Barbara Oakley’s Evil Genes
As an example of a psychopath, Oakley talked about a seven year-old boy who killed the family cat, hung it up in the foyer, and then hid to see his mother’s reaction when she walked in the door. Psychopaths enjoy watching people get hurt. They “can lie and con other people.” The most disturbing thing about psychopaths is that they cannot be identified easily: “they look just like we do.” And why are they doing these evil things? They are doing this “because things are weird differently in their brains.” They have a sluggish limbic system but other areas in their brains have unusually high functioning.
People with borderline personality disorder have an “impaired emotional toolkit” and “can do nasty stuff.” However, they often regret their troubled, hurtful behavior later. Some of the behavior characteristics Oakley mentioned:
- “Gaslighting:” Denying reality repeatedly until others start doubting themselves
- Projection and blame shifting: They “can’t accept they’ve done anything wrong,” so they blame someone or something else.
- It’s all about ME (narcissism): The “sense-of-self circuit is turned way up.” Narcissistic people see themselves as their “good cause,” and thus their selfish behavior “is really for a good cause.”
- Chameleon like behavior: They change their behavior depending on whom they are with.
Brainscans of people with BPD show an emotional over-responsiveness that explains why others feel like walking on egg shells around them. A person with BPD can seemingly unprovoked explode, yet their brains show that the provocation to them was strong because of their over-responsiveness.
These two personality disorders - borderline and antisocial - are spread fairly evenly amongst gender, though more women are diagnosed with borderline PD and more men with antisocial PD.
The confluence of these two disorders creates a unique disorder often called “borderpath.” Hitler is one of the most well-known representatives of this disorder. What makes Hitler so ’special’? He, like other borderpaths, had good looks, charm, and an exceptional memory. A good memory is one of the most important tools for climbing a social hierarchy. Oakley stressed that having those three traits does not make one a borderpath because they can also be found in people who did a lot of good. For example, although Hitler and Mussolini had remarkable memories, so did Roosevelt and Clinton.
Despite the title of her book and the talk, Oakley emphasized that “genes aren’t evil.” There is not one gene that is responsible for evil deeds (thus, we cannot simply remove that gene and be done with evil). “In fact, every single personality trait is influenced by genes,” she said, adding that “it takes thousands of genes to create our personality.” There needs to be “a confluence that unites in just the right way to get someone evil.” Oakley observed that “some of our worst genes are also responsible for our best things.” How our brain is wired can affect our personality. Yet, the brain has also remarkable plasticity, which allows us to make real changes in how our brain functions. For example, both anti-depressant drugs and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can physically change the way our brains work. The problem for borderpaths (and the people around them) is that they don’t think there’s anything wrong with them, so they do not embark on therapy. (In the Q&A that followed her talk, Oakley recommended Stop Walking on Eggshells as one resource for getting help when you’re dealing with someone with BPD).
The borderpath research raises the classic nature or nurture question. Oakley pointed out that on average “it’s 50/50:” On average, 50% of personality comes from nature and the rest is nurture. However, Oakley reminded us, if we “look at one person, things can be very different.” Orphans in Romania had been raised under Ceausescu without anything touchy-feelie. The tragic result were children with grossly delayed mental and motor development. Nurture had a profound effect on their development. Oakley’s sister is an example of a person with a personality disorder created mostly by nature. The sister had polio as a child, which affected her brain and contributed to her inability to connect to other people. This rewired brain caused her behavior, “it’s not something that she was consciously doing.” Clearly, the environment and genes act together to influence personality.
Oakley summarized her research by underscoring that our “brain’s wiring profoundly affects every aspect of our personality.” And “there is only a limited range of what we can change within,” especially since “some people have more free will than others.” People with borderline or antisocial personality disorders, for example, are wired so that they are mostly unable to change their behavior, especially because they do not perceive that there is a problem. Oakley finished by reminding us that “you can’t change others; you can only change yourself.”
June 28, 2008 at 4:04 pm Pacific Time
Filed under On research, Science
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philip said,
June 30, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Hi there
I was at the CFI talk as well. I thought her talk was terrible - there are many problems with her arguments, and she ended up making meaningless statements, like some people have more free will than others. It seems like she does not understand the concept of free will - either you have it or you don’t. I’m not sure how its quantifiable.
