Trending With Dr. Pam Spurr – Dr Gregory Carter, Rob Harkavy

Hello and welcome. I'm Dr. Pam Spurr. You're here with me at the men's radio station right now live. And this is the show called trending with Dr. Pam. Now, every fortnight we look at what's been trending recently. And it doesn't matter what the politicians and the celebrities have done to set the trends, we bring those trends back to our own lives. And I do this every week with a special guest. And we look at how these trends that we see on Twitter actually impact us, what they mean to us. And that's every fortnight here on the men's radio station. Of course, it's repeated on Fridays on the men's radio station and the women's radio station. Now, today I've got three fantastic guests. But first, let me tell you and remind you how you can connect with us. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram from the men's radio station. On Twitter, it's Mensradio stn. And on Instagram and Twitter, it's the men's radio station on Facebook. So, yes. So men's radio sdn is the same for Instagram and Twitter. And then it's men's radio station on Facebook. And for the women's radio station, it's on Twitter, it's mensradio stn. And it's the same for Instagram and then it's women's radio station on Facebook. You can also find us on YouTube. Then we've got, of course, the fantastic website. So it's mensradiostation.com and thewomensradiostation.com so let me tell you who I've got coming up today. I've got the fabulous Sabrina Washington, who you'll know from the band Mystique. She's a singer songwriter with a solo career now. And she and I are going to be catching up on what she's up to as well as talking about the trends. And then, of course, I've got, I've been talking about it on Twitter, Dr. Gregory Carter, who's going to be talking about psychopaths. Have you got one at work? Maybe you don't even kind of realize. You think, what is this behavior? You know, can you identify that person as a psychopath? And he'll be talking about if there's gender differences, you know, what's the difference between a male psychopath and a female psychopath? He'll also be taking us through some of the psychopath test, some of the questions that people answer when they're, you know, exploring whether or not they are a psychopath. Perhaps they've been, you know, in trouble with the law or the, you know, the legal system in some way. And they're going through, you know, a forensic psychologist is, is administering that kind of test. So we'll be able to look at some of those questions which would be fascinating. So that's Dr. Gregory Carter. And then I've got my friend Rob Harvey, who's the editor of Out News Global, long career as a journalist. He'll be talking about the fact that he once dated someone he definitely thinks had psychopathic or sociopathic traits. So that's going to be fascinating what the signs were that told him that this person is quite dangerous, maybe not physically dangerous, but dangerous to his well being and his mental health and destructive in the relationship. So that's going to be really interesting. I know I once dated someone a long, long time ago who I thought maybe had those tendencies. And you might remember the TV show the Charmer and how Nigel Havers played a sort of psychopath. But he was very charming. And that seems to be part of what a lot of psychopaths have about them is they know how to charm people and to kind of reel them into their kind of web. And once you're there, you then might find out about their darker side. And so, you know, that show was a long time ago. I was very young. I think it's one of the first things I ever watched when I first moved to England. But I'll never forget how he managed to kind of lure this woman into his life. So we'll be finding out more about that and we'll be hearing, when Sabrina Washington joins me, hearing about her new music, her solo career, what's happening with that. And I'm really looking forward to playing you a little clip of her latest tune, which is a total banger. And also we're going to be talking about trends that as I mentioned, and some of the trends we're talking about today include gifting Christmas gifts and how I feel that's become quite shallow and that people will just buy any old thing rather than thinking about what really suits that person and giving something personal, maybe even something you've made. I've got to say some of the best Christmas gifts I've ever had in my life or what my children have made me. And I still have some here. In fact, I know when it's broadcast on Fridays on the radio station, you will not be able to see this because it goes out as a classic radio show. But if you're watching on Facebook, I have this coaster that one of my children painted for me when they were about 10 years old. And so I've kept that, gosh, like 20 years, years. And then also I've got a photo frame, one of my favorite ever gifts from one of my children that she painted with little stars. She used glue and then put the glitter on and then put a family photograph in it. So those are the things that I count as real gifts. I would much rather have something made by my children now they're grown up, so they make me something very different to those things. But I wonder for you, if you feel that, you know, gifts, it's all become so commercial, too commercial for. For us to. To feel they feel good about giving and receiving. And, you know, if you've ever felt that someone has given you something that, you know, you really, you didn't feel came from the heart and you felt it was that kind of flowers from the petrol station 4 court, that sort of where they just grabbed the last thing on the shelves and that's what they gave to you. Because, of course, that can leave you feeling a little bit cheated and that you wish they'd put a bit more thought than just going to the petrol station last thing. So I think that's really important, coming up to Christmas, to think about those things. Especially this year, in the year of COVID when all of our lives have changed so drastically. I mean, I had 12 weeks where we didn't see half the family, half of the immediate family because of lockdown. We had some of the family living with us, but it was so painful being separated from my youngest and her husband. And I know so many of us have gone through things like that. And even worse, of course, people have lost their lives