10 Subtle Signs of a Psychopath

hey everyone and welcome to top tank today we're going to learn about

10 subtle signs of a psychopath now let's begin number one social domination

how do psychopaths interact with the world do they communicate the same way you do a 2019 review from

the journal of psycholinguistic research asked the same questions to find an answer they compiled 34

different studies on psychopathic communication but what did they find just think about an average

conversation most conversations are friendly and casual two friends chatting over coffee co-workers

poking fun at their boss strangers exchanging bits of small talk but some conversations are

more competitive in business settings for example you may wrestle for power and status if you say

too much your opponent gets the better of you so you choose your words very carefully a psychopath

views every conversation as a competition they crave social dominance they need the

power in every relationship they make so like a business transaction they lay traps withhold

information and manipulate other people social interactions are in the mind of a psychopath

a hierarchy of power and status and the psychopath wants to be on top so how can you recognize this

hunger for power in another person when talking to a psychopath you may feel like you're on the

back foot they may one-up you at every turn they may catch every mistake you make or point out

every tiny contradiction if you mess up they'll let you know because your mistakes give them power

number two mass generalizations to a psychopath everyone is their enemy so

they're always searching for reasons to criticize their community their country or the entire world

all right let's say you see someone throw an empty can on the ground how would you react you

may think to yourself this person littered so they must be careless and disrespectful

you like most people judge individuals for their actions but a psychopath can generalize anything

this comes from the same 2019 review psychopaths are prone to over-generalization

especially if it's something negative instead of judging a singular person they criticize

larger groups and communities if one person litters for example they don't

blame the individual they assume the whole city is careless and disrespectful

listen for these huge generalizations pay attention to radical assumptions and

narrow-minded opinions because psychopaths assume the world is full of terrible people

number three persuasive disfluencies do psychopaths talk differently than most people this

comes from a 2016 study in the journal of criminal justice and behavior in this study researchers

interviewed a handful of psychopaths looking at these interviews researchers look for patterns in

phrasing and word choice so what did they find are there differences in the way a psychopath speaks

researchers noticed a spike in language disfluencies disfluencies are breaks or

disruptions in your speech some people stutter other people use filler words like um or like

disfluencies usually signify stress or anxiety the average person for example uses more filler

words when they're nervous their mind races their heart rate skyrockets so they struggle to express

themselves clearly oh but a psychopath does things differently during interviews psychopaths used a

specific kind of disfluency they didn't stutter they didn't fill their speech with likes and dumbs

in fact researchers found very few stress-related words in their speech instead a psychopath will

use phrases like you know or to be honest these are still disfluencies but these disfluencies