Crying Wolf

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

6 years ago, I was diagnosed with a rare, inoperable form of bone cancer called chondrosarcoma, a cancer I still have to this day.

Elizabeth Finch used to be a writer on the popular medical TV show Grey's Anatomy. Other writers said they deferred to her opinions while writing episodes since, as a cancer patient, she was the authority on what patients were going through.

All told, my cancer cost me my hair, my immune system, one knee, half my bank account, half my 30s, and one functioning kidney. I may never be cancer-free.

My doctor's—

But in a December 2022 interview with The Ankler, a newsletter about goings-on in Hollywood, Elizabeth Finch admitted that her cancer diagnosis was a lie. One of her colleagues told the newsletter that Elizabeth Finch was someone who sported, quote, a visible chemo port bandage, who regularly took breaks to vomit, who only ate saltines for long periods of time, And who wrote and talked about her experiences all the time. We were unable to reach Elizabeth Finch for a response. Her story may seem extraordinary, but she's not alone in making false claims. In 2021, the website intelligent.com surveyed more than 1,200 white college applicants. More than a quarter of the respondents on the online survey said they had lied about being a racial minority on their college application. Blanca Villagomez is the website's higher education counselor. She says that most of the people who lied claimed to be Native American.

And we found that the number one reason for why these applicants lied was they believed that it would improve their chances of getting accepted.

It used to be that we tried our best to conceal disadvantages, hardships, and humiliations. Traumas were often experienced as shameful and hidden away. In fact, in previous centuries, historians have documented numerous cases of people who were the target of discrimination who did their best to avoid the labels that would invite prejudice. Many people of color tried to pass as white to escape Jim Crow laws. Movies and plays document how women tried to escape sexism and sexual violence by pretending to be men. As Jews fled the Holocaust, some pretended to be Gentiles. But new research explores a curious shift. Even as many people with limitations and disabilities continue to hide their challenges, others flaunt hardships that don't exist. This week on Hidden Brain, the strange psychology Support for Hidden Brain comes from Planet Visionaries. Professional climber and environmental advocate Alex Honnold hosts Planet Visionaries, a podcast spotlighting the people tackling climate challenges with real, hopeful solutions. Throughout season 6, Alex brings together extraordinary changemakers for powerful conversations about grit, determination, and the power of hope to fuel our fight for a better future. In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.

Quick question, do people come to you for answers at work? Maybe you're managing projects, training new hires, or just the one everyone relies on. That's leadership. Through UVA Darden's Part-Time MBA in Rosslyn, we help professionals like you turn real-world experience into recognized leadership credentials without stepping away from your career. Whether you work in healthcare, education, government, or business, this is how you take the next step. Learn more at darden.virginia.edu/ptmba.

Support for Hidden Brain comes from Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive Save hundreds. Because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on those iced lattes you love. Switch to Progressive and see if you could save. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, affiliates, and other insurers. Not available in all states. Why would you invent a disadvantage that doesn't exist? For a man we're calling Arthur, who grew up in a small town outside Mexico City, the answer was clear. It was a way to avoid being the target of homophobic bullying. He vividly remembers a traumatic event during his freshman year of high school. Students had gathered for a social event.

We were supposed to be there just like to spend some time and to have fun and have snacks and dance and things. And then these guys kind of surrounded me. I think that they didn't try to, you know, like physically attack me, but because I was so small and they were so big, I felt like, oh my God, these guys are going to do something to me.

Like bullies everywhere, they knew exactly where to strike.

And they were like, are you gay? I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, and then they were like, no, no, no, we know you are gay. And I was so scared. I was about to cry. And then my English teacher back then, she, like, realized what was going on. And she got them away from me. That was the first time that I actually felt like they could physically harm me.

So as Arthur went off to college, he decided to invent a story. He felt he could use it as a shield.

And I said, I need to create a character that is more appealing than who I actually am.

Growing up, Arthur had watched his family work with Jewish businesspeople, and he had always admired their professional way of handling things.

And so the character that I created was like a Jewish descendant of my grandfather that was escaping the Spanish Civil War. And so when people ask me, like, hey, who are you? Instead of saying, like, yeah, I come from a small town in the middle of nowhere, hi. It was like, no, yes, I come from, you know, like, my family and blah, blah, blah. And I felt so cool.

The story gave Arthur a new identity. He wasn't a gay kid from small-town Mexico. He was the glamorous grandson of Jewish refugees who had survived persecution in Europe.

