth. Uh and so I'm more interested in that type of programming. And so when you look at the kinds of things that um people with conduct disorder and
22:43 antiso personal antisocial personality uh disorder tend to have, they they have high value and high regard for themselves. And the idea is that they have they don't really assign high value to anybody else. So that lasting value uh it's it's very much a um it's almost like it's almost like they meet people who could be potentially you know mutually valuable and but it's like it's in the their mind it's like not sticky enough. It's like the value tag doesn't stick and so it's like they just don't value people um in the in the same way that other people do. They see that one strategy for moving forward and exploiting people is just to kind of identify the benefits they have on offer and then squeeze and squeeze until the last drop and then when that's done, you know,
23:33 so they they don't they don't kind of they do not thrive on mutually value relationships based on mutual value. They thrive on relationships of of dominance and more kind of one-way sorts of things. So, and then the idea is most people see other humans as socially valuable, like just in general, like a human is a a valuable individual, but if I just see you as food, right, or as prey, that's a different kind of that's a system that's slightly impaired in the sense of I just don't assign the right type of value to you natively. Um, and so you are just some you I see you as the same thing as the, you know, the cow, you know, or the chicken over there. It's like,
24:20 yeah, you're moving around and boy, you look really yummy and I maybe sex as well. So, you know, it's like so the idea that people can look at others um through a very different lens would suggest to me and that I mean I'm talking about some of the people that you know are renowned you know serial killers and so forth and we hear about them on the news but the idea that they just look at people very differently and they regard them very differently um and it's alien to the rest of the people who have this natural regard for others and assign social value to other individuals and so And but that's what I'm saying. The idea that people don't even know that there's that type out there that there's a certain type of person who just does not assign the proper social value to a human life. Um, and that had nothing to do with upbringing like like like you
25:12 know in terms of yes, I'm sure that there could be some conditions that could forge that type of psychology, but by and large there are people with that tendency and they're just that's pre-baked, you know, that's like um that impairment, that setting is there from the get-go. You can you can observe it during childhood during you know a todd being a toddler all the way up through adulthood and it just kind of grows and and and calibrates and develops along the way. But anyway, I'm interested in like what mechanisms are are broken. Um and I totally forgot your question right now. That's really It's really So if there are people like this, if you can go and be doing field work and the whole tribe knows is broken and yet they still keep going on. We have maybe 1 to
26:02 10% of the population are like this today. So let Thank you. I'm so sorry. And so evolutionarily, you know, chances are if you, you know, if you rape someone, if you kill someone and if you're constantly lying and cheating, um, you, you know, you didn't see the next morning, right? People would have put together an alliance and really kind of taken you out back. And so, um, so I would say that a lot of people who were this type of harmful ancestrally just they lot didn't reproduce. The thing is is that with in each generation, you can expect a certain type of a certain level of variation in the population for every single trait, right? Every single trait
26:49 varies each generation a new. And so the idea that you have these more recently evolved systems for kind of moral cognition or social value or theory of mind in the sense of, you know, how do I believe that you regard me? So I'm trying to read you as a mental being kind of thing. These more novel systems are potentially, you know, more likely to vary and less might be more less debugged. And so there there could be you introduce new interesting variations each generation. If you wiped out all of the psychopaths and all of the narcissists in this generation, right, next generation, it's back because the roll of the dice and so genetic
27:37 recombination suggests that you're going to and with this many people roaming the earth. The I mean, you're just going to end up just by the numbers with certain types of, you know, varants. Um I I mean you can call them mutants. I just but I just mean variations in the same way if you kind of if you got rid of so I know this is going to you know get go into perhaps a different direction but I'm often asked about homosexuality in my evolutionary psych classes and so in the same way even if you even if no homosexuals or even their family members reproduced right and so in this generation next generation you're still going to have a variation in sexuality pop up because these systems are incredibly complex and each and so the number of systems
