The Neuroscience of Psychopathy: Trust and Deception
In any room of a hundred people, one or two of them are wired to charm you, use you and feel nothing about it. In boardrooms and trading floors, that number climbs higher.
We like to think of psychopathy as something rare and monstrous, the stuff of true crime documentaries. The research says otherwise. It shows up as a stable slice of every population ever studied, across cultures, eras and continents. Most of those people never commit a crime. They become your charismatic new hire, your investor, your co-founder, your partner. The initial charm is real. So is what comes after it.
Prof Adolf Tobeña has spent his career mapping the brain circuits and hormonal machinery behind predatory behaviour, and the flipside question that matters just as much: how the rest of us decide who to trust, and why we are so easy to fool. Trust is a fast, ancient, largely unconscious calculation. Manipulators are extremely good at hijacking it.
In this Growth Lab LIVE session, Adolf takes you inside the neurobiology of deception and the "dark triad" of psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism. You will look at what separates violent offenders from the polished white collar operators who cause far more damage, why women's manipulation patterns look different from men's, and what the evidence really says about whether any of it can be changed. Expect a serious, unsentimental take on a topic that usually gets sensationalised.
Adolf Tobeña is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where he led the Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine for two decades. He is the author of Neurología de la maldad and Manipuladores, has published 15 books and over 160 papers, and won the European Science Communication award in 2004.
What you'll learn
How to spot the behavioural signatures of manipulation early, before the cost lands on you or your business
Why charm is the first tactic, not a personality trait, and what usually follows it
What brain imaging and hormonal research actually reveal about predatory behaviour, and where the science stops
Why highly manipulative people cluster in leadership, finance and politics, and what that means for how you hire and partner
How your own trust instincts work, and the specific conditions that make them easiest to exploit
Agenda:
1845h - Doors open
1900h - Talk starts
1945h - Q&A
2015h - Drinks & Networking
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