She runs into trouble by making people categorical - that is, either normal or pathological, good or bad. As many have pointed out, humans seem to be a complicated mix of good and evil. Also, her use of images from brain scans is deeply problematic. These scans are not like photographs - like are complex amalgamations of many repreated scans, with discrepancies flattened out. They are not simple representations of brain or mind states.
Anyways, what did you think?
Philip
Rachel said,
July 1, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Hi, Philip,
Your criticism is pretty broad, so I am not sure how to respond. You do raise a good point, though, regarding categorizing people: I agree that we need to be careful about doing that. Although, if I understood Oakley correctly, her argument is that people do behave in certain ways based on their brain wiring. Still, these aren’t “evil” people, they just do a lot of evil stuff…
Rachel
dkb said,
August 4, 2008 at 1:39 am
Something is very very wrong with this presentation, it is on c-span right now. Barbara Oakley appears to know very little about mental illness. She says things that people said many years ago about it, such as, “if you are really mentally ill, you do not know it.” It just depends on what your illness is, not the degree to which you have it. For example, you can have depression really really badly and you will probably know it. She really seems to make up anything she wants borderline personality to be; she seems to make up what this mental illness is as she talks. Borderline personality has a specific set of behaviours, yet she attaches to it any trait that she feels is “bad.”
How does she portray her sister, so publicly, as being so sick and evil? What an incredible thing to do to her sister. It looks as if she is carrying out a vandetta with her sister in writing this book. Her sister’s behaviour, as described in her talk, (I have not read the book) does not sound like borderline personality. She did not mention drinking, but I wonder if the problem is drinking; hmmmm….either Barbara or her sister. Barbara seems to have a black and white viewpoint on life. She adds that having an incredible memory is a tool for doing evil things; such as Hitler and Mousillini (sp.) and then she points out that Bill Clinton and Roosevelt have/had great memories.
She seems to know nothing about what borderline personality is. She clearly seems to make things up about it as she talks and THEN she discusses it in the “we” sense as if SHE were a scientist in the mental illness field. She discusses schizophrenia and does not make sense as to what this illness truly is. Again, I do not believe that she has an understanding of what these illnesses are. A person cannot become an authority on the issue in a few short weeks, it takes time to work in the field, meet people with the illness….it takes STUDY.
Barbara Oakley does not know what she is talking about when she discusses mental illness. I suppose that she does not know that it is a science as studied and true as her field. If I were her sister, I would sue her butt!! She is doing an incredibly bad service towards her.
Rachel said,
August 4, 2008 at 7:14 pm
dkb - I am not sure what your basis is for evaluating Barbara Oakley’s talk. What are the things that Oakley “makes up about” borderline personality? As far as I know, Oakley has reviewed much of the research from the field of mental illness and did this not “in a few short weeks.” In her talk, she was summarizing what she found, more like a science journalist than anything else.
She did not say that “an incredible memory is a tool for doing evil things.” She pointed out - at least in the talk I attended - that a good memory is one of the characteristic of BPD. However, it is not in and of itself evil - just like there are no evil genes. She gives Clinton and Roosevelt as examples of people with good memories who used that memory for good to make the point that an excellent memory per se is not evil.
In the talk, she had a very specific set of traits that characterizes BPD - gleaned from her review of the scientific literature. I have included a partial list in my post above.
Oakley also did not say in the talk that “if you are really mentally ill, you don’t know it.” No, she said that one of the characteristics of narcissism is that you tend to deny what you have a problem. This is widely known in the field of mental illness and one reason why counselors have a hard time working with narcissists.
I do agree with you that she does seem to disparage her sister. I believe that she started studying this because she wanted to know why her sister behaved the way she did. However, the main point I took away from her talk: People with borderpaths are not evil monsters; their brains are wired differently and therefore they react differently from most of us. It left me with a lot more compassion toward borderpaths - even though their actions might be horrible, and should be stopped, they are driven by aspects of their brains that are wired differently.
