social dominance and, 238
Newman, Joseph
psychopathy as learning disability, 103
theories tie neatly to Posner's on attentional networks in borderlines, 202, 326
Newton and Leibniz, feud over invention of calculus, 291
Niall of the Nine Hostages and genetic stamping among Irish, 268
Nielsen, Nete Munk: long-term psychiatric effects of polio, 325–26
NIH (National Institutes of Health)
overview of work mapping genetic bases of psychiatric illnesses, 68
research related to intermediate phenotype, 66–67
Nisbett, Richard E., codirector of University of Michigan's Culture and Cognition Program, 175
Nixon, Richard, temper of, 300
Niyazov, Saparmurat, dictator of Turkmenistan, narcissism of, 287
Noble, Ralph: Siamese fighting fish, 39
nomadic versus hunter-gatherer societies, trade-offs in, 266
Norwegians, “black,” 118
No Two Alike (Judith Rich Harris), 56n
novelty seeking and D4DR, 82
nucleotides, explanation of, 62
nucleus accumbens
in borderline personality disorder
role in executive control
discussion, 199
flowchart, 196
role in determining motivation and reward, action site for drugs that produce euphoria
discussion, 186
flowchart, 185
nurture
older beliefs about influence on personality of, 37–38
psychopathy and effect of, 51, 55–58
Nurture Assumption, The (Judith Rich Harris), laid profound case for influence of genes on personality, 37, 175
obsessive-compulsive disorder
COMT alleles and, 79
defined, 135
Oppenheimer, Jerry (Martha Stewart—Just Desserts and House of Hilton), 293–94
Oppenheimer, Robert, mental flexibility of, probable polio survivor, 301
orbitofrontal cortex
in borderline personality disorder, 206
problems with impulsivity similar to those with damage to, 196–98, 206
role in cognitive-perceptual impairment, 203–207
role in executive control
discussion, 199
flowchart (as “Orbital PFC”), 196
role in suppressing emotional memories that affect decision making and can cause inflexibility, 204
dysfunction releases brakes on impulses, 94, 180–81
illustration of, 94, 181
linkage with limbic (emotional) systems, 186
MAO-A alleles and decreased reaction in, 80–81
Ottoman empire—the Sick Man of Europe, 271–72, 274
Ovid: “All things may corrupt when minds are prone to evil,” 334
oxytocin hormones, 83
painful incoherence, defined, 156
Pally, Regina, description of borderline personality disorder from evolutionary perspective, 282
Palmer, Mark, Enron's head of corporate communications, 298
Panic, Milan: Milosevic's attempted suicide, 160–61
paranoia. See cognitive dysfunction, paranoia
paranoid ideation (defining DSM-IV trait for borderline personality disorder), 157, 158
paranoid personality disorder. See also cognitive dysfunction, paranoia
defined, 134
shame, narcissism, vindictiveness, and hypersensitivity in relation to; Mao's features of, 246
parietal lobes in borderline personality disorder
right lobe appears to be smaller, 198
smaller right lobe produces psychotic symptoms, 199
Paris, Joel
relation between antisocial and borderline personality disorders, 137
roller coaster emotional life of those with borderline personality disorder, 138
Parker, Robert (wine connoisseur) and taste memory, 262n
partisanship, political. See politics
Paul, Annie, 41–42
PDQ-4+ (Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire), 132–33
Perisi, General (Milosevic's chief of general staff), 165
Perry, Rick, Texas state governor: his ineffectual handling of Texas Southern University's corruption, 279–80
personality
effect of immune system on personality disorders, 207
older beliefs about influence of nurture on, 37–38, 38n
overview of how genes affect, 59
personality types sort themselves into positions that suit personalities, 277, 303–304n
personal relationships, unstable. See relationships, unstable personal
Pert, Candace, credit for her discovery of opiate receptors usurped by advisor, 291
PET (positron emission tomography), defined, 197
Peterson, Laci, murdered by husband, previously dated violent man, 255
Phelps, Jim
discussion of BDNF, 77–78
preface by, 19–22
phenotype
explanation of, 64
intermediate. See intermediate phenotype
Pinker, Steven: his The Blank Slate helped shift researchers away from “people are naturally good” idea, 37, 175
Pinochet, Augusto (president of Chile), 286
pleiotropy, 75–77
Plomin, Robert, 59, 59n, 363n9
Polio Paradox, The (Richard Bruno), 114–16
poliovirus
how it infects and affects people, 111, 114–16
long-term psychiatric effect on, 325–27
stress related to treatment of those with polio, 125–26
political partisanship, neuroimaging study of, 189–90
Political Psychology (journal), 34
politicians, advantage of “dysfunctional” personality traits for, 250–52
politics
“emote control”
confirmation bias, seeing and hearing only confirmation of our expectations, 179
neuroimaging study of partisanship of Democrats and Republicans, 189–92
“projection bias,” the danger of assuming those from other cultures think as we do, 378n8
general observations about political gamesmanship
blanket anti-son-of-a-bitch policy is righteous self-delusion (Charles Krauthammer), 339