or they've been very, very sick. You think of Kate Garraway's husband, Derek Draper, who's been sick now for, like, five, six months, in a terrible situation. And so this is a year for us all to think more carefully about things like Christmas and what it means to give gifts. Now, some of the other trending topics I'll be talking about are, like, Boris Johnson and Kerry Simons were trending on what her opinion was on what's going on backstage at Downing street with some of the staff changes. Now, you know, Kerry isn't an elected politician, she's the fiance of the Prime Minister. But it just goes to show that in every relationship, we do get influenced by our partners and what they say can count, whether you're, you know, you're delivering the post or you're the pm. You know, sometimes without even thinking you're being influenced, you can be influenced by your partner. So I wanted to sort of unpick that with Sabrina about how we're going to look at how sometimes partners affect us in a good way and sometimes they affect us in a bad way. And again, I feel that when I mentioned that I once dated someone who I think might have had sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies, how he influenced me in a very bad way because he made me feel very bad about myself. And that's never a happy place to be. Pardon me, I've got a little tickle. I've been doing too much talking, too many Skype meetings this week, so. And other trending topics we're going to look at today include, let me get the list. Eddie Jaku, the amazing Auschwitz survivor who has written a book called the Happiest man on Earth and he's now over 100. And he says how he has embraced life despite the trauma of his childhood and is so happy and he's hopeful and he believes in staying healthy. And so I'm going to be looking at what really makes us happy. What are the things that make you happy and what are the meaningful things that will make you know that make me happy. And I can tell you right now, there's nothing that makes me happier than having a little time with family or friends. Yes, I love my work. Yes, I love painting. You see a couple of paintings in the background. Throw myself into my painting for the last, since, since last autumn. But what makes me absolutely the happiest is just that little bit of time with family or a good friend. You cannot beat that connection. Now I realize so many problems you know, are in many families have problems. So sometimes it's your friendships who bring you the most happiness. But for other people I've come across in my, in my psychology and coaching work, people who are incredibly independent and they are more than satisfied going out and pursuing their own things that bring them joy. And what brings them happiness might be a hobby or their work. So it's not always human led happiness. It's not always about being with someone very special to you or someone you know who's, who's been in your life all your life like your brother, your sister, your mom or your dad. So there are people who, who find happiness in other ways. And if you're listening on Facebook, do message me what makes you feel happy and how you we can be a little bit more like Eddie and Eddie and how he. A hundred years on and even the trauma of Auschwitz, what he cares most about, I think brings him real happiness. So that's when we're also going to be talking about Singles Day. And of course, Singles Day is, you know, a lot of people on Twitter are very, very made such jokes about Singles Day and how, you know, come on, I'm single here, message me now, you know, that sort of thing. And that was really, really, it was fun to read through the hashtag. But there are other people and with my date coaching hat, I know how tough it is when someone tells me, you know, I'm being pressured by my mom, my parents, you know, family members, my auntie, my uncle, they're saying, why have you not found someone yet? And they're sort of asking, why on earth are you still single? You're such a catch. And, you know, there's a lot of answers to that. It may be that you are happy and sorted as a single and you don't care about finding a soulmate for you. Life is just, you're living it to the full and it means so much to you just to crack on and not have someone else to answer to. And I hope that also is, is something that you might message me about. So definitely get onto the men's radio station, Facebook, send me a message or via Twitter. And of course, that's really, really important when you, you know in your heart that you are happy the way you are living your single life, but the people around you just don't get it. And it's important that you learn how to express that without ending up in arguments. Because as I say, when I'm date coaching, I often, I speak to people who are having a terrible time with their family. Every time they go visit their parents, they end up in an argument because their parents said, why haven't you brought home your Mr. Or Mrs. Right? So that's enormous pressure on parents that parents can put on singles and also the extended family. I know one person I date, Coach, who came from a large extended family where everybody was into each other's business. And for her, it was a nightmare going to any gathering where her aunties were, because the aunties were the worst. They were all like, we'll find you someone, we'll find you someone. But of course, the people that they'd introduced her to just didn't work out. And she was not that interested in finding someone through the family. She'd rather found someone with her own, you know, in her own circle, her friends or the Places that she hung out. So that's a really important thing to think about. When you know, you are single and getting that sort of pressure, you set that boundary. And I'll tell you how you do that. You repeat the most important. The most important thing, and that is, I am happy the way I am. You need to take it or leave it. And please don't raise this conversation with me again. And the next time you might visit, you might get that same thing again, where they say, again, they slip up, they forget that you set your boundaries and you just repeat that simple thing to end the discussion and you just say, I'm happy the way I am, and I'll let you know if I ever meet someone, but please stop asking me about this. So that's really critical. And the more you repeat that to them, the less