# Scale 2: Reserved

- **Episode:** [14](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/14.md) (2022-11-29)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** hds, reserved, personality
- **Time:** 32:30–38:18 (start 1950s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/14?t=1950](https://truthliesandwork.com/14?t=1950)

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[32:30] Sandy McKenzie: Um, the 3rd score is reserved. Um, so again, a bit like excitable, I've scored this 100, like nothing in between. And I think the thing about reserved, it's an interesting one. And I think I went with this because it links back to probably his childhood where, you know, he wasn't a popular kid. He was bullied. You know, he was bullied for being different. And I think he probably built up a very independent resilience internally, which was probably just not to trust anybody, quite frankly, other than himself. And so I think, I think Whilst we see a very extroverted individual based on Twitter and because he's sort of so widely recognized, I think he's a very vulnerable and very reserved individual, in fact, internally. And the sort of the derailleur that's associated with that is that that can lend towards becoming very socially withdrawn, very tough
[33:32] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[33:34] Sandy McKenzie: And actually uncommunicative when it becomes a derailer. When it's sort of a positive, it's about being very independent, very objective, not needing a lot around you to make hay of the situation and surroundings. But I think definitely there's a sort of a reserved introvert as well that exists potentially with him. And I think that again is perhaps That's why we see such massive sort of swings in his behavior patterns as well, probably built up through years and years of defense mechanisms to sort of deal with what he had to deal with as a child. There's a cluster of scores now, which is bold, mischievous, colorful, imaginative. And this cluster represents behaviors at a macro level that we would say are moving against people. So these are the fight behaviors as opposed to the flight behaviors that you might typically recognize. And so the sort of quick run-through of what you'd expect from bold, mischievous, colorful, and imaginative, because I've scored all of these 100, he's off the chart. So this is about being confident and assertive. It's about being charming and interesting, outgoing and socially skilled, innovative and creative. And I think, you know, what he's achieved and what he does, I You know, I think we can see all of that in terms of what he's done. But this is the bit where the major derailers, um, you know, for me occur. The potential strength overused as a derailleur becomes entitled, arrogant, overestimates competence, risk-taking, limit testing, untrustworthy, attention-seeking, self-promoting, and dramatic, eccentric, impractical. and lacking in focus. These are the sort of words that are typically used to describe the Hogan derailleur at the very sort of top end. And they're all contextual, so you have to put them into sort of different situations and scenarios to kind of interpret the extremity of that. But I think with Elon, we're talking about extremity, and I'm trying not to swear, but I could probably add a few swear words in there to kind of accentuate some of those comments, but I'll try to avoid that. Um, but yeah, you know, this is a guy who moves against people. There's definitely some flight behaviors, which is that reserved and that excitable score. Um, but I think he, you know, he, he— that's where he's built up the defense mechanism. And, and what tends to happen is you see the, I'm gonna fight this situation for no reason, that, you know, for no reason at all, potentially
[36:13] Al Elliott: Yeah
[36:13] Sandy McKenzie: You know, there's a, there's There's a case to sue somebody, I'm going to sue them. Get the lawyers onto it. I don't care how much it costs. Do you know what? I don't even realize what the reason is. It's just my natural mechanism to fight, fight, fight
[36:26] Al Elliott: So this is really interesting. So once you look into each one of these scales, you can start to see how the scoring is matching up with the behavior we're seeing. And we're not picking on Elon Musk. It's just that he is most probably the most famous leader right now at the moment in November 2023. Um, so I'm intrigued. How, as a psychologist, are you going to sum this up? How did he measure up on what you think?
[36:48] Leanne Elliott: So as I mentioned earlier, each of the scales on the HTS is related to a personality disorder on the DSM. We're not saying if you score highly— and I can't stress this enough— we're not saying if you score highly on the HTS you have a personality disorder. That's not the case. But if we're imagining personality traits as this continuum, then the dark side of personality is much closer to personality disorders than the bright side of personality. So I think what is a really useful comparison is to really demonstrate when these things derail to the point where they become real. I mean, really derail, like Elon Musk level derail. Then, you know, they might start to become clinical. And we can use— we can find some really interesting examples to kind of bring this all to life. So let's— as Sandy said, there's a few kind of a cluster of scales there. So let's just delve into kind of the psychopathology of those. So first, Sandy talked about BOLD, which is a scale on the HDS. So BOLD is related to narcissistic personality disorder on the DSM-5. So that's characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy, Need for constant attention, need for admiration. History is really littered with narcissists. They do make their mark in the world for good or bad. Adolf Hitler, Joan Crawford, as we've said, Donald Trump are examples of narcissists, just to name a few