If you would like to continue this discussion, I would appreciate if you could be more specific about your criticism. (Like: What does she make up? Why does her discussion of schizophrenia not make sense? Where on cspan?)
MC said,
August 5, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I think Oakley may not have expressed some things clearly enough for someone who has never dealt with someone with BPD/NPD, reading her comment having read Stop Walking on Eggshells and recovering from a bad relationship with a BPD mother I agree with her comments completely. If you all lived in my house growing up you would have clearly seen the gaslighting and the placing the blame on everyone else, the manipulation of everyone including counselors and the everything is about me routine. I can believe there are differences in brain scans because it would make sense that a normal person who can control their emotional responses to things and take the blame upon themselves are goign to have different brain responses than those who set it all on someone else.
Rachel said,
August 5, 2008 at 3:48 pm
MC - Also having lived with someone who has BPD or NPD certainly prompted me to learn about these disorders. So, I can relate to Oakley’s wish to find out more after her sister’s theft of her mother’s boyfriend.
Kathryn said,
August 7, 2008 at 5:40 am
It seems like some early posts are simply attacking some statements made by the author. I have a mother with Borderline Personlaity Disorder. This disorder is so ingrained into her personality she believes that there is nothing wrong with her, it is anyone who does not believe and support her who have the problem. Having a mother with such a manipulative personality disorder has caused her victims to question themselves as to what has actually transpired in certain situations. The extent that a borderline patient will hurt those around them in really hard to believe until you live it for 30 years. The author’s sister may have a high-functioning personality disorder. These high-functioning borderlines are very difficult to treat and diagnose because they know how to change their behavior when it is required. A borderline patient may only attack a small group of immediate family member and act fine in social situations. I don’t think we can really understand the author’s sisters bpd, until you spend large amounts of time with this individual to see the pathology she has.
MC said,
August 8, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Thank you Katheryn, well put, I however I think the lower functioning BPD’s are just as hard to treat. I would classify mine as a lower functioning BPD, she’s in need of constant medication/therapy, however she has her therapists believing everyone else is the problem and screwing up her life. Now she’s at the point where there is nobody left to blame without sounding insane. The last few things I heard that she was blaming me for anyone would hear it and laugh and realize it was completely out of line. I also agree that you have to spend a lot of time with these individuals to see the pathology going on. With my mother, sometimes it took letting someone get ‘bit’ by her for them to understand how she treats people, despite my warning they would go in, then call me back and say see what you mean you weren’t kidding. I think as a society though the sooner we figure out how to deal with this illness the better off we will be since this is a disease affecting relationships, the sooner people know and realize this the better it will be for us normal people who just got stuck with one of these borderline relatives. In other words don’t give this mental illness the equivilence of a license to be verbally and emotionally abusive. That’s where I feel society is at the moment they see someone like my mom and go oh she didn’t mean to hurt you she’s sick. I’m sorry that’s no reason to disrespect your daughter and treat her like trash. I just say sorry you wouldn’t tell a woman to go back to an physically abusive husband so why does society allow for the emotional abuse of these people to continue.
Rachel said,
August 8, 2008 at 5:18 pm
MC wrote: “they see someone like my mom and go oh she didn’t mean to hurt you she’s sick.” That is one fear I have about Oakley’s approach: It could be used as an excuse for abuse, as you pointed out MC. I don’t think Oakley means it that way but given that alcohol abuse is often characterized as a disease, maybe emotional/verbal abuse will be categorized that way, too. (Only very few alcoholics are actually physically addicted to alcohol. Most have emotional addictions…). There’s just absolutely NO excuse for violence!
In general, though, I think emotional abuse is often not recognized as such. That is probably in part because it only becomes obvious after spending some time with the abuser but also because it’s less visible. A bruise is harder to talk away than undermined self-worth!
Errol D. Alexander said,
August 17, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I saw Oakley on C-Span and I have to buy into Oakley’s theme, and research. If we accept that some people are worthy of being classified as saints because of their behavior or others are mad because of their lack of empathy, then we should accept that some people are born that way. I believe some people are born to be leaders as well as some are motivated by the inner drive of being superior to others. And some people like doing things to and for other people based on how they are wired..