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Science is a means to an end. Good science provides useful guidance for how we may best conduct our lives. It does so by following the evidence to build a knowledge base organized into theories, which are in effect maps of the terrain.
A good theory, like a good map, tells you what you’re seeing around you. It also allows for accurate prediction. If you take road A and turn right at distance B, you’ll arrive at destination C. If you mix substance A with substance B, you’ll get chemical reaction C. If you launch object A at velocity B and angle C, it will land at point D, etc.
Psychology is the science of mind and behavior. Part of our charge is to construct knowledge-based theories that will be useful to individuals and society by helping us navigate that terrain.
Good psychological science allows us to predict how certain humans will act or feel under certain conditions. Place personality A under condition B, and you’ll get outcome C. Put an extraverted person alone in the back room to shuffle papers, and you’ll likely get a bored, frustrated worker. Put them at the front desk to greet customers, and they’re likely to perform better and feel more satisfied.
Of course, our theories are not fine-tuned enough to allow for absolute precision in predicting individual behavior. Thus, all we can say is that people who share the psychological profile of person A are likely to act in way B under circumstance C. We can’t know for sure that person A will act in this way, but the odds are high. We can confidently predict that people with depression are more likely to attempt suicide than non-depressed people (all else being equal); yet we cannot predict with confidence which individuals in the depressed group will attempt suicide.
Likewise, it is true that, given the state of our science, individual motives remain to some extent obscure. Even those who tell you why they did something may be lying, or self-ignorant, or self-deluded. All our science can do is look for converging evidence that points to a plausible explanation for a person’s behavior and rule out other explanations for which evidence fails to accumulate. If you see water running uphill, you can surmise, given our knowledge of gravity and the properties of liquid, that there’s a pump hiding in the bushes.
Psychologists are not allowed to formally diagnose people they have not directly tested and interviewed. Yet we are allowed to point out that certain observable behavioral habits are consistent with known personality tendencies, and we can use our knowledge of established psychological theory—the maps of our business—to make predictions about the likely outcome of placing individuals with these features in certain social or interpersonal environments.
The fact that we can’t know for certain how an individual may, in fact, act does not make our probabilistic predictions useless. This is because smart people, and societies, play the probabilities. For example, say we decided to play a friendly game of Russian roulette, and I brought two six-chamber guns to the game: one loaded with a single bullet and the other loaded with four bullets; and say I let you choose which gun you want to use; my guess is you’d pick the one-in-six. That does not guarantee your survival, but it gives you a better shot (sorry) at it.
Public figures, by virtue of being, well, public, often provide psychologists with rich data concerning their habits, tendencies, preferences, behavioral and speech patterns. Take, for example, Donald Trump. Psychologists have by now had ample opportunity to collect data on Trump’s background, and observe his behavior and speech content, including recurring displays of grandiosity (“I have the best words“), impulsivity (“grab them by the pussy“), and vindictive rage at those who oppose him (“I hate my opponents“)—behaviors and habits that to many experts suggest narcissistic tendencies. People who fit this profile tend to see themselves as special and entitled; they have an excessive need to impress others, feel important, and be admired; interpersonally, they are exploitative, low on empathy, and overly sensitive to criticism, often responding impulsively with outsize anger, hostility, and retribution.
Social scientists have by now analyzed multiple cases of “strongmen” with like psychological profiles who assumed political power, from historical figures such as Roman Emperor Caligula, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon, to more contemporary ones like Benito Mussolini, Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussain, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Rodrigo Duterte, Vladimir Putin, and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. The research outlines an empirically based cascade of consequences—a well-studied and established roadmap–regarding what’s likely to happen.
Under such a leader, these analyses suggest, a country is likely to drift toward authoritarianism. Governance is likely to become increasingly driven by their psychological needs rather than the dictates of reality, as they prioritize self-image above national interest and become preoccupied with finding and persecuting enemies, real and invented, with increasing brutality. Cycles of rage and retaliation will escalate, conflicts and wars will drag on, and failure, scandal, and overreaches will accumulate. Social Institutions will be attacked and degraded as personalization of power escalates.
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Polish psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski, who experienced living under the regimes of both Hitler and Stalin, coined the term “pathocracy” to describe the situation when narcissistic individuals assume positions of power. Once pathopcrats obtain power, “they do their best to dismantle and discredit democratic institutions, including the freedom and legitimacy of the press.“
Risky, impulsive decisions will likely increase. Truth will become increasingly subordinate to loyalty, and loyalty, rather than competence, will become the basis for important appointments. In the long term, the society would likely experience democratic retreat, increased political violence, economic instability, and fractured international relations.
Given our knowledge of human psychology and the predictable societal effects of this kind of leadership, failing to entertain, prepare for, and address these predictions with the goal of preventing the most likely destructive eventualities amounts to self- and societal deception.
Imagine that on your vacation, you strike up a conversation with someone who happens to be a primary care physician. They notice that you are middle-aged, overweight, and easily fatigued; they notice that you are a heavy smoker, and that you make frequent trips to the bathroom; you tell them you hate exercise, that your vision has turned blurry recently, that you often feel thirsty, and that you have constant tingling sensations in your feet. Then, you choose to ignore their suggestion to get educated about, tested, and treated for diabetes because they are not your doctor, and it could be nothing, a coincidental convergence of unrelated, benign symptoms, and even if it is diabetes, maybe it will just go away, or won’t really harm you, because some people live with it fine into old age.
It’s your choice. But it is not your best choice.
