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The 9 Signs You’re Dating a Dark Triad (and How to Spot Them Early) | Dr. Arthur Brooks | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: The 9 Signs You’re Dating a Dark Triad (and How to Spot Them Early)
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The content describes the detrimental impact of individuals exhibiting "dark triad" personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) on romantic relationships, highlighting their manipulative tactics and the severe emotional damage they inflict, especially on women.
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dark triads and romantic relationships.
This is really where the damage tends to
get done. And it's especially the case
that that women have in um who have
relationships with men who are dark
triads are the ones who have the most
horror stories. Why? Because men tend to
be dark triads more than women. And
they're they're most predatory toward
toward women that are looking for a
relationship and tend to get swept off
their feet. In relationships, they have
these characteristics. Let me give you
the five characteristics and then talk a
little bit more about what they look
like. Number one, they tend to be
extremely confident and outgoing. Here's
what dark triads are good at in romantic
relationships. Knowing what you want to
hear, let me back up. When you get into
a romantic relationship, whether you're
a man or a woman, what do you want? You
want somebody, if you're falling in
love, who's also falling in love with
you. What you don't want is somebody who
will never fall in love with you but act
like they will so they can get what they
want out of you. If it's a they want to
use you physically, if they want your
money, if they just want your
companionship, if they want your status,
whatever happens to be, you don't want
somebody to use you. You want somebody
who actually loves you. Dark triads are
really good at acting like they love
you, even though they don't. They're
confident and outgoing because they they
have skills in figuring out what you
want to hear as a matter of fact. And
and this is really bad especially for a
there's a syndrome that we that I've
written about in the past a little bit
called emoilia. I'll put I'll put
something I've written about that in the
show notes as well. And that's not
hemophilia. That's not with an H. That's
a blood disorder. Emoilia is em o p h i
l i a. Emoilia. And that is the tendency
to fall in love very very quickly to to
go through the stages of falling in love
and and and falling in love is a
neurochemical phenomenon that starts
with the with the stimulation of sex
hormones estrogen and testosterone. It
goes into uh neurom modulator activity
most notably dopamine and
neuradrenaline. So you get the feeling
of anticipation of reward and euphoria.
And then it goes into serotonin which
will make you kind of ruminate on the
other person. And all this is happening
within a period of weeks until you're
getting more of this oxytocin and vasop
prein released. Those are neuropeptides
that will bond you to the other person.
That takes time. Doesn't necessarily
take years. As a matter of fact, if it's
taking years, it means it's not
happening. But it certainly doesn't
happen in two days. And there are people
in the literature, a non-trivial number
of people, especially women, who go
very, very quickly through it. Dark tri,
if that's you, dark triads know who you
are. They know how to pray on you and
and that's a really scary thing because
they're going to say exactly what they
know you need to hear because they have
lots and lots of experience dealing with
emo Felix. So, you have to protect
yourself. Now, it's a good thing to know
that if you fall in love too quickly to
to how to protect yourself from that in
general, but especially when dark triads
come into the picture. So, number one,
they're outgoing and confident because
they know what you need to hear. Second,
they have a strong preference for
short-term mating. Okay, this is just
this is just, you know, how behavioral
scientists talk about hookup culture.
They want to hook up. They don't get
married or if they want to get married
is hugely incidental to the kind of
relationships that they typically have.
They're really, really good at figuring
out how to induce you, no matter who you
are, into a short-term relationship by
making you feel like you've been swept
off your feet so much. As a matter of
fact, they favor short-term
relationships so much because some would
say they're kind of incapable of falling
in love, which is the essence of a
long-term relationship that uh that
they're almost incapable as far as the
the the data have shown of being of
being faithful to their partners. They
cheat all the time. That's one of the
characteristics of of when when I say um
number two being strong preference for
short-term relationships that means
infidelity among other things. So they
go from person to person to person
unethically and they tend to be
unfaithful in a relationship that's
supposed to be monogous. This is a very
very strong trait in relationships of
dark triads.
