Whenever I puzzle over something in my life, I often end up understanding the characters I write in my stories a little better too. A conversation with a friend helped me see that connection last year.
The puzzle
So, I was talking to my friend about one of my pain points: how, no matter what I did, some people would always get angry with me. I didn’t know when the next fight would come, and I felt frustrated that I hadn’t gained any wisdom from my decades of life and the many books I’ve read—not to mention constantly thinking about my characters’ psychology. So I was surprised when my friend interrupted me to say (paraphrasing here):
“It’s not you, it’s them.”
“What?” I said. “Can’t be. The common denominator of all these conflict-filled situations is always me, so I must be the cause of the problem. There’s something wrong with me that makes other people want to be aggressive toward me. To hurt me. I wish I knew what that was, so I could try to change it.”
“Your analysis sounds correct, but it’s not,” my friend said. “This kind of reasoning is called the ‘hot-hand fallacy.’ Have you heard of it?”
No, I hadn’t. So my friend explained: The name hot‑hand fallacy for this type of cognitive bias comes from sports, where people assume a player who’s been performing well is more likely to keep that streak going. In reality, performance usually regresses to the mean, and the streak is often just randomness. In my case, the hot-hand fallacy was assuming I had more control over my interactions with other people than I actually had.
“You’re not the cause of those conflicts,” my friend said. “You’re most likely dealing with HCPs, and you don’t know it.”
What’s an HCP?
My friend recommended 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life: Identifying and Dealing with Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other High-Conflict Personalities by Bill Eddy, the co‑founder of the High Conflict Institute in California, where he’s spent decades researching conflict behavior.
The book identifies five kinds of high‑conflict personalities: borderline, narcissistic, paranoid, antisocial, and histrionic. According to the author, they make up only about 10% of the population, but they generate far more drama than the average person.
Because I trust my friend, I picked up the book, and I immediately recognized the scenarios described in the opening chapter. There’s the inappropriate sexual approach from a co-worker, the amazing romantic courtship that turns into an abusive relationship, the scammer who convinces their community to donate money with a tearful fake story, the employee who makes everyone’s life miserable at the office and claims to be the victim too, the family member who’s dramatic and accusatory. In each case, the conflict keeps escalating, and the target ends up feeling out of control and responsible at the same time.
I can’t stress how liberating this book was for me. I’ve met my fair share of HCPs in my life, so it was good to have proof (statistical and analytical) that I wasn’t the horrible person I was made to feel by these people. Also, think of the huge number of HCPs in the general population. If 10% are HCP, then every tenth person I meet has the potential to be looking for conflict. Of course I thought I was causing conflict, since over time, I met a lot of people I couldn’t get along with. But, as my friend pointed out, that’s the hot-hand fallacy at work.
The part that blew my mind
The book has chapters for each type of HCP, with descriptions of the type and advice on how to deal with it. In short, try to avoid engaging with them, if at all possible. If it’s not possible, there’s a specific set of steps someone can take to minimize the damage. You can read the book and see if you agree with the author’s argument, but I’ll just skip to the part where I received the answer to a burning question, addressed by the author in “Chapter 11: The HCP Theory.”
So, if these five types of people are so destructive, why do they still exist? My belief is that the wiring of the high-conflict brain that causes their extreme behaviors has historically been an asset to society in wartime but can be unnecessarily destructive in peaceful civilizations.
Throughout history, groups of people have constantly come in contact with each other and fought for resources. With very few exceptions, war has been around since the beginning of our species. Here’s how HCPs are the best people to have on your side in times of war (quotes from the same chapter).
Antisocial HCPs
These are the warriors who can fight without a conscience. Many enjoy hurting others, sometimes even killing them. They would do anything to dominate others and are most highly defensive against anyone trying to dominate them. They are big risk takers and are driven to excitement even when it may endanger their own lives. They are who you want fighting by your side in any intense life-or-death battle. They are also highly promiscuous, which helps rebuild the population after a war.
Narcissistic HCPs
These are the leaders, those who want to be seen as superior to everyone else. They could be very charming and highly persuasive in getting others to follow them and believe in their schemes. They enjoy treating their enemies with disdain and public insults, but they flatter those on their side with praise and attention. They can be very seductive politically and sexually. These traits help increase the number of their followers and persuade people to trust in them. They serve best as revolutionary leaders, as they see themselves as superior to the status quo or existing rules, laws, and institutions. But they generally aren’t good at building peaceful societies or organizations after a revolution.
Borderline HCPs
These are your relationship protectors, to the extreme. They hold tight to their children and their spouses or partners. They may be the best survivors in wartime because they passionately protect their families against all outside threats. They could be extremely jealous and sometimes even violent in order to protect their home and community. As husbands, they may try to protect their mates by physically dominating and controlling them. As wives, they may be super watchful for any infidelities on the part of their mates and may keep tight control over their children to keep them nearby. This may help the family survive against an outside threat.
Paranoid HCPs
These personalities are very suspicious of everyone. They may spot the enemy or potential betrayals before anyone else does. They are ever watchful for conspiracies outside and inside their communities. They also remember past offenses and hold grudges, which may help in catching traitors.
Histrionic HCPs
These personalities are very dramatic and reactive to the slightest minor event and social misbehavior. They excel at getting and holding other people’s attention. They can focus everyone on their own stories and cries of crisis. They can override individual distractions in a family or community and bring everyone together to hear their alarming news. This may help the whole community survive.
And here’s the part that broke my heart:
You can see how each of these high conflict personality disorders may have helped human families and communities survive, even before there was spoken and written language. In other words, they may only be disorders in modern civilized societies, where there is no war or other extreme unrest occurring in day-to-day life. In fact, the ability and desire to manage and restrain high conflict personalities may be a sign of a successful civilization.
These HCPs have made sure their communities survived throughout history, so we should be grateful for them. But they also bring so much pain into our lives. Every one of my friends has someone at work who just makes their life miserable, and our conversation always revolves around what their work environment would be like with that one toxic person gone. Sound familiar to you too? That’s because there are usually more than 10 people in a workplace, so the HCP crops up. But I’m sure you have stories of absurd conflict even in smaller groups.
It’s a sad, beautiful, and tragic aspect of humankind, don’t you think? It made me lose hope that we would ever reach an age where we could all just get along. It also helped me better advise my kids when they interact with a teenage HCP (they’re something else, because impulse control is not there for most teenagers…).
Thinking about my writing
As a fiction writer, I have to make more than 10% of my characters high-conflict, or the stories turn out boring. So I try to put myself in the high-conflict mind frame almost every day, but many times it’s hard. My first instinct is always to ask, why can’t people just get along and try to understand each other?
I have a list of beats that a good scene should hit in order to keep the reader turning pages. I can’t tell you how many times I just wanted my characters to just sit down and talk things out. That’s because I like them all (I created them), and as a decent “parent,” I want what’s best for them. But then, that’s not the author’s job. That job is to make their lives as miserable as possible and see them overcome all that (or not).
And then there’s another layer of complexity. Not all HCPs are villains in a story. In times of war, we celebrate the warriors. In my Roman Era historical fantasy, my protagonist is a great warrior. Is he antisocial too? On the other hand, it’s easy to put villains in one or more of these categories, and it’s satisfying to see them punished at the end of the story, if it has a happy ending. But what if the villain is none of the above but instead someone whose life left them (almost) no choice? Then things get really interesting.