28:28 that's required to produce one's own sexuality and then mate choice and then you talk about internal uh plumbing and external genitalia I mean each one of these things is guided by a different kind of system you're going to end up with the variation a new next generation and so ancestrally it keeps cropping up now the question is if you if they keep cropping up. And then if they're dominant strategies and females are finding, for instance, males with these types of behaviors as attractive um you know, as leaders and so forth, then females are are you know, selecting them as mates and and having their babies. And if more, you know, really attractive uh females understand that they can be entitled and get what they want and people will defer and they can doesn't matter how they treat
29:16 them, they'll be more babies, right? And so to the extent that they invest in their babies, um, and so I think that to answer your question in a very long-winded way, this kind of this system just perpetuates itself only because this is what you get. I mean, when you have a sexually reproducing population that's this large, you'll get variation each a new each generation. So you tend to see it and especially now in in cultures where it's promoted. Yeah. Peter, what what have you noticed? What do you think about why there are psychopaths in the world? Well, I I mean I I agree with everything that Deb just said. Um I think that we talk about um you know at when we in clinical practice as as a psychotherapist when you're doing therapy and you're treating people. That's where
30:05 all those labels and criteria and things matter. um mainly for coding purposes and and things unrelated to um you know it's really just for somebody to how am I going to treat this person that came with these particular issues. What's characteristic versus what's symptomatic? You know what's what's the um when you say coding, do you mean like insurance coding? Yeah, like just coding um diagnostic coding, right? Things that medical records, you know, recording and things like that. Thank you. um it's not really that important to know you know if somebody is you know meets the criteria for NPD with some borderline features and you know like I mean it's not important for people in relationships to really know that that um you know that is those things are intended to
30:58 describe what somebody should be treating in clinical practice right I because because like what Deb was saying I part of it is is random variation, you know, this is a trait, you know. Um, and and and when I say it's a trait, I don't mean it's just like one trait and then now this person just has the psychopath trait and they're just walking around, you know, creating havoc. It doesn't work that way at all. But basically, um, we can't predict what how much of something somebody is going to have, you know, and there's a lot of factors that contribute to why somebody has more of a trait than than somebody else. Um, as you know, because from our previous interviews, um, I think it's been overly emphasized that it's all environmental, right? So I think when
31:44 if you ask most people why psychopaths are walking around, they would tell you that there was some early adversity that sort of set that pathway and then it was never buffered and so the person just sort of fantasized until they actualized and if they had been treated better they wouldn't have killed those 30 people. Um I completely disagree with that. I think it's a bunch of nonsense, right? Um so it's a certainly environments matter. Um, but I would say that just like Deb said, even if we, you know, took all these people, put them on an island, and then the island unfortunately they perished because it sank, they would reemerge in future generations because we're talking about um traits, random variation, things that we don't have control of. Mhm. Um, yeah. If I if I can ask
32:36 Peter like so but therapists who are treating people like why does it matter? Why does it even matter what caused it? Like who cares what caused it? That's how they are. They're not changing. And so I don't care if they are I don't care if they had a horrible event in their life. Like you know like that's who they are. They've had many decision points. They know when the look is bad. They they they choose like they're very careful. I mean, they're smart. They're very careful about when it is they deploy their tactics and their strategies. So, come on. So, who gives a rat's ass? If they develop that way, they're if there's if it was a trait and a gene and they're missing
33:23 the gene, I So what? If they were abused as a kid as a victim, so what? And I'm not I don't care. I don't mean to be I mean I mean to be callous like I absolutely mean to be exactly how I sound which is why do therapists care in front of them is someone who has just been abused right and so the question is forget the other person right and so they have to deal with what's in front of them and how to actually help build up the person in front of them and I mean so what I guess that's my question. Why do therapists care? Why do therapists care? What causes Yeah. abuse? I mean,
34:09 in the sense of there's a victim in front of me. Huh. From that victim's standpoint, that victim should should not care what caused the abuse. The abuse happened. Do you need any more information other than that? Oh, well, I think the victim starts to care why it happened a lot of times because inadvertently the therapist asks them what they did to contribute to it. So then it becomes more of an issue of we're going to get to the bottom of this, but there must have be there must be something that you projected or that you're trying to reenact that's unresolved that's getting you caught in this abuse cycle versus Yeah, those are symptoms that need to be treated. um it wasn't your fault. There are certain kinds of people that do it intentionally. Other people
