We’re not as good at spotting liars as we think we are, according to psychologist Leanne ten Brinke. On Monday’s episode of the Diary of a CEO podcast, ten Brinke, who is the author of Poisonous People: How to Resist Them and Improve Your Life, spoke with host Steven Bartlett about her research into “dark” personality disorders like narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

As ten Brinke noted, psychopathy isn’t a binary; it’s a spectrum of personality traits, which can include superficial charm, impulsivity, lack of remorse, manipulation, and grandiosity. Many of these traits intersect with those of other “dark personalities,” as ten Brinke refers to them, like narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sadism. 

An important element of people with these traits is their inclination to lie, either to get out of trouble, get their way, or put somebody else down. But, as ten Brinke said, “people are not very good at detecting … any kind of lies. On average, people perform at about 54 percent accuracy.”

People commonly think they can detect liars by looking at their smiles and their eyes. But those are generally unreliable metrics.

“People put a lot of stock in the body language, particularly into, like, gaze aversion,” ten Brinke said. So if you go around the world and you ask people what’s the number one cue that someone is lying to you, they will say sketchy eye contact. And there’s no research to suggest that that is true.”

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