Human Lie Detector: The #1 Sign They’re Lying To You, Catch Liars Instantly! | Dr Leanne ten Brinke

Steven Bartlett (0:00)

How long does it take someone to spot a psychopath?

Leanne ten Brinke (0:02)

About five seconds. So most people think a psychopath looks dangerous. They picture the villain in a movie, but that's not how it works in real life. We've done some research in my lab, and we found there are certainly some things that you can look for.

Steven Bartlett (0:14)

Have they ever done that with lying to figure out if people can spot lies?

Leanne ten Brinke (0:18)

Thousands of times. You ask people, what's the number one cue that someone is lying to you? They will say, they can't look you in the eye, but there's no research to suggest that that is true. However, there's an essential tool for detecting lies, which is, oh, fuck. I know that I study dark personality traits, and I found that there's four different elements, which are psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism and sadism. And what we found is that people with higher levels of these traits engaged in duchenne smiles, which is the activation around the eyes. And they also used a lot of hand gestures.

Steven Bartlett (0:50)

Where does this come from?

Leanne ten Brinke (0:51)

Well, research suggests that abuse, cold, uncaring, parenting style, but also overvaluation of a child early in life may lead to more narcissistic views later.

Steven Bartlett (1:02)

Is there any other fascinating questions you've pursued in your lab?

Leanne ten Brinke (1:04)

Yes. We studied the extent to which psychopathic personality traits could increase the amount of influence you have in government. And also there are three common mistakes people make when dealing with dark personalities. We'll get into this more later.

Steven Bartlett (1:17)

And I'm wondering if you can spot any of these dark personality traits just by looking at dating profiles.

Leanne ten Brinke (1:22)

All right. So this is Ryan.

This feels like a red flag. And then there's Haley. That would be associated with a psychopathy. Okay. David is a brain surgeon. Very impressive. But I'm seeing narcissism.

Steven Bartlett (1:35)

So I guess this begs the question, that if someone has those traits you've described, can they be cured?

Leanne ten Brinke (1:40)

So in my lab, what we found is that...

Steven Bartlett (1:47)

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Professor Leanne Ten Brinke, at the very heart of your motivations, why is it you do what you do?

Leanne ten Brinke (2:28)

I want to make people less cynical about human nature, which I think might seem kind of paradoxical given what I study, because I study deception and dominance and so-called dark personality traits. But I think when you understand those topics, and also that there's something you can do about it to make these interactions better, it's incredibly powerful and can give us a more accurate view of the world.

Steven Bartlett (2:58)

And why are the population at large so interested in these subjects? Because they are. They're fascinated by them. But what is underneath all of the sort of fascination and the curiosity, what are they trying to figure out when people are interested in psychopathy?

Leanne ten Brinke (3:12)

You know, I think one of the reasons why we are so interested in psychopathy is because it's quite foreign to us. So most of us move through life caring about other people, having compassion for other people, telling a few lies here and there, but by and large being very truthful and honest and kind of playing by the rules. And that's like the opposite of psychopathy. So I think when you are faced with this personality, that is quite the opposite of your whole experience of being alive, you're like, what's going on? And I want to understand that. I think there's also an element.

There actually is some research on true crime specifically and why people are interested in true crime. It tends to be a largely female audience. And some of the motivations that people report is like wanting to understand and wanting to avoid becoming victim of these people.