34:55 do it in a more reactive way. Um but no, often times people get invalidated and then they get labeled something that could potentially be a side effect of the abuse but is is being, you know, um attributed to them as as if it originated in them. Like so they get labeled codependent or highly sensitive person or somebody who just has a a bit too much empathy and needs to kind of like, you know, tone it down. Um because it's their traits, their cooperative traits make them naive and gullible and stupid. And so let's work on your assertiveness and your boundaries all the while not asking, you know, anything related to the dynamics of the abuse. Um, and possibly too,
35:44 um, again, sadly, like I mentioned earlier, not believing that there's an intentionality to abuse. So that it's it's something that could always be conceptualized as a misunderstanding like that was co-created. But they don't do this to rape victims, do they? Like if you're I mean like I'm I'm interpreting everything you say right now as if I were in front of a therapist. Who doesn't do it to rape victims? So I guess what I'm saying a therapist would if they were treating someone who had been raped they would think about all the ways they might be codependent or contributing to that rape. Yes. A lot of them gen I would say generally yes. They would also sadly somehow find a way to fit in an explanation that the person who was doing the the
36:34 um the sexual violence was probably mistreated themselves and that's why they're doing it too. So they're also a victim. So let's put those therapists on the island with the people. Going to need a big island. I'm telling you, Dad. Well, I mean, you would believe it. I was going to say you wouldn't believe it, but you would believe um cuz you're in in you know, you're in the you're in academia and you you understand how things work. Like there there's been a lot of hostility related to me even mentioning the possibility that this isn't all just environmental adversity. like like not just hey I disagree but I'm going to refuse to look at counter evidence and I'm going to devalue
37:22 um the messenger and the message. It's not just I don't I disagree. I'm in a different a different camp. I'm in a different tribe. I mean, it's been it's been pretty interesting how vehemently opposed professionals are in mental health care to the idea that it's a that it's a good idea to educate their their clients on intentional abuse and intentional covert manipulation. Peter, could we get specific on on what the impact has been for you in raising these issues of genes and things in uh abusive behavior? Um, oh, it's ranged from um people like in my field um many of them being like
38:09 like deb kind of like duh like yeah like okay um that makes sense to me. I don't see anything any red flags there. Um so it's ranged from that which is I would say the majority of the feedback um to more um accusations of um violating professional ethics um stigmatizing people, vilifying people um introducing the concept of evil into something that should remain scientific, which is interesting. I've actually never used that term. I I stay away from it for that reason. Um but um uh being um accused of of um claims that I'm talking preaching some sort of determinism um that
38:58 it's it's similar to um making comparisons to to the eugenics movement. I mean really like bizarre like things. um saying I'm saying that I have no compassion or empathy because I'm saying people are hardwired and there's no point in even, you know, trying to help them. Just things that I've never really said. Um but there have also been formal accusations and complaints officially filed against me for speaking about this type of stuff. um even when I can back it up with research and sources, it's it's it's an interesting experience because um it's it's it's literally one person sharing a perspective that's been studied and researched extensively by other people and then it
39:43 becomes this thing of like we have to destroy this this right. So yeah, I experienced that within the last couple years on several occasions. Deb, I can see you leaning forward. What what's up? Well, I I so there's a history in the social and behavioral sciences of of emphasizing the role of the environment and thinking that the mind is more of a blank slate. And so it seems to appeal to people who believe that to be a morally uh a morally more um safe and safe safe ground uh you know to come from when talking about. So it's an environmental determinism which is truth
40:29 be told just as bad as genetic determinism. Um neither of which uh Peter and I are actually endorsing in in any in any real sense. So the idea that genetics matters, the environment matters. Um and so the question is how how are they interacting? But that's to me the question there's so many. So the history of psychology really does come through this kind of blank slate era. So you had behaviorism um and kind of these very general rules of learning. And so clinicians today were educated um to really think about the mind as being this play-doh, right? So it's really shaped and molded by external forces. And what evolutionary psychology has shown and biology has shown us is that no, in fact, there's a lot of content in the mind that we we come pre-equipped