gerrymandering and blocking of transparency rules typify protections Machiavellians provide themselves, 336
at high levels, the game of “find the Machiavellian” becomes a house of mirrors—because each party is rife with Machiavellians, 338
Machiavellians, with their distorted, self-serving cognitions, can twist good intentions to ill and set entire populations aflame with hatred, 331
people with grudges can twist “good” laws to bad purposes, 335
rise of Machiavellians means others redirect themselves toward less corrupt systems, which in turn become corrupt as Machiavellians are attracted to new nexus of power, 336–37
self-select, so that higher political levels have higher percentages of Machiavellians, 333, 335
intellectuals and journalists provide kinder treatment to brutal foreign dictators than home politicians, 241, 317
political ideologies
are seized by people of certain temperaments, for good or for ill, 308, 322, 333
capitalism
capitalists as cultural chumps, 177–79
freedom of speech in capitalist society meant capitalist atrocities magnified, while communist atrocities remained hidden, 242
communism
purges: “everybody makes mistakes,” 28, 173–74, 179, 237, 240
true Communist traditions of helpfulness, 212–13
unabashed idealism provides perfect cover for Machiavellians, 250
fascism, 311, 333
Mao's fascist ideas, 217
right-wing dictators wave anticommunist flag to maintain power, 286
sham democracy of right-wing d
ictators, 250
opaque ideologies and politically oriented religions with few checks and balances provide perfect cover for Machiavellians, 334
relativism
basic features of morality hard-wired, not a product of culture, 322
cultural policies of appeasement lead to genocide, 307
“projection bias,” 378n8
power attracts females with borderline personality disorder, 277
Pol Pot
brief overview compared to other dictators, 28
lack of psychological literature related to, 33
polygeny (genetics), definition, 76–77
polygyny (having more than one wife): role in increasing reproduction opportunities for Machiavellians, 268–70
population density affects number of psychopaths and Machiavellians, 264–71
Posner, Michael, studies of
attentional networks and their relevance to dysfunctional people, 301, 326, 333
executive control as defining difference for clinical versus subclinical borderlines, 200–202
Post, Jerrold
conscience of narcissist is flexible, dominated by self-interest, 247
malignant narcissism, 33
posterior cingulate cortex, coexisting borderline-schizotypal types show gray matter reduction in, 227
posterior superior temporal cortex, increased activity in relation to altruism, 100
posttraumatic stress disorder, illustration of overlap with borderline personality disorder, 208
power, attraction of those with borderline personality disorder toward those with, 277
Power, Samantha (“A Problem from Hell”): how and why genocide happens, 321
prefrontal cortex. See also dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; orbitofrontal cortex; ventromedial cortex
antisocial behavior produced by damage to, 94
borderline and antisocial patients both show differences in function of, 208–209
in borderline personality disorder
boosted signal from amygdala causes excess activity, 195
disrupted connection to other regions of brain cause many borderline features, 206
PET scans show higher glucose metabolism, 197
PET scans show lower serotonin levels, 197
role in executive control
discussion, 199
flowchart, 196
emotion and, 186
illustration of three major components of, 94
portrayed in flowchart form, 185
press. See media, press, and journalists
Prince, The (Niccolo Machiavelli), 41–42, 46
prison, deinstitutionalization and trade-offs with increased prison populations, 330
“Prisoner's Dilemma,” 257
“Problem from Hell, A” (Samantha Power): how and why genocide happens, 321
professors and Machiavellianism. See academia
projection. See also manipulation
borderline personality disorder
as coping characteristic in, 137
defined, 145
connection with delusional thinking, 302–303
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and, 182
paranoid personality disorder, trait of, 134
provides for successful manipulation and control, 250
use of by different people
Carolyn, 141, 145
Mao, 234–35, 250
Milosevic, 162
“projection bias,” the danger of assuming those from other cultures think as we do, 378n8
“projects,” to eliminate bad housing for the poor, 191
pruning, strange neural in psychopaths, 92
pseudopsychopaths, subtly impaired reasoning skills of, 96
“Psychism,” Mao's policies dubbed as by Robert Jay Lifton, 235
Psychology of Politics, The (Hans J. Eysenck), 46
psychopaths. See also psychopathy
“borderpath,” 168
“corporate,” 106–107, 108
defined, 29n, 51–52, 255n
good parents can still have psychopath-like child, 38n, 89, 102–104
neuroscience behind studies of psychopaths
amygdala, unresponsive, 93, 209
corpus collosum, neural pruning and myelin sheaths of, 92
differences in reactions to emotionally charged words, imaging studies of, 90–91
gray, white matter and, 106
image of psychopathic dysfunction and moral reasoning overlap, 101
mirror neurons, role in, 105