They're extremely attractive. They're
extreme they're they're really really
good at coming off as extremely
attractive and once again especially to
women um because they know how to make
themselves extremely attractive. Look,
somebody who's who wants a a mutual
loving relationship has no incentive for
you to fall in love if they're not
falling in love. That's just a fact.
Somebody who wants you to fall in love
even though they're not, that's evidence
of a broken person. And so somebody
who's trying to do that on the basis of
superficial characteristics um that's
going to tend to be a dark tri as well.
Number four is that they they tend to
exaggerate their success status and
commitment. Once again this tends to be
a male characteristic. There's a
fantastic one of the great social
scientists of our time is David Bus at
the University of Texas at Austin who
does work on he he's really the leading
um um expert in in evolutionary
psychology. In other words,
understanding psychological patterns
with respect to our ancestral
environment. When people behave the way
they do, you can usually find a reason
in in in our ancestral environment. Why?
Because our brains are really formed in
in an environment that suited us to what
we were doing 250,000 years ago. Some
the place to scene. We haven't evolved
physically very much. Our our worlds
have evolved. So when we see weird
anomalous behavior in mating for
example, usually there's a reason for it
that goes back a long long time, one of
those things is that that when we're
looking at new potential mates for the
very first time that men tend to look
for cues of youth and fertility um and
women tend to look and again your
results may vary. I'm not being
dispositive about your situation. I'm
not this is not case closed. This is a
tendency that David Bus talks about in
the evolutionary psychology. Women tend
to look more at u because of the
investment that they have to make in in
family life and and raising children and
status and and and success and
commitment and resources. The result of
that is that dark triads, they tend to
when they're meeting somebody to
exaggerate those things. I'm more
successful than they really are, higher
status than they really have, more
committed than they really are going to
be, richer than they really are. What
are they trying to do? They're trying to
seduce you is the bottom line. Um,
typically that's the case. Again, they
specialize in saying and doing what you
want to hear, not what is authentic and honest.
honest.
They're con men and con women. Now, when
you have a relationship, a romantic
relationship with a dark triad, and the
breakup comes, and it inevitably does.
It's going to, you're probably not going
to change the dark triad. I have
literally never seen a case where
somebody falls in love with the dark
triad and saves the dark triad from her
or himself. When the when the breakup
comes, it's always ugly. You don't get
out nicely from a dark triad.
They're known for what they're what what
psychologists call cost escalation.
They're going to make you pay. That's
what they're going to do. Why? Because
they don't care how much they hurt you
and they feel no remorse. Look, if you
break up with a normal person and it's
hurtful and something bad happened, you
know that they're not trying to hurt you
per se
because they don't want to because they
have some love for you. They have some
tenderness for you. And besides, they
don't want to be a horrible person.
They're they they think of themselves as
somebody who's fundamentally ethical, at
least not a completely horrible human
being. But dark triads don't think that
way. That's the problem. They will cost
escalate and manipulate you and openly
confront you because they're mchavelian
and they have psychopathic psychopathic
tendencies. I'm willing to hurt you for
my interests and I don't feel any
empathy and I don't feel any remorse.
Okay, avoid those characteristics. Trust
me on this. This is how you protect
yourself. Let me give you the kind of
the the meta list of things to look out
for to detect a dark triad so that you
can protect yourself through avoidance
most importantly. Number one, self-importance.
self-importance.
I'm the most important person in the
world. When they when they when they
exhibit traits of self-importance, be
very wary. Second is a sense of
entitlement. Look, it's it's all about
me and and when when things aren't going
my way, they should be. Come on. Number
three is vanity. You know, the whole
idea the vanity of wanting wanting
everybody to look at them is uh and
again that can be as simple by the way
when you're going out with somebody for
the first time. Every time they go by a
car window they look at themselves.
That's a tell. I mean that doesn't mean
they're dark triad but at least your
your spider sense should be tingling
about that. Number four is a victim
mentality. Um people who are willing to
hurt other people are always suspicious
of the motives of others and they tend
to think that anything that goes wrong
for them it's because people had it out
for them. They tend to be paranoid. They
tend to be agrieved. They tend to act
like they're victims, which activists
always do, by the way, and so do
politicians, generally speaking. Not all
politicians, but a lot. Number five,
they tend to bend the truth or even
openly lie. Why? Because they don't care
if they're doing something that hurts
you, something that's damaging. Well,
they don't realize, of course, is
damaging to them because ultimately
people are going to figure it out.