I think that it basically shielded me from homophobic bullying, you know? Like, I, I thought that if it ever came to that, that people would have a harder time discriminating me because I came from that background of persecution. But if I only said like, yeah, I'm, I'm gay and etc., I think that that exposed me much more to that ugly side of of bullying and discrimination. So I think that this narrative like, I come from that group that has already suffered that much, like kind of shielded me in a way.

Can you say more about that? Because if you're suffering from one form of discrimination, it's not clear to me why identifying yourself with a second form of discrimination leaves you better off. It feels now like you're set back in 2 different ways. Why did you feel it would make a difference, or did it actually make a difference?

I think that it made a difference because homophobic discrimination in Mexico is much more tolerated than antisemitism, for example. Openly discriminating a Jew is something that very few people would dare to do. But openly discriminating a gay person is something that happens on a daily basis everywhere. So I think that it left me better off. And even though I was playing the character of a— A gay character. gay Jew man, I was still, like, feeling more protected in that character than if I had been, like, purely gay, for example.

Now, some people might challenge Arthur's beliefs about the extent of antisemitism in Mexico. But whether or not those beliefs were accurate, Arthur found his new backstory gave him confidence as he talked to friends. The long historical persecution of the Jews was now his story. People started to show him a certain deference.

So I would be like, yes, they are listening to me. You know, I having survived and being here and facing you and speaking with pride about my family history and all those things, like, it made me braver in a way.

Over time, the story morphed. Depending on the situation, Arthur would play up the victim and persecution angle. Other times, he would use his invented identity as a badge of expertise, playing on stereotypes that Jews were good at business. As he went through college, he found his story had fresh uses. Other people might have glamorous vacations and expensive habits. But his story of trauma and survival also had cachet. It was almost a form of currency. After he graduated, Arthur was working as an intern at the British Embassy. He was invited to a fancy end-of-year party.

And that was at the British residence, the house of the ambassador. And you can imagine, like, how gorgeous it all was, like the long tables, the beautiful meal and everything. And so we were all invited there, and I was so self-aware. I was like, oh my God, what am I gonna say around the dinner table? And I was sitting around with all the other interns and their expensive universities, and they started talking about their trips. And yeah, my dad did this, my dad did that, my mom traveled there. And I was just sitting at the table and was like, oh my God, what am I gonna say? And then eventually it was my turn, like, to say something. And then I was like, yeah, my dad is gonna close that business because, you know, we have a lot of connections, like, in the community. And they were like, what community? And I was like, the community, like, the Jewish community. And then they were like, oh my God, are you— like, and then I was like, yes, I am. And yeah, like, in that situation, I felt like, oh my God, it's there. It worked. It worked.

It was at another job after this internship that Arthur realized his invented story contained both benefits and risks. He found himself regularly clashing with a coworker. They had never gotten along well. On this day, they disagreed over an invoice.

I had a number, she had another number, and then she was like, you know, slamming the table like, enough! Like, how come you never pay attention? And et cetera. And I was like, do not talk to me like that. And she was like, fuck you. And I was like, what did you say? And in that moment, I think that she knew that she had already crossed the line.

Arthur realized that his invented story of victimhood contained the risk of turning him into an actual victim. But he also saw how the incident gave him the power to undermine a coworker whom he disliked.

I needed to accuse her. Yeah, yeah. Like, I needed to accuse her. And I did tell my boss, like, you know what? happened. But then instead of wanting her fired, I think that I wanted to get away from the situation. Like, it was just too harsh. And I was just thinking like, no, let's leave it here. And at the same time, I had already received my approval for studying in Australia. So I was like, enough. Like, this is the end.

And so you left that position and you went to Australia. Did you keep the story alive there?

No.

No.

No.

And what happened?

I thought that I was already cool. Like, I was there. Like, I didn't think that I need that character anymore.

In Australia, Arthur didn't have to invent a story about how he was an outsider. He was a gay foreign student from Mexico. He was obviously an outsider. He no longer needed to be the descendant Yeah, yeah, that's what happened.

That's what happened. And then I made a ton of friends over there, fellow Mexicans and from all over the place. We're still in touch. And yeah, exactly. That's exactly what happened.