likely they are to actually sort of, you know, to not believe you. They will believe you, they'll start believing you, and they'll let go of their hopes and dreams for you and start listening to what you have to say. But these are really, really big issues for people, and I really feel for some of the singles that I meet in my work and some of my friends who've been there and done that. Other thing I want to talk about is, you know, sometimes it's all about timing. And that's what we're going to come to a bit later. But right now I'm absolutely delighted to welcome psychologist Dr. Gregory Carter, who's written extensively about psychopaths and the D triad. He's even contemplating a book on these fascinating areas on Twitter. You can find him at glkfc. Hello, Gregory. Hi, Pam. How are you? I'm really well. Thank you for joining me this afternoon. Thank you. Now, when I came, I came across your articles on psychopathy, and I find it absolutely fascinating. And I thought, I want to go to someone who knows what he's talking about and find out so much more about this darker side of human nature. My first question for you is, how did you end up writing about psychopaths? Was this a natural progression in your career or something? You just thought, I want to find out more. I want to research this. It was quite organic, actually. I started doing my undergraduate dissertation on narcissism and gender differences. And I. I graduated in 2009, which, as you might recall, was not a particularly good time for people to try and find a job, that being the year of the recession. Yes, it feels a bit deja vu at the moment. Anyway, I carried on. I did a Master's in developmental psychopathology. And then by the time I got to my doctorate, my PhD in psychology, the notion of this constellation of three particular dark personality traits called the dark triad, because they share variants, they predict some similar. Some very dissimilar outcomes. And my supervisor, the sadly late Professor Ann Campbell, but a very eminent evolutionary psychologist, she suggested that I broaden my research to include the others, as well as narcissism and Machiavellianism and psychopathy comprise the dark triad. So that's how I got into that, and that's what I've been researching and teaching on since. Well, for about a decade or so, I think. Something like that, yeah. Wow. Well, you know, it's really interesting because on a light note, talking about the dark triad, when I used to do the Big Brother spinoff show and chat about the behavior of the housemates, we'd sometimes talk about, you know, like, Rylan and I would talk about the dark triad. Do any of them show like that they're plotting the Machiavellian side? Are they really, you know, sort of into themselves and narcissistic? Are they psychopathic? And they just don't care. They just want to win Big Brother? But that was always on a kind of lighthearted note. But that dark triad, it's really scary when you read about it. Now, tell me, first off, in movies we see about, like, the serial psychopathic killers and TV dramas, is violence always a part of it, or is it. Can it be more like psychological violence or plotting or scheming? Absolutely the latter. I think we're conditioned somewhat by television programs and films. You think of American Psycho or you think of the more contemporary Netflix series, you. I don't know if you've seen that, but it's an excellent. I have really excellent study in psychopathy on more than one character's count. But, you know, I'm not going to spoil anything for anyone, but if you're interested in psychopathy, then I recommend it. So it's not. It's not always associated with violence per se, and certainly not with killing or maiming or assaulting others. It is associated with what we call dysfunctional impulsivity, certainly with impulsivity and with sensation seeking. Now, explain sensation seeking to people who aren't psychologists as well. We are so seeking stimulation in a way that is sort of above and beyond the normal level of stimulation that most human beings seek. You know, none of us like to be bored. And depending on our other personality traits, we have interests that range from sitting quietly in the park reading a Book to wanting to jump out of an airplane with, hopefully with a parachute, you know, stuff like that. So impulsivity is like all personality traits. It's something that exists on a spectrum from low to high. Same with sensation seeking. Some people have a higher threshold in terms of what stimulates them and psychopathic individuals would come very much at the higher end of that spectrum. Just to briefly return to criminality. What you see, partly because of the career paths that these individuals choose, a lot of the crime that they do commit tends to be white collar crime. So we see them gravitate towards roles like CEOs or CFOs or people with very high level managerial responsibilities or political responsibilities. And they have a tendency to abuse that for their own at least short term goals. Yeah, so I suppose I've always, when I think about that sort of people who reach the highest echelons of society, some of them potentially having those psychopathic qualities, is that what you're saying? Because they're happy to step on whoever they have to to get to the top. They're kind of. Or will they be more scheming and cunning than just crushing everybody else? I mean, elbowing out of the way. So it's. That's a very good question. And it depends on the extent to which their psychopathic tendencies are tempered by other aspects of their personality. People who are high in Machiavellianism, for example, tend to play a longer game. Whereas psychopathy is a very short term strategy. You know, the more immediate the payoff and the bigger the payoff, the more one benefits oneself, the better it is as a psychopathic strategy. But there's a psychologist who you might be familiar with called Kevin Dutton who's written extensively on psychopathy and he's got a very accessible book that's written for non academic individuals as well as academics and he listed the top 10 careers with the highest proportion of psychopathic individuals. Right at the top you've got CEO, lawyer, media personality, salesperson, surgeon, journalist, police officer, clergy, chef and civil servant. So police officer, yes. Yeah. Doesn't surprise me about the media. I've met some very ruthless types in