Number six is manipuliveness. They they
want you to be bent to their will and
they will manipulate you with pretty um
with pretty untruthful means if
necessary. Number seven is grandiosity
because they're going to exaggerate.
They're going to exaggerate their
accomplishments. They're going to
exaggerate their past. They're going to
exaggerate their status. They're going
to exaggerate their ambition. Why?
Because they want to insinuate
themselves with you. They want to get
into your good graces as quickly as
possible. Not because they love you.
because they want you to love them.
Number eight is a lack of remorse when
they do things wrong, which is baffling
to normal people. It's so weird. I've
met people who they do something and I
and I think it's impossible that they
did that. I would never do that. Well,
it turns out that doesn't work when
you're working with a dark triad. And
number nine is an absence of empathy and
remorse. They don't care when they do
these things. Those are the nine
characteristics of when you're dealing
with a dark triad. And generally
speaking, if you have a long-term relationship,
relationship,
sorry, but you're going to see all these
things. One other thing that actually
shows up in the literature that's really
interesting that is a technique that
dark triads use when they get caught.
So, let's say that you're in a romantic
relationship with a dark triad. Uh,
terrible. You're going to probably find
this person is unfaithful to you
emotionally or physically as being
unfaithful to you. And and and when you
confront the dark triad, they have a
technique that's called Darvo. D A R V
O. That's an acronym. It means deny,
attack, and reverse victim and offender.
Number one is they lie and say they
didn't do it. Then they turn the whole
thing around and attack you. Then they
reverse the victim and offender by
saying you're the offender and they're
the victim. And so it goes something
like this. Um, no, no, I didn't I didn't
sleep with that person. No, I've been
completely faithful to you. Well, I I
got the receipts, man. I got the
receipts. I mean, it's like, what what
is this
Marriott bill, you know, in our city?
And it's like, oh, yeah, well, look,
it's really your fault because you've
been driving me away. So, the first one
is deny, and then when you can't
anymore, it's attack. And then they say,
and you know what? I'm pretty tired of
this line of questioning all the time
and the suspicion that we have. And
that's really what's been driving me
away. And it's been, you've been a
pretty terrible partner for a long time.
you know, I'm the person who really is
the victim here. So, if you start seeing
that, you know, you're the full-blown
dark triad and you've gone down the path
um to the point where they're actually
using Darvo on you. Um it's time to move
on. I don't see too many um exits
besides the big exit uh of the
relationship itself. I want to end on an
on a happier note and then I want to go
to some questions that you've written
in. The questions are great. Really
appreciate it. What should you look for
instead while you're trying to avoid the
dark triad? Scott Bry Kaufman, I talked
about him earlier, he talks about
something called the light triad. That's
the opposite of the dark triad. This is
somebody who has faith in humanity. They
trust others. Humanism, that's what
Scott Barry Kaufman talks about, you
know, believing in the dignity and the
worth of every individual. And and a
belief in that there's a universal moral
law. There's just right and wrong,
things you shouldn't do to anybody even
if you don't like them. Those three
things he finds actually are
characteristic of about 50% of the
population. And that's where you want to
look. Authentically good people. And how
do you know? Um there's a lot of work in
psychology on something called moral
elevation where when somebody has these
characteristics, you feel warm inside.
Not the kind of warm inside like I think
this person is falling in love with me
because it's a dark triad trying to
manipulate me, but but because that's
somebody I really morally admire. That's
kind of a tell on that. It's a it's a
it's a beautiful thing. and you've all
felt that. That's what to look for in a
colleague, in a friend, in a partner,
romantic partner. Those are the people
you should actually actually look for.
Look for that. A and when you do, they
might not be displaying all the things
that you want to see in the very first
moment you meet them. And the reason is
because they're trying to figure out if
they like you. And that's exactly what
you want to have a mutually beneficial,
mutually loving relationship. That's
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