Psychologist and deception researcher Dr Leanne Ten Brinke discusses what empirical research does—and does not—support about spotting lies and ‘dark’ personality traits. She cites work suggesting observers can form moderately accurate first impressions of psychopathic traits from very brief video clips, while stressing that personality assessment improves with time and context. Drawing on her PhD research into televised appeals by people seeking missing loved ones, she says a model using two verbal and two non-verbal cues initially classified deceptive versus genuine ‘pleaders’ with about 90% accuracy, but that later replication attempts produced much more modest effects.
On everyday lie detection, Ten Brinke says people average only about 54% accuracy when judging deception from videos, and argues that better questioning—open-ended prompts, unanticipated follow-ups, and checks for verifiable detail—outperforms folk beliefs about body language. She says gaze aversion is not supported as a reliable cue to lying and notes research indicating autistic people may be wrongly perceived as deceptive due to eye-contact expectations. Ten Brinke also describes lab findings linking lying with increased cortisol reactivity.
The conversation turns to the ‘dark tetrad’ (psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism and sadism), including prevalence estimates and developmental influences combining genetics and environment. Ten Brinke challenges the idea of ‘successful psychopathy’, saying her research found higher psychopathic traits linked to less influence in government and lower earnings among hedge fund managers. She outlines practical strategies for handling harmful personalities at work and in relationships, including explicit boundaries and avoiding face-to-face negotiations when manipulation or violence is a concern.
Dr Leanne ten Brinke says research does not support poor eye contact as a dependable sign of lying. She argues eye contact is easy to control and varies across individuals and cultures. She adds emerging research suggests autistic people may be judged as lying more often when telling the truth if observers overvalue eye contact.
Read this moment →Dr Leanne ten Brinke says her team analysed televised appeals by people seeking missing loved ones, comparing later-linked homicide cases with genuine appeals. She says an early four-cue model predicted lying versus truth-telling at about 90% accuracy, but a later replication produced much more modest effects. She adds that the more consistent signals were verbal measures such as word count and tentative language.
Read this moment →Dr Leanne ten Brinke recalls research with Dacher Keltner testing whether psychopathic traits predict success in competitive settings. She says higher psychopathy scores were associated with less influence in government and lower earnings among hedge-fund managers.
Read this moment →Dr Leanne ten Brinke says research suggests viewers can form partly accurate impressions of psychopathic traits from as little as five seconds of video. She cites work by Scott Lilienfeld and colleagues finding that lay ratings of brief offender interview clips correlated with clinicians’ longer assessments. She adds her team later coded verbal and non-verbal cues in the footage, including Duchenne-style smiles and hand gestures.
Read this moment →Dr Leanne ten Brinke says research in her lab found higher cortisol reactivity among people instructed to lie than among truth-tellers. She links the difference to the stress and cognitive load involved in maintaining a false account.
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