the media, but police officer? Yeah. And quite a few people are often surprised by surgeon, especially when you look at the career paths that people lowest in psychopathy take, which are not wholly dissimilar at a certain fundamental level. So one of the lowest scoring careers is nurse, but with surgeon, if you think about it, they. The most successful surgeons are people who can completely emotionally detach themselves from the circumstance and basically look at the human body that is going under their scalpel as more of a machine than as a human being. Yeah. And it's power of life and God as well, isn't it? So, you know, it's got that sort of grandiose aspect to it as well. Wow. Because I've, I've had a lot of surgeries over the years. I've done a lot of sport, I've had a lot of sporting injuries. I've had three shoulder operations after, you know, big sporting accidents on the ski slopes, water skiing, that kind of stuff. And all the surgeons. I've got to say it's something about the bedside manner that maybe resonates what you're saying. One surgeon of all the ones I've had for the different issues I've had, very friendly bedside manner, but the rest are quite detached, you know, and, and it is kind of like, you know, they wish in, they, you know, say hello and then they wash out, put their scrubs on and, you know, it's like they're not really interested in you as a person, just you as a body. Yeah. And it might be the case that the surgeon you said had a good, a good bedside manner was, you know, we're not talking sort of universal brush strokes. There will be surgeons who aren't psychopathic. Yes, of course. But one of the hallmarks of psychopathy, even though individuals who are psychopathic struggle to genuinely empathize with others and understand emotional behaviors, they can adopt the behaviors that they recognize in others as being successful and as being useful, to ingratiate themselves with others and to, you know, facilitate the achievement of their goals. There's quite a well known phrase in the field that dates back to the 1940s. 1941, from a psychologist called Hervey Cleckley. And he referred to psychopathic individuals day to day behavior as them wearing a mask of sanity. Some people, that's more convincing than others. Some people, it's thicker than others, it doesn't fall down quite so readily. But that's how it's been conceptualized for as long as it's sort of been understood and studied by clinical psychologists and academics, psychologists, personality researchers, etc. You see, I can understand when you mentioned, say the police officers, an authoritarian streak coming in to a personality who is attracted to that job where it's regimented and you go up in steps and there's laws you obey and laws you enforce. So where. So authoritarian personality personalities, you know, kind of want to do things by the book and they, and they find it hard to look outwards at other maybe solutions. So how does like psychopathic traits play into then the police? I mean, apart from the obvious murdering police we've had in America recently. I was going to say the forensics incidents of the last, well, I would just say months. But, you know, we all know it's been something that has persisted for a while. And yes, you, you talk about, you know, laws they enforce and all the rest of it. There's quite a lot of, as we've seen, there's quite a lot of protection for police serving police officers that rather, it can enable them to get away with behaviors that other individuals might not. Again, I'm not suggesting for one moment I've got some very good friends who are police officers and they're some of the most lovely people I know. But for those who are those who are psychopaths, for those individuals who are psychopathic in nature, a career like police officer represents a way that, just as you said, they can gain authority over others. It's a structured environment that they can fairly easily comprehend. It's largely emotionally detached. You can rise up the higher hierarchy and so on. So it is very much the sort of role that might suit a highly psychopathic individual. Now, you mentioned television drama. You did you ever see maybe five, six years ago, Sons of Anarchy about the motorcycle gang set in California? No, I didn't. I know the title, but no, I haven't seen the show. I've just write it down. Sons of Anarchy. Well, yeah, the police chief in that is definitely a psychopath and they read that well. And yeah, so as an example to anybody who's watched that series, which, you know, really good series, but for me, I have to hide from actual violence. I'm one of these people who find it really hard to watch violent scenes. So I like more the psychological drama, the buildup of something in a story like that. And then when it comes to the, you know, actual violence, you know. Yeah, so back to this thing about violence talking about in our everyday lives. So we may interact with someone like who's our manager above us or even a colleague who may have these tendencies. But as you say, there's not the violent signs. So tell us more about the kind of charming side, you know. Yeah, so charm is the sort of first weapon in their arsenal, if you want. And I have found over the years that when I am explaining these personality traits to individuals, most people have heard of narcissism and have a pretty good understanding of what it is. Some people have heard of psychopathy or it helps if I pronounce it psychopath. They all say it's psychopaths rather than psychopathy. But most people gravitate towards attributing it or associating it with violence and with criminal behavior. And then quite few people know what Machiavellianism is unless they've studied politics or history, potentially. So on a day to day basis they have a sort of superficial, glib charm. They can be very ingratiating, like I was sort of alluding to earlier, in the sense that although they don't have the. They literally don't have the physical neurological capacity in some cases to process emotions the same way others do because of hypothesized, and there is quite a bit of evidence for it, of a defect in their amygdala in the brain. They're running through a script and a script that they know works for, you know, for a date or for a business meeting or, you know, for networking, whatever it might be. They can string all the words together. They can be very eloquent, very