Why Good People Defend Leaders (and Others) Who Contradict Themselves: Identity, Bias & Belonging
Waking Up to NarcissismShow Notes
Why do smart, thoughtful people believe such different things? Authority bias, confirmation bias, and belonging shape what we believe long before we can explain why.
Tony starts with a kid raised in an East Coast fishing town, and another raised hiking Arizona trails. He uses them to show how beliefs tend to form through family, community, and identity, with the reasons showing up later. Then he brings the same lens to politics from a neutral place. He looks at how a trusted "Uncle Mike" can shape which questions feel worth asking, and why changing your mind can get psychologically expensive when your people are on the line. Along the way, he argues that changing your mind can be a sign your mind is working.
In this episode:
Understand confabulation, the way the mind builds sincere explanations for a belief after the fact, with no dishonesty required See how authority bias and confirmation bias work together, from what you type into a search bar to the evidence that ends up feeling convincing Recognize when certainty is working as armor, and what emotionally mature leaders do with disagreement, uncertainty, and their own contradictions Try a question that can get you further than "what evidence do I have?": who taught me to look at this in the first place, and what information would help me reconsider? Practice understanding without agreement, so you can keep your convictions and still stay curious about the person across the table
Tony Overbay is a licensed marriage and family therapist with more than 20 years of experience helping individuals and couples move from defensiveness toward curiosity and connection.
Give it a listen, and maybe add one follow-up question to your week: how did I come to believe that? I'd love to hear what came up for you, so send me a message or drop it in the comments.
Please follow Tony on Instagram @virtual.couch on Tiktok @virtualcouch on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/tonyoverbaylmft and on Substack https://thevirtualcouch.substack.com/ You can reach out to Tony through his website tonyoverbay.com or by emailing contact @ tonyoverbay.com
00:00 Welcome and Setup
00:54 Fishing Town Identity
02:56 When Someone Hates Fishing
05:44 Politics as Fishing
08:14 Confabulation Explained
09:56 Authority Bias and Uncle Mike
13:42 Confirmation Bias in Search
15:20 Flip Side Conservation Lens
16:45 Hiking Permits Debate
19:48 Belonging Versus Being Right
21:58 Choosing Political Authorities
24:54 Cognitive Dissonance and Rationalizing
27:24 Identity Cost of Changing Minds
29:18 Certainty as Armor
30:12 Leader Follower Tradeoff
31:08 Questions for Leaders
32:16 Biases Hit Everyone
34:12 Confidence vs Insecurity
36:28 Uncle Mike Example
38:10 Groupthink Ecosystem
39:19 Why Followers Stay
41:34 Reconsidering Evidence
43:10 Healthy Leadership Model
45:11 Turn the Lens Inward
47:03 Understanding Without Agreement
48:49 Changing Minds Is Growth
51:20 Closing Thoughts and Outro
More from Waking Up to Narcissism
Narcissistic personality disorder vs. emotional immaturity: what separates the two, and why that difference shapes how you heal.
Narcissistic relationship patterns can teach you where to stop, long after anyone has to correct you. Installment 12 of Death by 1,000 Cuts uses the image of an invisible fence to describe how a dog learns to stop at a line nobody walking by can see, and how people living with emotional immaturity and ongoing criticism can learn in much the same way. Listener stories from husbands and wives describe rehearsing an afternoon in the driveway before walking inside, planning vacations that end at the same lake cabin every year, and giving up bedtime after enough notes from the doorway. Those adjustments made a lot of sense, and this episode makes room to get curious about which ones you still need. Episode highlights: Recognize how small, repeated corrections can teach your nervous system where the line is, even after the correction stops coming Explore four patterns from listener emails: the walking, the accounting of your time, the illusion of choice, and being set up to fail Hear a listener describe the attack surface in action, when a simple question about her husband's work landed very differently than the same question from their bishop two hours later Notice whether your brain reaches for an escape hatch when a story almost matches yours, or starts stacking up evidence before you allow yourself to act Consider next steps at a pace that fits your situation, including support and safety planning when more independence could bring retaliation Tony Overbay, LMFT, has spent more than 20 years working with couples and has advanced training in betrayal trauma. If one of these stories brought your own to mind, I'd love to hear it for a future Death by 1,000 Cuts episode. It doesn't need to be dramatic or polished, and you can tell me whether it's okay to share on the show. Please follow Tony on Instagram @virtual.couch on Tiktok @virtualcouch on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/tonyoverbaylmft and on Substack https://thevirtualcouch.substack.com/ You can reach out to Tony through his website tonyoverbay.com or by emailing contact @ tonyoverbay.com 00:00 The Dog and the Line 03:03 Podcast Welcome and Series Setup 04:04 Termites and Tiny Cuts 06:03 Why People Don’t Get It 09:26 Listener Email Begins 10:14 The Narcissistic Laugh 12:07 Inside a Narcissist’s Monologue 18:25 Church Parking Lot Whiplash 21:10 Invisible Fence in Relationships 24:56 Curiosity Over Proof 28:52 Patterns Across Emails 29:50 Walking Ahead Stories 32:56 Small Cuts Add Up 35:11 One-Way Compromise 39:07 Accounting for Time 40:59 Interrogation Disguised 47:37 Illusion of Choice 51:08 Control by Attrition 54:19 Set Up to Fail 59:41 Invisible Fence Metaphor 01:01:35 What to Do Next 01:04:48 Closing Thoughts
Was it narcissistic abuse, or were you the problem? Why does the fog lift after a divorce, and you still can't trust your own judgment?
When someone you love tells you, “Something you did hurt me,” what happens inside of you next? Do you become curious about what it was like to be on the receiving end of you, or does your brain immediately start building the case for why you did what you did, what you meant, what they misunderstood, and what they did first?
What do you do when you finally have language for your in-law's emotional immaturity (or dare I say narcissistic behaviors) — and your spouse, the one who grew up with it, doesn't see it yet. Do you tell them? Do you go directly to your in-law?