41:19 with a lot of structure to the mind that's ready to accept information and to learn and to engage uh with the world in in the variety of ways that we do. And so there's a lot in there. There's a lot of content in there. Ask any engineer. You're not going to be able to uh you can't get a system up and running without pre-programming, right? So I mean, you can talk to I can talk to this can all I want. I can talk to, you know, I can talk to my notebook. I can talk to things all I want. If it's not actually equipped with the engineering to accept the information that it's, you know, that I'm delivering and knowing exactly what to do with that in a non-random way, then it's not going to do very much. And so, human behavior is extremely non-random. Um and
42:04 and actually so there was a couple of points but I just realized when you think about when I started to learn a lot about narcissism so the word just I I mean I hate the word because it seems to it just doesn't do it justice as to how and I'm going to use the word how evil these people are. You're a therapist. I'm an academic. I'm going to use evil all day long. And so um and so but the idea that what struck me when I first learned this um and we were talking about this Brad you know my sister was like you need to listen to this podcast and I was struck by how accurate this podcast had just described my situation like down to details I was like they know him. It was like shocking. And then
42:56 the more and more I consumed about this, I mean, I've never seen such stable patterns emerge. I I And so from that, I mean, how is it that you end up with something that is so canalized, so organized and repeated across individuals, across space, across time, across cultures, like you don't get that non-randomly, right? that that's that that that screams out that there's a system in there with content and that there's some organized psychology and cognitive processes that are somehow tied to genes and of course the development with interaction with the environment that is causing these types of of behaviors. And so um in any case, psychologists who don't
43:44 appreciate that there's content in the mind. So there's been a division in this in the natural and social sciences. So in the natural sciences, evolution matters, right? It actually structures a lot of the way we think. This mechanistic way of thinking, physics, chemistry, biology, I mean all the natural sciences, none of the laws of physics violate chemistry or none of the laws of chemistry violate physics. None of the laws of biology violate chemistry or physics, but all the social and behavioral sciences are all islands onto themselves. Each with their own set of theories that explain human behavior. How can that be? If we're a species, part of the, you know, great tree of life and we have the same types of origins as as other living systems, shouldn't the same processes explain human behavior? And so when you come at it from that
44:31 perspective, there's a lot of content in the human mind. But unfortunately, psychology and other social sciences have been slow to integrate what we've learned uh from biology and co. So not only the the modern synthesis and biology, but the cognitive revolution and cognitive science. And so clinical psychology is I think has done a good job with the tools that it's had, but it's time to update that with information that's current. And that suggests that the mind is equipped with a lot of systems that are um you know of course somehow tied down to genes. They get passed on generation to generation but that can generate these types of uh these types of behaviors. So I think that there's a big shift that's required in how people are educated and trained in these
45:19 fields that potentially can correct things you know over generations in the discipline. Deb, earlier you had mentioned attraction to these types of people, particularly women being attracted to men who display psychopathic traits. What do we know in science about attraction and these sorts of traits? So, um, so I'm not the expert on psychopathy. I think, you know, folks like Kent Keel or the, you know, and, uh, Rob Hair, those are the those are the ones that and and and his students are the ones to to bring on with that. So, in terms of attraction, women in general, um, so making a generalization, so I don't want anyone in your audience to like freak out here, but just like if you squint and you were to look at mate choice, uh, you know,
46:08 from from a distance, males and females tend to find different kinds of attributes attractive and it reflects our evolutionary past. And so it all comes down to what types of features would have limited each sex's reproductive success. So for males, what kind of features in females would have limited their ability to produce offspring? And it mostly gets tied to, you know, health and fertility. So males who were capable of identifying females who were at peak fertility, good health, you know, capable of bearing children and selected those individuals as mates, they would have left more offspring and more male children, you know, more boys who then inherited these preferences and so forth. And so males who didn't care and just made it at random
46:59 didn't leave as many offspring. And so that kind of system and trait of mating at random didn't get passed along. So males tend to prefer attributes that correspond to youth infertility. That you you need not know that. You just that gurgles up into like h she's attractive. Oh, she's hot. You know, and so it's not like you're thinking your symmetry is this and that. You must be healthy. That's reflecting a very stable and robust underlying developmental system. and like your waist to hip ratio is thus and such and that must mean that you are in this fertility, you know. No. And so it's just a matter of we're detecting a lot of things and then that kind of gurgles up into a an output of you know attractiveness um versus lack of attractiveness or disgust and aversion for