endearing. But it's surface level. There's, there's nothing really there. They, they don't form emotional connections with people. It's very rare that they. Very rare that they do. I was gonna say, does that mean if they get in a relationship they can never be hurt because like the narcissist who, who can be, oh, very excessively upset and hurt by things because they want everything to revolve around them. Does it mean kind of someone with a psychopathic personality? You know, you could break up with them. You could maybe start thinking their behavior is weird and break up with them, but they wouldn't actually be hurt by that. They wouldn't feel like we've been, when we've been heartbroken or. Yeah, it might be the case that they're not hurt in what we would perhaps consider a conventional way. They're unlikely to be the sort of person who's going to crack out a tub of Ben and Jerry's in a box set and wallow for a week or so. But their ego will have been offended, you know, unless they were orchestrating the breakup, but they just thought they'd hang on in there for as long as they could access finances, sex, whatever it was that they were benefiting from. But so if they are offended or upset, what's more likely as a course of behavior for them is that they will try and exact revenge of some sort. You know, they can become a plague on people's lives. I've known and it's usually women because there is a considerable sex difference in the, in the way psychopathy manifests. So highly psychopathic individuals are much more frequently men than women. So I've known women who have been in relationships with psychopathic individuals and, you know, it can be one, two years down the line. And especially if there are children involved or pets or something like that or any lingering financial concerns, they will do whatever they can to vex their former partner because it's, it's a game to them, it's fun. So they don't care about smashing through someone's life, even if children are involved. Yes. I've come across breakups like that in my work where. Yes. Yeah. No, I've looked at what you study and research on and, yeah, with relations. A colleague at York University and I have been looking at the way in which these traits and psychopathy seems to be the strongest predictor how they interact with people, using dating apps and sort of dating in general. There are some very interesting results that are pretty much exactly what you would expect. You mentioned that there's a higher prevalence of psychopathic traits in men than women, but is a female psychopath potentially more dangerous? Because we don't expect that like the Machiavellianism and the, you know, the dark tribe come into play, maybe, or. No, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head there. So there are a couple of facts and figures that I like to crack out in, in my lectures when I'm dealing with romantic relationships or evolutionary psychology more broadly. So say we have an intake of about, oh, I don't know, 120 students or so. Yeah. When I first talk with them about psychopathy, I explain to them, well, I asked them what they think the prevalence of psychopathy in the general population is, and they guess, you know, one in 300, one in 250. It's actually about one in 100. So if you've got a class of 120 students, you notice they start to look around on their left and their right and think within that 1%, 80% of that demographic are men rather than women. So in addition to being a relatively small proportion of the society anyway, they're also a small proportion of that proportion. But as you, as you were speculating a moment ago, or deducing, I should say, because it wasn't speculation, it was deduction, they can be all the more harmful to others as a result. There's a very interesting book, again written for a lay audience as well as an academic audience. It's called why Women have sex. Not one. I've heard of that, but I haven't read it. You have read it? No, I haven't read it. I have heard of it. Right? Yes, yes. It's not necessarily one that you want to read while you're commuting, but, you know, if you find a quiet spot somewhere where other people can't look at you and go hide the COVID or use a Kindle, yeah, absolutely. I can't see what it is. So. But in Messton, rather than presupposing what motivations individuals across the spectrum of all different personality traits, you know, including psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism, they asked them fairly open endedly, what are your motivations for having sex? And some of them were fairly predictable. To feel good about myself, to make my partner feel good about themselves, you know, anything sort of along that line, because I love the person. But then there were a few that they weren't expecting. And the most, well, frankly the most psychopathic of the ones they weren't expecting that I found, and this usually draws gasps from the students, is I wanted to infect my partner with an std. Yeah. Wow. That is about as psychopathic as it comes. Oh my God. That makes me actually feel physically sick. Yeah, I. It's not, it's not pleasant to think about, but that's, you know, unfortunately, the, the nature of the personality trait at extreme levels, I hasten to add. One of the most intimate things you know without otherwise harming someone, the most intimate way of harming them is, oh, and they're likely to be able to get away with it because of the way that sexual exchanges normally work. You know, if an attractive woman, especially one you've slept with before or whatever, offers you sex as a man. And there are a wealth of studies that attest to this, including general knowledge, of course. A man is unlikely to say no without potentially realizing what he might be getting himself into. So, so what about if you're dating, what kind of signs would someone look for? And, and that might tell you this is an alarm, you know, because you're saying the charming side, the fact that some of them are skilled at using the behaviors they've seen are successful with people. So it must be hard without actually getting fully involved with one, to actually identify one before you're like really reeled in, you know. Yeah, there's, there's a phrase that I quite like. I'm pretty sure it's from the animated Netflix series BoJack Horseman. And one of the female characters who's been dating BoJack on and off for some time. And