Jordan Peterson has explained the subtle ways you can spot a psychopath and how being ‘too polite’ can be an issue.

The Canadian psychologist, 62, known for his strong views on culture and politics, believes that psychopaths are very sneaky and will take advantage without you realising.

According to the NHS, psychopaths are considered to have a severe form of antisocial personality disorder (APD) and are typically very manipulative, deceitful and reckless.

Although psychopaths often have no care for other people’s feelings, it’s important to note that like other types of personality disorders, there is a spectrum and it can range in severity.

But when it comes to the worst of the worst, Peterson warns that everyone, at some point, will encounter one.

They will think that you’re stupid

From an old clip of one of his lectures, the professor said: “This is worth knowing too because if you’re preyed upon by a psychopath, which you will be to some degree at some point in your life.

“The psychopath, who will be narcissistic, will presume that you’re stupid and that you deserve to be taken advantage of because you’re naive and stupid.

“So it’s actually a good thing that he’s doing it and he, his proof for, and I’m saying he because there are more male psychopaths, the proof that you’re stupid, naive, is that he can take advantage of you

“And so like if you were wiser, you’d know his tricks and then it wouldn’t be morally necessary for him to show you just exactly who knows what about what and so the psychopath will use his ability to fool you as proof of his own grandiose, omnipotence omniscience and narcissism.”

Anyone can be fooled by one

“And the problem with that is that you can be fooled by a psychopath and virtually anybody can,” Peterson continues.

“So that Robert Hare, for example, who studied psychopaths for a long time and interviewed a lot of them, like hundreds of them, and videotaped many of the interviews, he said when he was talking to the psychopath, he always believed what they were saying.

“And then he’d watch the video afterwards and see where the conversation went off the rails, but you know the proclivity to be polite in a conversation is very strong.”

Don’t be polite

Finally, Peterson insists that being too polite to someone who is being aggressive is not a good idea.

Even though you might want to give someone the benefit of doubt, he suggests: “And if you’re polite you don’t object to the way that the person unfolds their strategy, you know, and psychopaths are pretty good at figuring out how to manipulate obviously.

“How to manipulate people and the probability that you will be immune to that is extraordinarily low.”