Dr Suzanne Egan and Dr Marc Scully, lecturers in psychology at Limerick’s Mary Immaculate College, delved into the behaviours, strategies and mind games that defined the first series
Traitors Ireland was the smash hit show of the year, with producers saying they have already received tens of thousands of applications from people hoping to emulate star contestant Paudie Moloney.
But how can those who make it through casting emulate the canny Limerickman and win the competition? Dr Suzanne Egan and Dr Marc Scully, lecturers in psychology at Limerick’s Mary Immaculate College, delved into the behaviours, strategies and mind games that defined the first series to show what gave the top players a competitive edge.
The show caught the imagination of the Irish public, landing RTÉ with record viewing figures to boot. Dr Egan and Dr Scully came up with four key insights that might help future contestants outwit, outplay, and outlast rivals in next year’s edition of the show.
Survival in the game rests on convincing the other players that you are “100% Faithful” while being careful about how you do it.
Adopting a leadership role, like David and Niall early in the series, or coming across as too ‘savvy’, like Mark, leaves you liable to murder by the Traitors. But attempting to keep a low profile was seen as suspicious.
We have numerous different versions of ourselves that we present depending on the situation, such as on a night out with friends or visiting elderly relatives. This does not mean one version is your ‘real’ self, and the other is somehow ‘fake’.
The nature of the game is that players can be recruited as Traitors and thus must switch overnight from truthfully presenting themselves as Faithfuls, to continuing to present themselves as Faithfuls, while actually being Traitors. Some players, such as Andrew, appeared to struggle with this switch, while others, such as Nick, appeared to embrace it.
The ability to adjust how we act depends on how comfortable we are adapting to different situations. It might appear as though high self-monitors are ideally placed to win, but even Nick was eventually caught in a rare unguarded moment by Kelley, paving the way for the Faithfuls’ victory.
Kelley, who was the player that came under the least suspicion for being a Traitor throughout, has attributed her success to being her “true, authentic self” on the series.
Eamon chose not to reveal his career as a Garda, and Katelyn hid her background in psychology. Andrew and Paudie also attempted to hide their family relationship. Others sought to strategically deploy aspects of their identities, with Ben arguing his army career was evidence of his trustworthiness.
Alliances also often depended on pre-existing identities. Christine attempted to build an alliance with John based on their shared Corkness. Alliances based on gender emerged in the later part of the series.
The mix of contestants also meant different identities and experiences could be compared and contrasted. One notable moment was when Vanessa and Joanna discussed how their experiences as migrants gave them a specific perspective on interpersonal relationships. However, identity-based alliances often did not survive the vagaries of the game. John gave his much-coveted shield not to Christine, but to Katelyn, who, as a Traitor, proceeded to murder him.
Sometimes recollections of conversations differed, even when people weren’t deliberately lying to each other. This was evident at the roundtable discussion between Vanessa, Joanna, Faye and Oyin, with each of these Faithfuls believing their version of events.
Writing things down is a very useful and well-recognised memory aid, and one that helped Oyin be an excellent Traitor detector. In her post-series interview, Oyin mentioned how she kept written records in her journal each night to help her figure out who was a Faithful and who was a Traitor.
This is the ability to think about how things could have turned out differently. This kind of ‘what if’ thinking was evident in contestant interviews, Traitor discussions in the conclave, and in the chats we as viewers had with family, friends, and colleagues. If Paudie hadn’t chosen his son Andrew to join him as a Traitor, might he have stayed until the end? What if Traitors Nick and Ben had chosen Oyin instead of Wilkin as their final murder victim of the game?