Arthur had discovered that his invented story of persecution gave him a number of advantages. On the surface, this is a paradox. Why would inventing hardships or trauma be an advantage? At a meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, I came by research that explained one dimension of this paradox. Psychologist Gillian Jordan at Harvard divided volunteers into 2 groups. She offered each slightly different scenarios about a college student named Sarah who invites some friends over to her dorm room.

One of her classmates, Gabrielle, asks to use her iPad to look something up, and she agrees. And then eventually Gabrielle and all the other classmates leave, and Sarah relaxes at home and watches, watches a TV show on her iPad. And then she goes out. And in the neutral condition, that's the whole story. And in the victim condition, while she's out, We explained to participants that Gabriel broke into her dorm room and stole her iPad. And so, you know, in both cases, she uses the iPad, she lends it to Gabriel, she goes out, and then only in the victim condition does Gabriel actually break in and steal her iPad.

Note that in both conditions, Sarah's behavior is exactly the same. The only difference in the scenarios is that in one, she is a victim of theft. In the other, she is not. Jillian asked volunteers whether they thought Sarah was a good person. Since Sarah's behavior in both scenarios was identical, there should have been no difference in how she was perceived by people in the 2 groups. But that is not what Jillian found. When Sarah was a victim of theft—

She's considered by participants to be a more moral and a more trustworthy person than the neutral condition.

Jillian and her colleagues call this phenomenon the virtuous victim effect.

So the virtuous victim effect is the finding that people tend to see victims of wrongdoing as more morally good people than non-victims who have behaved identically. When we think about what it means to be a morally good person, we typically think about it means you've taken actions that are morally good and you haven't taken actions that are morally bad, right? I'm a morally good person if I help others, I'm kind, I'm trustworthy. I'm not a morally good person if I, I betray people, I spread nasty gossip, I'm never willing to help, I just think about myself. And in this case, people's moral character is being influenced not by actions they took, right? We talked about how, how those are constant across conditions in our experiments, but rather by the ways that they're treated by other people. And I think this seems sort of irrational in the sense that both good and bad people could be mistreated by somebody else. It doesn't really tell you something meaningful about my proclivity to behave morally to learn that somebody else treated me badly. And yet the way that, that I'm treated by somebody else can influence perceptions of my moral character.

Arthur intuitively grasped this when he came up with a story of family persecution. People seemed to think he was a better person because his ancestors had suffered adversity. You can also see the same phenomenon on a larger scale. In many political disputes, 2 groups will each try to claim the moral high ground by talking about how they have been wronged. In these situations, People are not making up traumas, but selectively focusing on traumas that show why they are deserving of sympathy. When the Israelis talk about how they are besieged by enemies who seek to destroy them, they are inviting us to see them as virtuous victims. When Palestinians focus on how they have been dispossessed by the Israelis, they are telling us that they are the virtuous victims. Gillian told me researchers were increasingly interested in studying such escalating wars for the moral high ground.

I should say there's also a lot of cool work around this concept of competitive victimhood, when there's like a conflict between 2 groups and both sides want to compete to like paint themselves as the rightful or larger victim. Sort of even without my research, like we can, we can tell that first of all, if 2 groups are accusing the other side of being the perpetrator such that they're the victim, like you want to kind of compete to be the victim because that means by definition that the other side is When we come back, 3 girls learn what it feels like to play the victim, and new research into the personality traits that drive such behavior.

You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

Quick question: Do people come to you for answers at work? Maybe you're managing projects, training new hires, or just the one everyone relies on. That's leadership. Through UVA Darden's Part-Time MBA in Rosslyn, we help professionals like you turn real-world experience into recognized leadership credentials. Without stepping away from your career. Whether you work in healthcare, education, government, or business, this is how you take the next step. Learn more at darden.virginia.edu/ptmba.

Support for Hidden Brain comes from Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds, because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on those iced lattes you love. Switch to Progressive and see if you could save. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, affiliates, and other insurers. Not available in all states. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Some time ago, a listener called in with an unusual story. We'll call her Paula. She told us that when she was in high school many years ago, she got close to 2 other students. We'll call them Sarah and Jessica. We're using pseudonyms at the request of the women. By the time Jessica, Sarah, and Paula were in 10th grade, they were all considered high achievers. Paula was the athlete.

I was definitely the jock in my school. If there was ever anything sport-related, I was on the team. I was likely captain, MVP. That's just kind of the reputation I'd carved out for myself.

Jessica was a social activist.

She was very invested in helping the environment. And so she actually started her own environmental youth group.