47:47 females. Um and so this is so this is one aspect of mate choice. Don't let me forget the second aspect. But for females, we have um so what would have limited a female's ability to to reproduce? That would have been access to resources. So the ability to find a mate who is capable of investing in her and her offspring, the ability to invest resources. You look animal, you know, kingdomwide that females and most species are looking for males who have access to a territory, a supply of resources that's going to allow her to invest in, you know, maintain health, but also invest in offspring. What corresponds with that in primates and in humans? Well, you're talking about, you know, obviously being physically fit, being more dominant. So the larger the male,
48:35 the more likely he's going to be able to ward off competitors, the more physically capable he is of, you know, hunting and having the stamina to do all of that stuff. The bigger he is, the it suggests that the longer he's been around, no one else has tried to kill him or if they have, they haven't been successful. And so potentially that also suggests that he has more social allies. So it's so females are looking for attributes that corresponded to you know having someone who was uh capable of investing in her and her offspring. I should mention that one of the critical things is kindness, right? So, why do women, you know, you look at all of the studies that have been done on mate preferences and typically some of the top um preferences are like kindness and intelligence,
49:24 right? So, females females that what's at the top isn't like money or financial prospects. That's never at the top. It's high, don't get me wrong, but it's never like the top. What usually you find is um so I'm referring to the work of David Bus and other other evolutionary psychologists. It's typically, you know, kind and smart. Um and it suggests that these dimensions varied ancestrally because if it didn't vary, we don't need the preference. If you're going to get it a standard stock in every human, then you don't need to have a preference for it. It's not like there's a preference for, you know, 10 fingers and 10 toes and like the fingernails that are like No, that was typical stock, you know, for for most. And so, but the kindness suggests that there were people and males who were unkind, who were violent, and who were abusive. And so, a female who's looking
50:12 for a more cooperative mate, um, would have done a lot better. She more a greater chance of actually staying alive uh, for one, and then having someone who's going to invest in her and her offspring. And so, kindness and intelligence, being able to solve problems and being socially savvy would have been critical. So those particular dimensions and mate choice I think make it so that you know today when so much is decoupled from ancestral you know uh conditions that a male who's just you know who looks dominant. I think that and seems nice. It might be messing around with female psychology to say and you're gonna get a whole host of other things that come along with it and and and this
50:58 is a true signal in this environment. Um and so I think that it can definitely um it can cause problems in that sense. I mentioned the second component of mate choice and so evolutionary psychologists have typically talked about like physical attractiveness. So men like fertility and women like resources if you were to kind of put um make it make it a caricature. But there's another dimension which is you know that's just like who's hot and who's not. That's not the who cares and values me for the unique attributes that I possess. That's not like the friendship component of things. So we become friends with people because we find them we we value their unique attributes um and they value ours and beyond sexual attraction. And so there's another
51:47 component of stable mateships that I think that the individuals who are in relationships that last are tend to be ones who are in relationships where they are valued uh for who they are uh beyond their fertility or resources. Um, and so that's a whole other dimension that goes into friendships, uh, and and strong social relationships, and that's sometimes overlooked, but I see it as really valuable, um, in the conversation about attraction. So, what we're getting at then is that someone with dangerous traits can present as very dominant and then they might have pro-social skills that allow them to also present as kind, even if it's just a front. Okay. I think so. I think so. Um, that's advantageous in in dating and mating to them, right? I mean, in the sense
52:38 of if they know what other people are looking for, they know how to trick the system. Mhm. Right. And then they know I know that once someone has bought in to the relationship, they're going to be less likely to let it go. And that's also an evolved I mean you here's an interesting question that I've often thought about which is why is it why is breaking up so hard to do right why isn't it just like hey you know what this isn't working out see you I'm out bye right why isn't that just as easy as falling for someone um and I think the answer again goes back to ancestral conditions that when you had a mate I mean how many mates were out there I mean not many and So when you