neural differences between borderlines and, 209
“pseudopsychopaths” created by brain damage, 96
right anterior superior temporal gyrus dysfunction and problems with abstract reasoning, 97–98
one in six supervisors in Britain is thought by subordinates to be psychopath, 335
overlap in terminology with borderlines, Machiavellians, and the “successfully sinister,” 255n
psychopaths take advantage of natural altruism and kindhearted naivete, 255
“successful,” 105–108, 322
terrifying feeling evoked by, 52
psychopathy. See also psychopaths
across cultures, 265–66
dimensional traits of, 167
evolutionary benefits of psychopathic traits, 254–56, 387–88n2
genetics
general discussion of, 55–58
heritability spotty for, 86
no single gene creates, 68
hypotheses on origin of, 102–104
as learning disability and attention (focusing) issue, 103, 202, 326
Machiavellianism and, 42, 131–32
manipulation and, 107, 132
overlap with other personality disorders, 167, 208–209
sadism and, 52, 239
secondary, 168
psychosis
defined, 413
dopamine system dysfunction and, 184
increases with decrease in size of right parietal lobe in borderlines, 199
Pulsudski, Jozef, brief overview compared to other dictators, 286
Punch cartoon “Doubtful friends,” 44
punishment, neural, activated when thinking about partisan information, 189
Putin, Vladimir
ability to dupe credulous, 316
plagiarism as evidence of underlying Machiavellian tendencies, 338
Putnam, Katherine, research related to identity disturbance, 207
Pye, Lucian, explains reticence about declaring Mao a narcissist with a borderline personality, 217
Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) model, 69n, 71
Racak, massacre of, 156n, 169–71
Raine, Adrian
background of, 94–95
cheating strategy must involve a gene machine that lacks a core moral sense, 259
early reference to evolutionary benefits of psychopathic traits, 387–88n2
good parents can still have psychopath-like child, 89
image of overlap between psychopathic dysfunction and moral reasoning areas, 101
problem of free will, 328–29
review of neurological findings on antisocial behavior, 370n25
“successful” psychopaths, 105–108
Rape of Nanking, 303n
Rather, Dan, gullibility regarding Saddam Hussein, 317
rationality (rational cognition), as opposed to cognitive dysfunction
borderlines have difficulty with, 195–201
evolutionary development of rational as well as emotional capacities in humans, 187
no simple algorithm for teasing rationality from emotion, 192
not active when engaged in partisan thinking, 189–90
in relation to the legal system, 330n
“rational” approaches by politicians, 307, 309–10
Rauschning, Hermann: Hitler could entertain most incompatible ideas, 305
Reagan, Ronald, remarkable memory of, 313, 313n
receptors. See a
lso individual receptor names
BDNF, 78
poliovirus, 327, 413
serotonin, 69–72
reciprocal altruism. See altruism
Red Guards, Chinese, 215–16
relationships, unstable personal. See also individuals by name
in antisocial personality disorder, 219
borderline personality disorder
as defining DSM-IV trait, 159
as dimensional trait of, 164
as symptom complex of, 135, 137, 219
“splitting” and black-and-white thinking
as an aspect of DSM-IV criteria for borderline personality disorder, alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation, 157
as borderline personality disorder coping characteristic, 137, 143–44
overactivation of emotional processing (ventromedial prefrontal cortex) and, 144
provides for successful manipulation and control, 250
relativism. See under politics
religion
established religions
Catholic Church and pedophilia, 30, 35, 107, 332
Christian pacifists and Muslim terrorists act as altruists—so what is a Machiavellian, 285–87
Islam, fundamentalists who have found purchase in, 307
neuroscience and genetics
fasting, anorexia, and spirituality, 142n
genes that predispose toward, 59, 59n
sociological aspects
corruption in religion must often reach awe-inspiring proportions before people take concrete action, 333
Machiavellians self-select for positions of power and control, 333
Machiavellians, with their distorted, self-serving cognitions, can twist good intentions to ill and set entire populations aflame with hatred, 331
Mao's religious cult of personality, 242–43, 252, 332
may have served to help promote altruistic behavior, 256
opaque religious ideologies with little by way of checks and balances provide perfect cover for Machiavellians, 333
religious ideologies are seized by people of certain temperaments, whether for good or for ill, 308
there are some things religion cannot easily instill, 322
Wiener's theory of Jewish versus Christian traditions and genetics, 86–87
Wilson, David Sloan, work involving, 17
remorse, 100. See also empathy
remorselessness. See empathy, lack of
Republican party. See also politics
in relation to neuroimaging study on political partisanship, 189–90
resentment
affiliated with activation of specific areas of brain, 102
paranoid personality disorder, a trait of, 134
reticular activating system
illustration of, 115
poliovirus invasion of the, 114–16
Evil Genes Page 48