And Sarah was the star who made stardom look effortless.

She was very good at procrastinating, doing everything super last minute. But ended up becoming a straight-A student, was on all these committees, and was, like, beloved by everyone in our school.

Sarah was also a thespian and acted in local community theater. Paula told me that the 3 friends felt like they were headed somewhere. They had talent and they had drive. One summer, when the girls were 16, they went on vacation together. It was their first time traveling without their parents. They spent 4 days in a new city visiting museums, eating at restaurants, and touring local colleges. For their last adventure, they went to a popular amusement park.

When we got there, it looked really grand. So there was just people everywhere. It was probably the most people I've ever seen in one place. The lines for all the rides were over 2 hours to get to like the main rides. And so we were definitely a bit overwhelmed and feeling like we weren't going to be able to see all the things that we wanted to see on this trip.

The girls had done some research beforehand to figure out what rides the park offered. As the day grew hotter, they set their hearts on some water rides.

So a little bit more fun, not the drop-type rides. I don't really like those, but I like the ones that kind of go on an adventure. And there was like water features with them. So that's why they were such a draw on this day because it was so hot. Everybody was wanting to go on the rides where you kind of like splashed into water.

They got in line for their first ride. It really was 2 hours long. And as they waited and waited, and it got hotter and hotter, their moods plummeted. If this is what they had to look forward to the rest of the day, they were going to be miserable. They could see the lines for the other rides were also really long.

It didn't feel worth it, I guess, to have gone all the way, to have gotten our way all the way to this park, We were really excited for the day. And so I think we were a bit kind of between frustrated and disappointed as well, because we're kind of waiting in line for this long time. Like, we enjoy each other's company, but we also really wanted to experience everything there. So I think we were like the combination of frustrated, disappointed, and a little desperate.

The 3 girls looked at each other. They were driven. They were smart. And they wanted to find a way to skip the long lines.

So we were kind of brainstorming ways to kind of get around this dilemma, this problem that was in front of us. And so we were kind of came up with the idea of like, okay, well, what type of people don't have to stand in line? And we were like, okay, people who work here potentially. Maybe they get like a special pass or you have to like pay more money. And then we saw somebody kind of literally roll up in a wheelchair up the exit. And if you go up the exit, you just skip to the front of the line. And we just kind of like looked at each other, we're like, maybe there's something there.

One of them threw out the idea to create a character with a disability who could get them to the front of the lines. Sarah, the actress, volunteered to take on the role.

She was actually— seemed excited by the idea that she could use her acting skills. And so the rest of us kind of came up with the story behind what was happening. And so myself and Jessica were family members. And so I looked a little bit more like Sarah. And so I was going to be Sarah's cousin and Jessica was going to be my friend.

The girls knew they couldn't fake a physical disability, so they decided to have Sara fake a neurological disability.

Sara, I think if I were to think about the type of disability it is, I would say that she was kind of on the nonverbal autism spectrum would have been kind of the performance, I guess. And so she was acting like agitated from the heat. Like, there was noise, like the whole performance. Like, I mean, she crushed it.

Paula, Jessica, and the new Sarah activated the next phase of their plan.

And we had her sitting off to the side. And then I went up to the booth and I kind of explained and asked questions like, do you have any like passes or anything that we can do for my cousin? And she was on the bench visible, kind of behaving in a way that made it a little bit more believable. And we, we had a towel over her head and we like put water on it because we were trying to like cool her down. And she was like grunting and groaning and, and flailing her arms and everything while she was sitting and kind of like hitting hitting Jessica a little bit. So it was like a full, full, like, auditory and visual performance.

Despite Sarah's acting, the people at the ticketing booth said no to the request for special passes. It's possible, of course, that they had encountered other people who had tried to game the system.

I could tell that the workers there, they seemed like— now when I think back, they were definitely like our age. They would have been teenagers as well. But They were definitely skeptical, and so they said no. And so then I went over to my friend, and we kind of talked a little bit and kind of came up with a game plan that, that Sarah and Jessica would come over with me to make it a little bit more believable.

The 3 girls ramped up the pressure on the teenagers in the ticketing booth. Sarah continued to act disabled and distressed.

She just was consistent. She was very good at kind of keeping this whole charade up the whole time. She seemed agitated and hot. And after a little bit, I had her and Jessica go back and sit down again. And a big chunk of it was us kind of going off and me fake consoling her and sitting on the bench with her. I think we were trying to make it seem a little bit more believable by not going anywhere and giving up. And I kind of continued to negotiate with the workers.