he is, he's certainly narcissistic and he's probably high in all the dark tribes. But anyway, she says of him that the trouble with wearing rose tinted glasses is you don't see any of the red flags. Yes, good line. Yeah, I wish it were my own, but I couldn't take. I couldn't take credit for it's the excellent writers on that show, but I think it might take. Unfortunately, it might take a little while to become apparent, but I think it would be things like aloofness, possibly a very skewed. A very skewed interest in one's own pursuits and time and emotional circumstances. Not really demonstrating empathy at times. One would expect a lack of care and attention, essentially. I mean, I'm talking towards the milder end of the spectrum. On a more sizable level, we've got things like, you know, persistent cheating, infidelity and things like that that, you know, again, not everyone who cheats is psychopathic, but psychopathic individuals are very much inclined towards cheating and sexual partners as they can. And repeat offenders maybe too. Now, what about now? I once worked with someone who I found, and maybe this is my alarm system going off would always bring the conversation around to really dissing, disrespecting other colleagues. And I'm not going to say what kind of business was. I've worked in hospitals, I've worked in media companies, I've worked in all sorts of other companies. So no one could guess that, oh, this must be a fellow psychologist. No, it's not necessarily a fellow psychologist. So. And they always brought the conversation around, not just a little gossipy. Oh, did you hear? So and so broke up. But really, I found incredibly, really digging at the person's personality and digging at the person's work, I found it really. It kind of made the neck, my hair on my neck stand up at times. I thought it's almost like this colleague of mine is trying to just. Just really put everyone down around them so that they look like the shining star. Now, is that narcissism or is that psychopathy? Well, there is a considerable overlap between the. The two. And a grandiose sense of self is one of the classic items that has been used to assess psychopathy within clinical and prisoner populations. So yes, they are essentially attempting to make their own achievements and their own standing, possibly very meager though it may be, to enhance it via dissing others by putting others achievements down, especially if they perceive them to be any sort of Potential work based or romantic rival, then they're all the more incentivized to do so. Yeah, because I mean, we all heard about the kind of village gossip, the person will always bring the gossip around an office place or whatever. But this was something deeper than that. It was so cutting. It's really hard for me to explain it without giving anything away, but I found that deeply unpleasant and used to try and avoid this person as much as possible. Yeah, I don't blame you. Little bit of fun gossip, which we all like a little bit of gossip, you know. But yeah, there's a couple of interesting points on, on exactly what you just said. So some occupational psychologists have looked at the way the traits manifest in the workplace. They've looked at behavioral tactics in interacting with others. And there's a sort of primary distinction between what we call soft tactics and hard tactics. And soft tactics are things like sort of light gossip and you know, water cooler level stuff rather than, you know, needing to slip into a private corridor or something or a broom cupboard to, you know, really dig down into someone. And it spans into things like verbal aggression, sometimes physical aggression, all the rest of it. So psychopathy as a trait is predictive of both of those of soft and hard workplace. Okay. Which isn't true of Machiavellianism for example, which is much more predictive of soft tactics. So more sort of subtle, creepy, kind of, you know, a sly word here and there. And then you briefly mentioned about the village gossip thing. Interestingly, a colleague of mine, well, he was in Australia, he's back in, I think he's in Europe again now. He looked at the geographical, and I contributed this a bit as well. We looked at the geographical locations that individuals high and dark traits tend to gravitate towards and you find that they have a much greater preference for large, densely populated urban areas as opposed to villages. Because if you live in a village with 50 people, 100 people, everybody knows who you are. So that's doesn't work. You get found out. Whereas a lot of interactions in cities, especially if you think about dates, with all the dating apps that we have now and all the networking events that we might go to, a lot of interactions are one shop or limited shop things. And if it goes wrong, if you can't get the outcome you want, then you can slip away and disappear and there'll still be 3, 4, 5 million other people out there to pull the wool over the eyes of. Yeah. Now before I let you go, this has been fascinating, just run me through a couple of say the questions on the kind of Psychopath Inventory or Psychopathy Inventory. Just a couple that people might be able to think about in terms of their own life colleagues they come across or dodgy dates. So there are. We've got a number of different ways of assessing psychopathy. The most often used of these is the Psychopathy Checklist which is, was created by Robert Hare who's still working, probably the most eminent researcher in respect to psychopathy. And it's often used in clinical and prison populations as I alluded to before. And it's things like it even uses the word narcissistic but grandiose sense of self, a lack of empathy, a lack of concern for others, broad and flexible sexual goals and things like that. Then there are other inventories that have been used as well for expressly subclinical levels of psychopathy. Yes. Although with psychopathy it's one of the more problematic traits to distinguish between subclinical and clinical because although it isn't defined expressly by the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual which psychiatrists and clinicians use, it's sort of subsumed under antisocial personality disorder. Yeah. So it's a question of how many points do you need before you are a psychopath rather than someone who's psychopathic. But I'll do, I'll do one better than that because I know we were, when we were exchanging messages I did indicate that some of these inventories are quite long and the hair Psychopathy Checklist is actually more of a semi structured interview done by a clinician. But if you or your listeners are interested in exploring the issue further and exploring how they compare and this is purely subclinical, it's purely an academic educational purpose. 