There have been a lot of lies and misconceptions
floating around recently thanks to the election, but a term that was only known in some clinical
psychology circles has started to become more mainstream. Gaslighting. Unfortunately, much like
the term fake news, it's being diluted by overuse and is starting to mean just about any form of
lying. But it’s actually a far more elaborate, complicated, and deliberate system
of lying for a purpose. So let’s go about properly identifying this phenomenon
before we effectively lose this word too. [Intro music] So first, let’s just talk about good old plain
lying. Everybody Lies. As House famously said in… just about every episode, everybody
lies. It’s just a matter of about what, and I would add, how often. Let’s start
at the bottom and work our way up. Far and away the biggest reason people lie is out
of fear – usually fear of getting into trouble. And while a lot of this could be as simple as
lying to your parents about which friends you were actually hanging out with, or telling your teacher
that your dog ate your homework – side note that actually happened to me and I showed my teacher
the shredded remains. Some of it can have some serious consequences. Lying on the stand during a
trial can be prosecuted as perjury. Lying to the police during questioning could be obstruction.
If you’re the person in trouble, the police usually expect you to lie, so they developed a way
around that… enter the lie detector, or polygraph. The most hated machine on the planet. Why? Because
we all know it doesn’t work – but for some reason, we still rely on it when it’s given to other
people. And when someone doesn’t want to take it, we immediately assume that they’re guilty.
Why is that? Well mostly, because a) the police WANT you to believe that the lie detector
works, especially if you’re the one about to be questioned and b) the media, tv shows and movies
like cop dramas or daytime talk shows needs a deus ex machina in order to get the truth out of the
bad guy. Lately some of them have been switching over to “truth serums” which were ruled completely
unconstitutional in 1963 in the US, because of the whole altered mind and giving a confession while
under the influence thing. If you’d like to see how well truth serums actually work, you probably
have one the best ones in your kitchen – alcohol. But lie detectors are still a little hit or miss
when it comes to the law. Some states allow them, some states ban them, some federal agencies
mandate them, and some people on probation or parole are required to take them. So while
we all know that they don’t work, at least on some level we hope they work for other people.
So how do these things supposedly work? Well, a polygraph measures physiological changes. It
tracks heart rate, blood pressure, respiration rate, and skin conductivity. Skin conductivity?
They also call it the galvanic skin response. Sounds super fancy right? The person administering
the polygraph will always tell you about these super scientific things it’s measuring in order
to get you to – at least in the moment – believe that the machine works. Skin conductivity
literally means how sweaty your fingertips are. The most widely used questioning method is called
the controlled question test. At the start, the administrator will tell you to lie…
and then point out on the machine that it was pretty obvious that you were lying. So
now you believe that the machine works. Onto the questions. All of your answers are simple
yes or no. There are three types of questions, control or diagnostic questions, which are
pretty simple. Is your name Kayleigh? Are you currently in the seated position? Then there
are irrelevant questions, these are usually bad things about your past that aren’t part of
the investigation. Have you ever lied to a loved one? Have you ever stolen anything? And then
the relevant questions to the investigation. All of the questions are in a mixed random order.
The polygraph is passed if your physiological responses to the irrelevant questions are greater
than to the relevant questions. If they are equal, then the test is ruled inconclusive, and you might
even be accused of trying to cheat the polygraph. The problem is if you’re innocent, anxious,
and very adamantly deny that you committed the crime - I did not murder him. Hell, I
don’t want my toaster or my vacuum cleaner appearing emotional. I DID NOT MURDER
HIM! - even if you’re telling the truth, the polygraph is going to register that as
more than the irrelevant questions, therefore, you’re lying. The fear of false positives, and
the anxiety that comes along with it, turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, and therefore the
polygraph is no more reliable than a coin flip. In several high profile cases, like the BTK Killer,
the guilty person actually passed the polygraph. Some say that trained polygraph administrators
are no more reliable than untrained citizens at deducing whether or not someone is lying.