The workers pointed out the passes were meant for people who could not physically stand in line. Sarah could stand. She didn't need a wheelchair.

We really kind of had to position our argument that waiting in line in the heat was going to make her disruptive. I believe they ended up having to get a supervisor come give us the pass. I think it probably took us about 20 or 30 minutes, the whole So 20 or 30 minutes, I mean, that is—

that I thought you were going to say 2 or 3 minutes. So 20 or 30 minutes is like— I mean, that is like, that's a lot.

Yeah. We were very dedicated and committed individuals. We kind of had like a goal in mind. We were very tunnel vision, tunnel focused on kind of getting what we wanted out of the situation.

The first thing they did after the supervisor interceded to give them the passes, was to head over to the entrance to a water ride. They went right past a gigantic snaking line of hot, agitated people.

And instead of standing in line at the start, we just walk in the exit. So where all the people come out after they finish the ride, show them our pass. They just opened it up and we got first crack at sitting wherever we wanted. And it was amazing. We just did the same water ride like 3 times in a row. We were thinking we were so smart. We were so elated, so excited. We were gonna have the best day ever. Just kind of— we thought we were just so much smarter than everybody else.

The only way to make the deception work, of course, was to stick to it. Sara couldn't step out of character.

I found it so entertaining that my friend had to stay in character, and she stayed in character on the rides. So we're going through these like drops and turns and everything like that, and she's fully expressing in this character the entire time. And so she would bring her arms kind of forwards and, and sort of flutter and, and flail them like Kind of cheering and the elation and giggling and laughing. She was definitely like, um, having like repetitive movements of joy. Like, that's the part that if you have like a— that flashbulb or that photographic kind of memory, like this thing that's imprinted on my brain is like watching her perform joy while on the rides and like the overtone or the feeling that we were having at the time was like, we outsmarted somebody.

The 3 girls stayed in the amusement park for several hours and went on every ride they wanted. Paula estimates they were able to go on 15 different rides, some of them multiple times. Without the passes, they might have made it to 2 or 3. On the way home, Paula, Jessica, and Sarah had a talk. They agreed not to tell anyone else about what they had done. In fact, they came up with a story of how tough the day had been.

Yeah, we had a story that the lines were really long. We only went on a few rides. It was really fun, but we're really tired, that kind of thing. So we did kind of have a chat about a story to make sure that we were all kind of on the same page.

It was only after a while that they started to rethink their actions.

I think once we were coming home, it started to kind of really sink in what, like, the gravity of the situation and how it's not really in line with who we are as people or who we want to be as people or who we— how we see ourselves, rather. And so It did take a while for it to fully sink in. I think it was definitely like once we were back home, we started thinking that we had done something shameful.

As an adult, Paula has sometimes thought back to those teenagers in the ticketing booth who were suspicious of Sarah's performance. She realizes that they gave in not because they were convinced by her story, but because they felt silenced by it.

I don't know if they actually believed us or if it was just so uncomfortable to call somebody out for faking something like that. Because imagine if we weren't faking it, how horrible that would be for an employee to say you're faking it. So I think we probably put them in a really uncomfortable position, and so they ended up just agreeing.

When we come back, the personality traits of people who cry wolf. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Instagram. Instagram Teen Accounts automatic protections limit who can contact teens, the content they can see, and the time they spend on the app. Teens are automatically placed into Teen Accounts. Teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. Learn more about Teen Accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Air France. Air France Business Cabin offers comfort throughout the journey with priority check-in, boarding, and lounge access. Onboard, enjoy menus from renowned French chefs, wines and champagne selected by a sommelier, and free high-speed Wi-Fi. When it's time to rest, settle into a fully adjustable lie-flat bed with added mattress comfort. The art of travel elevated, because Air France Business Cabin goes further in every detail to make your journey exceptional. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Quince. We all have those pieces in our closet that we can count on— the versatile jacket, The perfect t-shirt. These are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials in designs that are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. And when the temperatures start to drop, Quince makes it easy to build on these everyday staples with versatile layers designed to keep you warm and comfortable all season long. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Hidden Brain. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. When Carl Aquino was 6 years old, all the kids at school were asked to share what they ate for breakfast.

So I remember saying that what I had was a dish made out of pig's feet and banana blossoms. And that generated quite a bit of laughter from the other classmates.