53:25 had a mate kind of like the you know dance with the one who brought you you're there you're with the person long long term chances of finding another individual who's going to care about you and your well-being and the well-being of your children is going to be uh it would have been rare ancestrally. So kind of making a relationship work and sticking with the person would have been a a good potentially good solution ancestrally. In modern worlds not so much. Peter, in your clinical practice, how do you see these systems in our in our biology really um being used against people or being something that people have to sort of work through in their process of healing? How do I see the systems used against people? Yeah. Um well, we're talking
54:14 about like operating systems that are completely different in nature. I mean to to the point where it almost seems like um we're not talking about the same species at times depending on how um severe um but it's disguised as something that's very normal and looks like everything else. So, I see the system used as something that's covert that mimics something very normal. And then by the time you're aware that you've been misled, all of the things that Deb just mentioned are in play where you already have a a significant attachment to the person. So, it's not just a matter of, oh, this is incompatible. I don't like the way that they're treating me or the way I feel. I'm just going to leave. There's that's not an option. Um by the time the person starts to
55:04 um you know become a little bit more lazy and let the mask slip a bit um that attachment bond has already forged enough where um walking away is um not just an option based on critical thinking and common sense. Yeah. Peter, you have a real skill for describing manipulation. Could you give an example of of how this is done and how people deal with it? Well, I think so the I I think that these individuals, like if we're talking about psychopaths, malignant narcissists, people that are um interpersonally exploitative, I believe that they have motivations for relationships that most people just don't understand because their mind doesn't work that way. So, um, a lot of
55:53 people will say things like, "They don't I don't feel like my partner's working on the relationship or in fact the partner's working a lot on the relationship just in ways to derail it or ways to subjugate the victim who doesn't feel like there's a lot of participation." Um, so, um, I think what happens is, um, these types of people rely on, you know, whatever neurotypical or normal people, what we've collectively decided is healthy, right? They they they rely on people not thinking that they're any different. And so, we're not entering into these circumstances um, suspicious. And so like a a covert manipulator, somebody who's really good at looking like something that they're not,
56:41 they're just going to kind of, you know, ride that out and wait till the other automatic systems kind of adopt this person create a repres a a representation of the person. and to the point where um it's it's pretty shocking to the system once the person starts to realize that you've um you've only ever heard about this person that's supposed to be great, but you've never actually met them, but you're in love with the person you've never you've only ever heard of. Right. Um Right. Deb, we had talked a little bit before. Would you like to share anything that stood out to you when you were sort of coming out of things and and recognizing patterns in retrospect?
57:28 Gosh, that's that's a huge question. Um, you know, I I will say something and that's for and I'm I think I want to speak to the people who might be listening to this because they're in a relationship like this or uh exiting and in a a stage of exiting of some sort and recovering, which is this. I uh I look back at 2 years of my life and I I feel sometimes slightly ashamed and I'd like to talk about shame because I'm the one feeling shame. My the partner was there's no shame. There was no shame. Um and so I feel shame
58:15 because shame and we'll talk we can talk about the evolutionary function of shame but I feel like I I devalued myself. I didn't treat myself well. I really didn't have I wasn't there for me. And I think about all the things that happened and now that I see them clear as day, I just go, "Oh my god." I was like, "I cannot believe I was I was that, you know, I cannot believe I allowed that type of boundary infraction. I cannot believe that it happened again and again." Like what was I thinking? because I was thinking and I was I was still I was hoping and I was thinking, you know, I don't want to rock any boats and maybe it'll go away and you know and and so I guess one of the
59:00 things that I realized is that thinking about how I treated myself makes me sad now. But what it has done on the positive note and this is what I why I wanted to share this is that it has really made me uh understand each of the situations cuz I think we kind of ruminate we go back and we kind of extract information from those situations and I've allowed myself to do that and kind of put it in its proper place but I've now told myself never again like like never again like what was missing what what was what was not shored up in here that was that that should have been or that
59:46 now is that wouldn't allow that kind of thing and how do I develop the communication skills and confidence to speak out and to say hey I don't like the way you're talking to me and you don't get to treat me like that and I've also learned that you know like I don't need this relationship like I've got me and that to me has been the most profound wonderful outcome of this entire process is that you know I've learned a lot and it's weird that I almost am grateful for having gone through it which sounds crazy given the hell but I I I'm I'm now me. I'm now better me. I'm a better mom.