1 There is a short measure of all three dark triad traits which is called conveniently enough, the short dark triad. You can go online and you can. It's only 27 items. Doesn't take very long at all, about 90 seconds, two minutes, something like that. And it'll tell you where you sit in percentile wise compared with other people. I'm going to check that out when we finish. I want to thank you so much Gregory. It's been, been absolutely fascinating. So Dr. Gregory Carter, he can be found on Twitter GLKFC and I look forward to your book. Let me know as soon as it's out. I absolutely will. Thank you ever so much for your time, Pam. It's been a delight. It has been wonderful. Bye bye. See you soon. Bye now. Sabrina Washington was due to join me today, but her the camera on her system is gone. And as we are filming this at this point, of course, it goes out as audio on the men's radio station and the women's radio Station tomorrow at 4pm she couldn't participate without a camera because I'd be talking to a blank screen. So I'm delighted next to welcome my. My friend and fantastic journalist and editor of Out News Global, which is the LGBTQ online magazine, is Rob Harkavy. Hello, Rob. Hey, Pam, how are you doing? I'm so glad to see you because as we were saying earlier, we actually hadn't sort of really seen each other for quite a few months pre lockdown. So it's kind of. It's lovely to actually see your face. Actually. It was the last event that I went to before lockdown. Do you know how many people tell me that? My first ever exhibition of my paintings, which was March 2nd, I'll never forget. I was so excited. And then it all went into lockdown shortly thereafter. And you, you are about the 10th person to tell me yours was the last event I went to. Well, nothing if not unoriginal, Pam. Now, as I was saying, I. I had been expected to be joined by the lovely Sabrina Washington. I'm glad you could join me earlier because she. Her camera's broken. And so although she had retweeted my tweet earlier, she didn't realize she wasn't going to be able to participate. So I'm glad you could come on board. Earlier, you may have just heard some of my conversation with Dr. Gregory Carter about psychopaths and sociopaths and the dark triad. Now, I was talking to you about, you know, this show, and I said, do you know anyone who's ever dated someone like that? And you said, I have. So tell me what happened. Well, it was a very long time ago when I was sort of younger and less experienced, and of course, I'm not a medic, so I can't diagnose what psychopath is, but I certainly know these were psychopathic tendencies. So I'll give you a few examples of some of the things that happened and perhaps you're an expert, you can tell me whether it was psychopathic or not. First thing I noticed in this relationship, and this was from day one, and bear in mind, this is pre Internet. So much harder to check things. Day one, this person told me that they came from a very eminent British family, that their father was titled and had this massive collection of vintage classic cars. Like I care about vintage cars, but whatever. And it was Simply untrue. And this was literally day one, first date. And it should have flagged up warning signs because, to be honest, it was obviously bull. Anyway, without check. But when you're. Well, you never know. I mean, funny enough, I once did actually meet a real lord who I was introduced to, who did come from a place of a big estate and with, you know, vintage cars. So how did you discover that wasn't true? Well, I did check it eventually. And, in fact, I was so concerned about it, also, I had the bit between my teeth that I actually went to the library and checked. I can't remember the book, but it's something like Burke's Peerage or Debrett's, you know, one of these sort of directories of the nobility. And they definitely weren't on it, but it continued and they did appalling things to me. I remember one occasion, again, it was pre Internet, so a lot more was done on paper and in my flat, on my desk in my home office, I had my expenses claimed for the company I worked for, like any other expenses claims, dinner with clients, 80 quid or whatever. And I was due to put it in the following day. I put it in the following day and I got this call from the accounts director saying, what the f are you playing at, Rob? What's going on? This partner of mine had added zeros and put additional things onto my expenses claim to look like I was falsifying expenses. I've never had a. I've never claimed for a car. You know, I'm not like that. That is insane. How evil is that? I mean, you could have lost your job. Yeah, I mean, there was another occasion which was equally evil, where they phoned. It was after this, and by this time I had my own company and I was lucky enough to be in business with my best friends. So we were best friends and we owned a company together. This person phoned up my best friend forward slash business partner, and saying, you've got to help me. Rob's just beaten me up. Oh, no. I really can't believe this. This is shocking. So Paul, my business partner, said, oh, my goodness, when did this happen? How are you? To which this person said, it's happened right now. He's literally just left the flat. Now, I don't think my friends would believe that of me, but those sorts of accusations do leave a scintilla of doubt in a scar. Oh, my God, that's. That's horrendous. I mean, I. I was lucky because I'd been sitting in the pub with my friends. You had witnesses. Yeah, and I was actually opposite him while he took the call. And he said, when did this happen? Just now. And he said, well, that's not possible because I've been with Rob since lunchtime. Oh, my God. That's. That is the most crazy serendipity that she was accusing you. And you were there, thank goodness. Because, you know, I've often thought about this. It was a long time ago, and I've often thought if I'd heard an accusation about one of my friends who, you know and you think couldn't possibly do that, but