Carl's family had recently immigrated to the United States from the Philippines. The laughter made him feel like an outsider. It was the first of many such moments.

They're imprinted in my memory, and it's been hard to fully forget about them. I mean, they don't have the same— obviously the same sting now or anything like that. I look at them more as a kind of curiosity and a way of thinking about, well, what might the experience be like for other people?

Much has changed in the U.S. in the years since Carl immigrated here. Many schools now go out of their way to welcome students of diverse backgrounds and to embrace cultural differences. Anti-bullying programs are widespread. As a culture, while we're still far from perfect, we've gotten better at caring for the disadvantaged. People who experience hardships are encouraged to ask for help. Carl eventually became a psychologist. He started to notice how regularly students came to him with accounts of various limitations.

I will get requests from students for accommodations for certain things because they're experiencing anxiety or depression or some other kind of psychological challenge.

Carl was usually sympathetic, but he was also struck by how times had changed from when he was a student.

I remember when I was younger, I would also be beset by these anxieties. I would worry about tests and I just didn't, didn't go to my teacher and talk about it. So really, that, that was for me a bit of an eye-opener. That there's an increasing willingness to accommodate or be responsive to different claims that a student might make about hardship or challenge in life. I think it's actually a reflection of the fact that human beings appear to be increasingly concerned about alleviating each other's suffering.

Partly as a result of these experiences and his own childhood experiences of feeling like an outsider, Karl got curious about the ways people ask for help. He wrote an article about this idea.

It's a very simple idea. You know, people want to help. How do they know that you need help, well, you have to tell them somehow, all right? By signaling that one is a victim, one is able to potentially get others— I'll call them benefactors— to provide that person with resources.

Karl hypothesized that people who signal that they are legitimate victims of harm would indeed attract help, especially if they also communicated that they were worthy of help.

If you want to maximize the effectiveness of this signal of your need, it helps to combine it with being virtuous because it makes people more willing to help us. Now, you're going to be more likely to help someone who you think has virtue than someone who you think is, you know, a moral reprobate or degenerate, right? I mean, nobody wants to help that, that other person. And so it seemed very obvious that the maximal effectiveness of any kind of signal of need is to combine Need— being a victim— with virtue. That's the basic idea.

At this point, Karl was not thinking about people who fake hardships. He was just hypothesizing that virtuous victims were more likely to elicit help. As a way to empirically test his hypotheses, Karl devised a scale to identify people who tell others about their challenges and traumas. The scale involved a number of questions.

And we ended up with a set of 10 items, 10 questions that reflect different ways that people might signal their hardship or disadvantage. I'll just read you a few here. Discussed how my concerns and needs are not being heard by political leaders. Shared how I don't feel comfortable with my body. Discussed how I don't feel financially secure. Told others that I get paid less based on my identity. Explained how I don't feel accepted in the society because of my identity. Spoke about how people who share my identity are criminalized by society. Expressed how people like me are underrepresented in the media and leadership. Made it known that I can't move freely within Or outside of my country?

Once he had this questionnaire in hand, Carl was able to identify people who answered yes to one or more of these questions. He now started to look for clues about the motivations and traits of these people.

Okay, so the next part was to see whether there are certain personality characteristics that might predict whether a person is likely to signal victimhood. And I just started playing around with the data. It's really just happenstance. I was trying to validate the scale in a sample, larger sample of students, and included in that data collection effort were other scales that my colleagues had thrown in.

Carl looked to see if the people who self-identified themselves as victims were also likely to show up on other scales and measures. To his surprise, he found a connection with another scale that measured something completely different.

And all I did is I just, I mean, I basically looked at the correlation. It's just a very simple analysis out of curiosity. And I found out that the scale that we were developing was correlated with another scale which measures what's called the Dark Triad of Personality.

The so-called Dark Triad consists of 3 personality traits you've probably heard about. None of them is very nice.

Machiavellianism, basically whether you're willing to immorally manipulate others to get what you want. Narcissism, which probably most people know, but that's sort of a grandiose belief about yourself. You think you're superior to others. And then subclinical psychopathy. Which is not the psychopathy that you associate with a serial killer, but really more of a kind of, I would call it emotional shallowness or lack of remorse when you do bad things. And that was just, I had no idea that would happen. Just saw the correlation. And there it was. It popped out. And I started thinking, hmm, that's curious. What might that show? And it struck me that I wonder if people who are high in these traits are more likely to use Carl had found a correlation, but that does not imply causation.