A better method of polygraph questioning is called the Guilty Knowledge Test. Instead of using
yes or no questions, the person is presented with a multiple choice question, where one of the
options is something that only the guilty party would know. “Was the victim stabbed, shot, or
strangled?” “Was the victim shot with a pistol, rifle, or shotgun?” The questions are slowed down
so the person has time to think about each of the options, and their overall reactions to the
guilty information is what determines whether or not they are guilty. There are variations
of this test where, after the question, the person is told the correct answer – in
order to rate the “Oh no, they know!” reaction. There are some methods of lie detection
that are proving much more reliable. Such as measuring ocular-motor functions, which you can’t
consciously control, or using an fMRI. The problem is that these methods are extremely expensive
and nowhere near ready to use in criminal cases. So okay, enough about polygraphs and lying to
get out of trouble. Most of the other lies that we tell are in order to protect someone or not
hurt their feelings. We usually call these “white lies.” Thanks for the sweater grandma! Yes, this
tastes delicious. Make no mistake, these are lies. The problem with white lies is that if the person
ever finds out that you were lying, you’re going to be in way more trouble than if you had actually
just told the truth – because not only have you hurt their feelings, but you also lied about it.
That’s why I never tell any lies, not even white ones (press X to doubt)…. What. Zoom out already.
Somewhat more rare are lies for attention or sympathy. We all do this to some degree – the fish
was this big, I swear – but the best example comes from pathological liars. These are the people
that lie about having a famous dad or uncle, or having cancer, or that they were abused, in
order to look good or get more sympathy. They want to be seen as being cool, the hero, or the victim.
All of these get them more attention. There are four characteristics to a pathological liar:
The lies are always amazing, they never lie about something dull, but they are
always within the realm of possibility. The lie is automatic and chronic. They
will always lie – in any situation. The motivation to lie is internally generated. No
one is making them or teaching them how to lie. The lies always make the person
look better or more deserving. A key point in identifying a pathological liar is
that they KNOW they are lying. If someone lies so much that they believe their own lies, they’re no
longer lying, they’re suffering from a delusion. One of the first steps in diagnosing psychopathy
is whether or not they are a pathological liar. All psychopaths are pathological liars. But
not all pathological liars are psychopaths. The final reason people lie – although
I’m sure someone will pick this apart and find a reason that I missed – is lying for
personal gain. This could be as simple as lying in order to get someone’s money, like a con
artist. Or as complicated as lying in order to increase power – like in government,
or business, or even in a relationship. And here is where we finally get to talk about
gaslighting. Gaslighting is a lying scheme used deliberately to control a person’s perception of
reality, in order to maintain or strengthen the liar’s control. Not all lies are gaslighting,
and as I said before, if we overuse this term, it’s going to become diluted and meaningless.
Just like what happened with fake news just a few months ago. It started off as just hoaxes and
lies, but now it means “any news I disagree with.” But the reason gaslighting has become such
a popular phrase as of late is because of Donald Trump and his surrogates. Before the
last few years, gaslighting was a term only known in the clinical psychology world. It was
the method by which an abusive spouse kept the submissive spouse in line… even to the point of
making the abused spouse deny that there was any abuse or believe that they somehow deserved it.
It got its name from a 1944 film named Gaslight, in which a woman is psychologically tortured
and made to question her entire reality. We’re going to look at three examples in order
to explain gaslighting. First, the original perpetrator: the abusive husband.
Sup. Second, a less obvious gaslighter, the cheater.
Hello. Wait… is, is this thing on? And lastly, since he is the reason the term
rose in popularity recently, Donald Trump. Help… mmph… I’m gonna barf.
So the main goal of gaslighting is to get the person to question their own perceptions
of reality and accept yours, thus giving you more power. In the husband's example, they are trying
to get power over their spouse, so they’re talking directly to their spouse in a confrontation. In
the examples I’ll give you of Donald Trump and his administration, he’s not talking directly to the
American people, but to reporters. But, he is not attempting to gaslight the reporter, as some would
say, he’s trying to gaslight the American people. There are five tactics in gaslighting. Any
one of these on their own is simply a lie, it's the combination, the elaborate and
deliberate implementation, that makes it gaslighting. And a person who is gaslighting will
use all of them, not necessarily all at once, and in no particular order.