1:00:33 I'm a better friend. I'm a better colleague. I'm a better instructor. I'm a better mentor. and I wouldn't I wouldn't and I'll be a better mate one day and I I wouldn't take it back wouldn't take it back for the world. Um and so that so I guess reflecting on that so if you are going through this my suggestion is you know give yourself the grace to process and and keep going keep going you know it it's it's you live through a hell and then it's hell to you know also recover and I think time time does it um so but that's one of the things but if we can if do you mind Brad if we talk about this idea of shame because I've in like my deep dive. During this time period, I'd hear people say like narcissists are acting out of shame. And I'm like, what? Like,
1:01:24 what kind of shame is that? Because when I think about it, the shame that I feel that makes me kind of lower myself and like want to repair the relationship with myself. And when you feel like you you feel ashamed of your behavior in front of your friends or your family, it causes you to want to prevent other people from devaluing you and kind of repair a relationship and forge, you know, move forward in a in a very different way. And so that's not that's exactly the opposite of what people who are like narcissists, you know, these kind of covert malignant narcissists do. So, if you want to talk about some Freudian, never to be seen, but in there somewhere possible shame, sure, go ahead. But I'm going to stay with what I know and what I can observe. And no shame
1:02:15 produces abuse, right? And so that's that's anger. That's an anger and that is a hatred. What causes people to lash out like that isn't a shame. Shame causes you to, you know, to lower posture. It's different. It causes you to want to approach people and like apologize and, you know, I'm really sorry. I'll do better in the future. And so I I think that narcissists cause shame to occur in their victims. They're not acting out of shame. You'd see a whole different suite of behaviors. Where does that end up both both on the victim and like perpetrator side of things in in therapy? Well, there's certainly a lot of shame for the victim because there's a lot of questions that they unfairly ask themselves like, "Why didn't I catch this sooner?" or "Why didn't I just leave?"
1:03:04 or "Why couldn't I have been stronger?" or "How could someone like me who's successful be so naive?" All these things when they're they're not factoring in the reality that um their ability to update beliefs was hijacked. Their ability to make sense of the data was, you know, compromised. Um, I don't believe that the perpetrators are motivated by this unconscious shame that is so deep and profoundly like governing everything and like putting salt in their emotional wounds all day, every day um, underneath the surface that they're compensating by mistreating people. I don't believe that. I think that the problem with these individuals is that they don't have enough shame to put on the brake um when they are have decided consciously to deliberately harm somebody
1:03:55 else because it benefits them and they're not interested in how it affects the other person. I think the issue is um too much of a willingness to say to believe their um believe in their unearned high self- reggard, you know, their unearned esteem. Um which is also another uh to me myth that they suffer from low self-esteem and that's why they act like they have high self-esteem. Um yeah, sure, if you say so. I I think that they don't have what they need to to to treat people the way that they should. Um and I think that victims are the ones who carry the shame. And I think that the perpetrators could stand to have some and then that might be um something that's
1:04:46 a bit more motivating to change than than all of the self-justification that they do. So, um, I'm on an I'm on an island with that belief that narcissists aren't compensating for this deep, profound hidden shame that they avoid all day and that's why they act out. To therapists credit. So if I had to like shine like if I had to say something nice about the therapist that you just talked about who are talking about perpetrators as having this kind of internal you know shame that causes them to do this I would say that's a reflection of the fact that therapists themselves are believe that they're dealing with people with a full deck right so if you if you don't know if you've never interacted with someone like this and you just have one kind of model of human nature and and what people are and how people are and you as a therapist or someone like
1:05:34 I know that when I feel like I I would want to grow and there's always a reason why I do these kinds of things and and and want to repair situ like I think it's a reflection of the fact that therapists are are playing from the same playbook which is a normal psychology right so their own psychology that brings them into people can grow people can change it's the environment and you know they're the therapists so that I think that's a natural a natural interesting thing but in my book it's not shame at all Um, I I think it is what I what I when I reflect back on some of the earliest conversations, like first date conversations, there is a there is it's laced with anger. It's a it's like I I cannot possibly believe that other people have gotten further than
1:06:20 me just because they're tall, dark, and blonde or handsome, whatever it is, like like I'll show the world that I can screw with them all and dominate. And so I I heard anger. I heard I mean it's it's it's laced with a I'm going to show all of you. Um that's there's no shame there. It's more of a it's more of a contempt and a spite. Um and that gets aggressive and hostile, right? Um they feel like people's um you know they move quickly from idealizing something or admiring something outside of themselves and some sometimes in someone else. they they move quickly to to co wanting it, you know, coveting it. Um, it's good for a time. Even the things that attracted them to you are
1:07:11 good. But then it doesn't last very long before they devalue and spoil and destroy those things, you know. So, um, even the things that drew them to you that they find appealing, they eventually have contempt for. So it's more it's it's it's um it's like you have to understand that they are they are it's a completely different operating system. The things that motivates them it's not the pro-social emotions that motivate the three of us you know where we enter into something
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