So he and his colleagues ran a number of experiments to test if there was a real connection.

We know from the literature on the dark personality that, that they are more likely to do things like lie or cheat to try to get what they want. And that's the third part of the paper, was to show that the dark personality does predict a willingness to signal victimhood and virtue.

In one of his experiments, Carl examined whether people were willing to paint a coworker in a bad light in order to make themselves look better.

So in this task, we had people imagine that they were working together with another intern, and it was a kind of competitive situation. They're competing for a job.

After giving the volunteers a description of what the other intern had done, the volunteers were given an opportunity to offer a performance evaluation of the other person. They could stick to the facts or falsely say the intern had behaved poorly.

Then we gave descriptions of things that that intern might have done, such as they don't respect your suggestions, you think they might be saying things behind your back. And we found that people who were higher in the virtuous victim signaling scales were more willing to report these behaviors that weren't in fact stated as having occurred.

These fictitious behaviors, in other words.

Fictitious behavior, yeah. And we reasoned that because you put them in this kind of competitive situation, that it's to their benefit to cast their rival in a less positive light.

I want to stop here to underline something very important. Karl is not saying that everyone who talks about their hardships and limitations is a manipulator and narcissist. Indeed, many, perhaps most of the people who tell you they are experiencing limitations are doing so sincerely. But what Karl is saying is that some subset of the people who claim to be victims are likely pretenders, and these pretenders may be motivated by a desire to manipulate the empathy of potential benefactors.

It's just another reminder that there are going to be times when one might be moved by, by sentiments to help another person, and that person might not be the kind of person you'd want to help because they might exploit you.

So Carl, these behaviors are intersecting at this moment in our cultural life with the fact that we are living in a society that is increasingly interested, or at least many people say they are increasingly interested, in being and acting compassionate. So in other words, there's a supply of compassion as well as a demand for it. And in some ways, what your paper is talking about is the intersection of these 2 worlds where there's a supply of compassion, there are people who genuinely are in need of compassion. But there are also people who are saying, given that there's a supply of compassion, how can I get some of it even if I don't deserve it?

Yeah, that's a very good analysis. If you look at it in terms of a market, you want to reach the equilibrium where you're actually— you're legitimately allocating resources to people in need as opposed to allocating resources to people who don't really need it but are being able to exploit this, what you called surplus of compassion. One of the inspirations for the paper was I read an article in a Canadian newspaper about a woman who posted on GoFundMe that she had cancer.

Family and friends rallied around the woman and a raffle was held to collect money, but police are now alleging the entire campaign was a scam and she didn't really have cancer.

But I think, you know, when people are— because people are very motivated to try to alleviate suffering, it can be sometimes easy for those who might have the dark triad personality, let's say, to use that for their own benefit.

She even went to extremes to shave her head and cut her skin and call them cancer bumps, you know, take time off work for these fake surgeries that didn't actually happen. So it was kind of extreme measures.

If I see a GoFundMe page of someone who basically says they have cancer and I want to help them, but it turns out that they're merely exploiting me, that in some ways prevents me from actually helping the person who actually needs help, the person who actually has cancer and might not have the resources to deal with it.

Exactly. So it's about a— you're diverting resources, attention, concern away from people in legitimate need to those who might be feigning whatever experience they're claiming they have. And again, we can say nothing in this paper about whether these people are not legitimately experiencing these things. But the inference that you're drawing is certainly, I think, one of the implications.

Now, there's sort of a flip side of this, which is, let's say, for example, now I'm alerted to the fact that there are some unscrupulous people, or perhaps people who have Dark personality traits who are likely or who are more likely to set up a GoFundMe page saying that they have cancer. And so now I have my skepticism up. I have my radar up to try and spot these cases. But of course, the truth is I can't really look at a GoFundMe page and tell very much about whether this is a legitimate case or not. Is it possible that this can inadvertently reduce my compassion overall because now I'm actually saying I'm skeptical of the people who are coming to me for help because I'm aware that some portion of them might be counterfeit or some portion of them might be pretenders. Is there a risk in some ways that this can in some ways reduce the supply of compassion in general?

Yeah, I think certainly there is potentially that consequence. And I think this is one of the implications of the proliferation of victim signals is that because it's difficult to know exactly which ones are true or which ones are false, the more there are, the more likely some of them might be false, just in terms of sheer probabilities.