Reject. Deny or reject the accuser’s version of events.
Pfft. It ain’t even like I hit you. What? No, we were just meeting up for some drinks.
No one had numbers because the National Parks Service, which controls the
National Mall, does not put any out. Diminish. Marginalize or reduce the accuser’s
claim, you’re admitting that it happened, but not to the degree that they think it did.
I barely even hit you. If I wanted to hit you, trust me, you’d be in the hospital.
It didn’t mean anything, not like I’m with you… it was just a fling.
Could you hear the voices from the women’s march here in Washington? We know there
were more than a million people who turned out, and you are their president now too. It’s true.
Could you hear them… No, I couldn’t hear them. Alternative. Offer an alternative example that’s
much bigger or much worse than what they’re claiming, thus further diminishing their claim.
You’re acting like I went all Chris Brown on Rihanna or something.
It was just one night with a friend. It’s not like I’m sleeping with hookers at a motel.
You’re gonna have a large crowd on Friday too, which is mostly pro-life people.
You’re gonna have a lot of people coming on Friday. And I will say this, and I didn’t realize
this but I was told, you will have a very large crowd of people, I don’t know, as large or
larger. Some people said it’s going to be larger. Blame. Accuse the accuser of bias
or being the cause of the event. Sometimes you just make me crazy
is all, you know how you get. Well, maybe if you weren’t at work so much I
wouldn’t have to look around for attention. Photographs of the inaugural proceedings
were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimize the enormous
support that had gathered on the National Mall. These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of
the inauguration are shameful and wrong. Pro-life people, and they say the press doesn’t
cover them. I don’t want to compare crowd sizes again. No you shouldn’t. But let me just say,
what they do say is the press doesn’t cover them. Assure. Reassure the accuser that your
version of events is the correct one by using a statement they should already accept.
C’mon baby, you know I would never hit you. C’mon baby, you know I would never cheat on you.
But I have to also say, we just had an election a few weeks ago, and they voted, in many cases, in
some they didn’t vote I imagine, and we did have an election. With that being said, absolutely
I have a responsibility to everybody, including people that didn’t vote for Donald Trump.
This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period.
Both in person and around the globe. All five of these tactics, used in tandem, will
cause the victim to question their reality, and the evidence of their eyes and ears, and
accept the alternative reality supplied by the gaslighter. The spouses in the first two examples,
and as some people say, the American people, in the last example. They will also begin
to reject any evidence that contradicts the reality they’ve been indoctrinated to believe,
thus giving the gaslighter even more power. It should be noted that not everybody is
susceptible to gaslighting. The victim has to be relatively unintelligent or unaware – in the
dark so to speak. As Maureen Dowd said in 1995, “You cannot gaslight someone
who is already a little lit.” As I said, any one of those on their own is simply
a lie. Or an alternative fact. Sigh… no… no, I’m not falling down that rabbit hole. Calling
it an alternative fact is just a way to diminish the accuser’s claim that they are lying.
It’s one of the tactics of gaslighting. So now that you know all about lies and
gaslighting, make sure that you’re using the terms correctly. And make sure that others
are using them correctly. I understand that tweeting back to someone and saying “That’s not
gaslighting, that’s just a lie. Gaslighting is an elaborate system of lies used for control.”
Is the kind of hair-splitting that might get people to dislike you, but if we allow
the term to be diluted and diminished, we are actually helping the gaslighting
process. So hopefully now, you know better. Hey guys, this video was a combination of
requests from CarpeNoctem and Battle. If you have any suggestions for future topics, or
have a request for something to be explained, leave them down in the comments, or find
me on Facebook or Twitter. But if you liked this video or you learned something, make
sure to give that like button a click. If you’d like to see more from me, I put out
new videos every weekend, so go ahead and gaslight that subscribe button. I recently
had my schedule shift around a little bit, so while I still plan on putting out videos
on Sunday, sometimes they might come out on Monday. At least until I’m able to get my time
management skills back in order. In the meantime, if you haven’t been getting notifications that my
videos are going up, make sure that you click that little bell next to the subscribe button. And
if you’d like to watch one of my older videos, how about this one? [Outro music]