it would always have that seed of doubt. And I don't think that would ever have gone away in my relationship with, as I say, the guy who to this day remains my very closest friend. He would always have that seed of doubt. I mean, this one is amazing, and I'm speaking quite humorously, but actually it was very distressing. And it goes back to a lot of things that you discussed in the past. I know, Pam, about being abused and staying with your abuser. But this one. I woke up one night of the night with terrible pain in my back. Not in my back, but on my back, on the skin. So I woke up the person next to me and I said to them, this was this person. I said, can you have a look at my back? Terrible. So, you know, took my T shirt off and they had a look and said, no, no, no, there's nothing there. And I thought. Went back to sleep in the. Woke up in the morning. This is still irritating me. When I got to work, I asked a friend of mine, I said, I know this sounds old. Could you have a look? It had half a dozen cigarette burns on it. They burnt me with a cigarette. We hadn't had a row. We hadn't had a. Any sort of disagreement. It was just something that they thought would be, I don't know, I can't second guess. Amusing to do. I really don't know. So there's. Did you stay with them? At this point, that was pretty much the last straw, actually. I was going to say, you know, when we're younger, sometimes people get into, you know, relationships with abuse like that, and they don't really know how to find their way out of it, you know, I'm assuming since that time you've learned that those are red flags that I'm never going to put up with again, you know? Absolutely, yeah. I mean, when I look back on it, I ask myself the question, how could I possibly have stayed? I do a lot of work now with domestic violence groups, obviously chiefly dealing with women, because women remain the victim of domestic violence in a much higher profound proportion than men and I spy. You know, people always ask, don't they? They must say the same to you, Pam, why don't people just get out? But, so it's hard to get out when you're enmeshed into it. You know, it's, it is really hard. But that was your last straw, that, the cigarette, that, that was the last straw. But it didn't stop the stalking. So the, the kind of the, the one on one abuse was obviously knocked on the head because we split up. Up. But the stalking got unbelievable. On one occasion, I think I told you this pan. I had over 80 phone calls in 90 minutes. Now I know it was 90 minutes because a friend of mine was around at my flat watching a football match with me. And a football match lasts an hour and a half. So during the course of that game, 80 calls, leaning on my doorbell. I remember on one occasion I actually killed all the lights in my flat. Killed the telly, sat in the dark and I thought, I cannot, you know, this is unconscionable. I can't live my life. And eventually I had to go to the police. Well, I, you know, Dr. Gregory Carter, who was my guest before you, was saying how often after the breakup, you know, the worst is yet to come with these people with psychopathic traits or actual psychopathic personality and how you found this with the horrible stalking. And I had said to Gregory that I was once in a, in a relationship with someone that I believe was psychopathic. You know, it dawned on me and they used to do that too when I broke up with them. Ring where I worked repeatedly, because this was just pre mobile and it was horrendous. It was a, it was pestering and, and just too much emotionally and humiliating that my colleagues knew I was just getting these repeat phone calls. It wasn't 80 and 90 minutes, but it would be maybe 10:15 in the morning and 10:15 in the afternoon. You know, calls 10 or 15, you know, and it does it. This is the worrying thing about breaking up with someone like that, you know, how did they finally leave your life for good? How did that happen? Well, I obviously took all physical steps, like changing my locks, changing my phone number. So, you know, keeping myself a physical and digital distance, as it were. And I must emphasize, as I said earlier, it was much easier then to keep a digital distance. There were no mobile phones. The Internet existed, but no one really used it in Communicate. It was very old school and I had to. I'm quite on the radio now talking about the most intimate things. And I'm just about to tell you, I'm a very private person. But, you know, this is all in the past. At the time, I didn't really enjoy sharing my most intimate things with people, but I did get mutual friends and acquaintances off the bench and confided them as much as I could and actually them to have a word, because you know what I don't understand, Pam, and perhaps you can help me answer this. Is that sort of behavior, which I know is not. It's not unique. What does the person doing it hope to achieve? I mean, surely if you're being stalked like that and abused, no one's going to turn around and say, yeah, okay, you've convinced me. I'll come back to you. So what is the end game of the abuser? The end game? I mean, funny enough, as Dr. Gregory was. Was saying earlier, the. The anger. So just the punishment that some psychopathic types want to mete out. They want to punish you that, you know, you might have upset their equilibrium or stopped them getting what they wanted from you, like maybe they were getting money during the relationship or the sex they wanted or whatever. And so they will do anything, you know, to disrupt your equilibrium and make you pay. And for others, he was saying that they will just kind of leave you and that's it. You know, they. They realize that it's run its course and they'll look for their next victim. But, Rob, I want to thank you so much for your honesty and thank you for joining me today. I want people to, you know, check you out on Twitter. Of course, you've got the. It's OBJ Harkavy. And of course, Out News Global is your online magazine that you edit for the LGBTQ community. Thank you for your honesty and thanks to everyone who's joined me today. And I'll be back in a fortnight and we'll be talking again what's trending. And I'll have fantastic guests for you then. Look after yourself in the meantime, and do stay with the men's radio station and also the women's radio station, our sister station. Take care of yourself. Thank you so much.