Mm-hmm.

And those false ones will often be more prominent in people's minds. And yes, they will be then perhaps potentially more vigilant in the future, or more skeptical, or less willing to indiscriminately offer their assistance and aid. I mean, I think that is one of the potential social welfare consequences of the increased signaling of victimhood.

When we were children, many of us heard the story of the boy who cried wolf. He was a solitary shepherd with no one to talk to all day. So one day, he thought of a plan to amuse himself. He would call out that there was a wolf and watch the people in his village get riled up. At first, this is exactly what happened. In the fable, the villagers heard the boy's shouts and came running to help. When they saw there was no wolf, they chastised the boy for lying to them. But far from learning his lesson, He tricked them a second time. The villagers realized they could not trust the boy. The next time he cried out for help, there really was a wolf. But by now, the villagers were tired of this game, and no one came to the boy's aid. As human beings, all of us depend upon the help of others. It can be tempting at times to exaggerate our suffering or to invent hardships in order to elicit compassion and aid. At such times, it's worth remembering that there is a steep price to be paid for crying wolf. That price isn't just paid by benefactors who are tricked into offering help when it isn't really needed. The burden falls disproportionately on the people who really do need help the most when they discover There is no compassion left for them. Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our audio production team includes Bridget McCarthy, Annie Murphy-Paul, Kristen Wong, Laura Querelle, Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes, and Andrew Chadwick. Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor. We're always on the lookout for interesting stories that reveal the complexities of human nature. Have you ever done anything that makes you look back and say, why in the world did I do that? If you have a powerful personal story you are willing to share with the Hidden Brain audience, please record a short voice memo on your phone and email it to us at ideas@hiddenbrain.org. Again, if you have a powerful personal story about actions you took and perhaps regret with the benefit of hindsight, record a 2 or 3-minute voice memo outlining the story and email it to us at ideas@hiddenbrain.org. Please use the subject line, Misgivings. We end the show today with a story from our sister show, My Unsung Hero. It comes from Heather Church. Heather will never forget the day many years ago when she walked into a busy clothing store in New York City.

When I went in there, I went down to the lower level, taking the stairs and wearing a very long skirt and a pair of boots. My skirt got caught on my boot and it threw off my balance, and I felt my hand reach for the railing and miss it, and my body twisted as my boot tugged on my skirt. And suddenly I was falling down the stairs backwards. And then I heard steps— stomps, in fact— moving quickly towards me. And someone caught me. My head didn't hit those hard stairs, and I didn't suffer any injuries. And I don't know who that person is. That is my unsung hero. I don't know who they were, and I was so flustered at the time. I can't even remember their face, but I do remember what they did for me that day, and I remain grateful. Thank you.

Listener Heather Church from New York. She tells us that she hopes the stranger at the store might hear this episode and understand how much their actions continue to resonate with her all these years later. If you liked this episode and would like us to produce more shows like this, Please consider supporting our work. Go to support.hiddenbrain.org. Again, if you find our work to be useful in your life, do your part to help us thrive. Go to support.hiddenbrain.org. I'm Shankar Vedantam. See you soon.

Can't remember the last time you opened that book, watched that film, or battled your friends during that board game? Maybe it's time for a shelf refresh. Half Price Books is here to help. Sell comics, movies, games, music, and more at your local Half Price Books and give those old favorites a chance to be loved by someone new. Who knows, you might even find a little something for your newly organized shelf while you're here. Learn more about how to sell used items to Half Price Books and find your local store at hpb.com. Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy. Live and uncensored, catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues, and bodily ailments with that kind of drama that You can listen to Jeff Lewis Live at home or anywhere you are.

Download the SiriusXM app for over 425 channels of ad-free music, sports, entertainment, and more. Subscribe now and get 3 months free. Offer details apply. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. From roof repair to emergency plumbing and more, when you use Angie for your home projects, You know all your jobs will be done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at angie.com.

You wouldn't take financial advice from a 72 hours in a single day alpha influencer, would you? Same goes if you're in a car accident or any accident. Who you choose matters. That's why Morgan and Morgan exists. They're the largest injury law firm in America, and they've built a reputation by actually winning cases, not just talking about it. Over 1,000 lawyers across all 50 states and $30 billion recovered. Injured? Go to forthepeople.com/podcast. That's forthepeople.com/podcast.