Worklife with Adam Grant ReThinking: How to spot psychopaths and narcissists, with Leanne ten Brinke
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Mar 10, 2026 
Leanne ten Brinke, a social psychologist who studies narcissism, psychopathy, and deception, shares how to spot dark personality traits. She discusses behavioral cues like smiles and interruptions. She explores when to distance versus manage, how these traits show up in leadership and politics, and practical tactics for setting boundaries and reducing harmful tendencies in yourself.
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Psychopathy Lowers Automatic Emotional Contagion
- People with psychopathic traits show reduced automatic emotional contagion, like being less likely to yawn in response to others.
- Leanne ten Brinke links this to different facial scanning and diminished automatic empathy, though cognitive empathy can remain intact.
Dark Tetrad Shares Callous Core But Differs In Flavor
- The dark tetrad bundles psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and sadism around callousness and manipulativeness.
- Each trait has a distinct flavor: impulsive psychopathy, strategic Machiavellianism, grandiose narcissism, and pleasure-in-pain sadism.
Thin Slices Reveal Incongruent Emotional Signals
- Thin-slice cues reveal psychopathy: inappropriate emotion mixes, rambling, interruptions, boundary violations, misused big words.
- Five-second clips allowed observers to detect higher psychopathy based on verbal-nonverbal mismatches like angry words with broad smiling.