On Sunday, July 26 at 3 pm Eastern Time, Professor Leanne ten Brinke, author of Poisonous People: How to Resist Them and Improve Your Life (Simon & Schuster 2026), will be our guest for a Casual Conversation on Zoom. Professor ten Brinke is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia, where she directs the Truth and Trust Lab.
From her UBC faculty listing, Leanne ten Brinke :
Her research is focused on social cognition, broadly, and the paradox of trust, in particular. That is, if determining whom to trust is so important, why does decades of research suggest that the accuracy of these decisions is so poor?
Professor ten Brinke’s personal website, at Home ,provides this precis of the book that we will be discussing with her:
Her research investigates trust, deception, and dark personality traits across diverse populations—from incarcerated individuals to hedge fund managers and U.S. Senators. In her book, Poisonous People, she reveals how dark personality traits shape our institutions and relationships, while offering practical strategies to recognize and counteract their harmful influence.
Her cv may be found here: CV .
The book focuses on people with psychopathic traits which together form the Dark Tetrad: psychopathy, narcissism, manipulation, and sadism. Professor ten Brinke uses case studies to draw out a picture of the malicious people who make up the 20% of the population with a high degree of traits within the Dark Tetrad, and she begins with a person I know a little about, Justice William O. Douglas. As she describes, he was a cruel person, despised by his clerks. Yes, he was. Even years later, they hated him as I found out at a horizontal reunion of clerks from the Term when I served as law clerk to Chief Justice Warren Burger. His rule: if an error was made, it was your fault; if not, then all credit for the opinion or dissent was his. His practice was to hire as his clerks only people who had not clerked for a lower court judge (where they would have been treated with respect and learned what it meant to work with a judge).
As Professor ten Brinke points out, he was known on the Court for his sloppy writing. He worked in a slapdash manner, and he didn’t care a fig for establishing any sort of present or future basis for a change in the law. He was the mirror opposite of his liberal counterpart, Justice William Brennan, who was an effective politician and tactician who spent time wooing his colleagues, and slowly moving the law in his direction. He singlehandedly altered the law of habeas corpus, and it took him time, energy, and diligence to do so.
Many of her insights are useful, even as she punctures the accepted wisdom of the super competent leader with dark traits who produces great success in financed and business. Untrue: “Managers who displayed more psychopathic traits delivered worse returns than those who were kinder and more compassionate.” (At 45.) That may be in part due to the phenomenon of infection which she describes in her book where underlings imitate the corrosive behavior of the boss. “[P]eople with psychopathic traits distort norms for acceptable behavior, especially when they occupy position of power.”
In addition to a description of these dark-traits people, she gives helpful advice on how to spot them, and how to test whether they should be hires, dated, or trusted. Are they lying? It’s not “shifty eyes,” but what they are saying, “keeping detail and consistency foremost in mind. If you’re getting vague statements, details you can’t verify, and inconsistencies within the statements, or between the statements and the emotions people are expressing,” be on your guard. (At 94.)
Professor ten Brinke also explores, again with examples, of dark people with psychopathic traits closer to home in personal relationships. The damage that people who are possessed with high levels of dark traits cause to others in their lives can continue far beyond the time of contact.
Professor ten Brinke established her authority for me through her treatment of Justice Douglas, and her research, insights, and conclusions carried more weight because of that. She passed my test, and she will pass yours. Trust me!
There is much more, which is why you should consider joining us on Sunday, July 26 at 3 pm Eastern. Let me know atarthur.fergenson@ansalaw.com by close of business on the Friday before. In the meantime with her book (and thereafter, with the insights you pick up from the Casual Conversation), sharpen your social-scientifically-grounded people skills to better protect yourself against those who would do you, your loved ones, your friends, and your colleagues psychological and financial harm.
Up to you.
Arthur Fergenson
P.S. She also mentions the Big Five in her book. According to one book I read, you can learn all you need to know to make judgments about a person’s place in the Big Five (or Six) in only about ten to 20 minutes. Dark Tetrad and Big Five in one interview: Nine for One!