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1) Your latest book is about "evil genes." I suspect that there will be a lot of interest in the subject. What led you to investigate such a gruesome topic?

The full title of my book is Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend.It's a tongue-in-cheek title for a seriously researched book.My sister really did steal my mother's boyfriend, though, which was one of the many incidents that made me wonder about the source of malevolent behavior.But I also met a small percentage of nasty people in every society, culture, or position I worked in, whether it was the KGB agent I was monitored by in the Soviet Union, a duplicitous co-worker on an isolated Antarctic station, one of my platoon sergeants in the Army, or a student in my classroom in China.

The more I learned about existing research involving malevolent people, the more I discovered that psychological researchers often have surprisingly little "real life" experience with people in a wide variety of cultures and jobs.Their perspectives can be colored by naïve expectations of what people are like, particularly in this country, where it is not common for a person to be shot for telling a political joke.More than that, although psychologists are fond of saying nowadays that personalities are formed by both environment and genetics, this is often simply lip service.Most research involves only the effects of environment on personalities—research on genetics is tacitly or actively discouraged.Academicians are as bad as fundamentalists in some ways—they believe that acknowledging the effects of genes somehow kills our free will.It doesn't, of course.Having a better understanding of what we are won't change what we are.But like religious believers who thought it might disrupt society to know that the earth revolves around the sun, some academics today don't want society disrupted by what they believe to be harmful knowledge about the effects of genes on personality.Obviously, I find this attitude repugnant.I thought that people should know what researchers have been discovering, because this knowledge can be extraordinarily empowering.That's why I wrote the book.

On a side note, some of the same genes that make for our worst, most "evil" behavior, can also make for our best behavior when mixed with a different set of genes.So there's really no way to eliminate purely "evil" genes, even if there really were such a thing.

2) What do you mean by the "neuroscience of nasty people"?

Meeting someone who can genuinely take pleasure out of manipulating, deceiving, and abusing other people can be a life-altering experience—especially if you've been raised in a loving, sheltering family.For example, watching a supervisor chuckle as he or she falsifies documents to ensure a coworker is fired can turn your idea of how the world works upside down.(The boss may know you can't say anything because of vital needs for medical insurance for your chronically ill child.And you yourself might know that even if you were to say something, you'd never be believed.)

The tendency is to think that malevolent people have the same types of neural underpinnings as nice people—it's just that the nasty sorts choose to involve themselves in sinister activities.But the fact of the matter is, the neural "wiring" of nasty people appears to underlie their malevolent choices.If our own wiring were similar, we would very probably enjoy hurting others as well.

3) As you may know the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has many, many fancy names for various types of psychopathology. Is the APA totally off on all their thinking? Or are you duplicating their efforts?

It's become clear that in many areas having to do with deeply disturbed individuals, psychology as a profession has hogtied itself.For example, it is virtually impossible to do research on sadists, despite the obvious and profound importance to society.The DSM has refused to recognize sadism as a personality disorder, aside from one brief experimental foray in the third edition.(Incidentally, older studies have shown that sadism seems to have a strong genetic component.)The field of social psychology, quite frankly, is a joke to everyone but psychologists themselves.Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiments or Stanley Milgram's experiments with authority figures and electrocution have been shown to have so many fundamental problems with them that no self-respecting scientist could take them seriously.(Please read Augustine Brannigan's meticulously researched The Rise and Fall of Social Psychology if you want an introduction to the critical literature.)

I just got an email today that read "It is so refreshing to hear someone actually speak out honestly about Philip Zimbardo's Prison experiment….I am a correctional officer and am working to finish my B.S. in Criminal Justice Administration. When I read about the Stanford Prison Experiment, I was shocked. Beside the fact that Dr. Zimbardo's work is not falsifiable or even reproducible in a research setting, he betrayed his ignorance of actual prison life by creating a 'prison world' that is little more than a bad caricature of the real thing." Incidentally, Zimbardo was a recent president of the APA and has won and continues to win top awards for his work—that should tell you a lot about the "emperor has no clothes" state of the field.

Sociology, unfortunately, is in an even worse situation—you don't want to even get me started on about a profession whose very livelihood seems to depend on denying the effects of genetics.Frankly, I have a more enjoyable time talking with my fundamentalist friends who deny evolution.

Remember that that the DSM in its current incarnation hasn't incorporated the seminal recent findings from neuroscience and personality genetics.My own work ties together research results in these areas, and is not hamstrung by fear of exposing ludicrous work by those with enormous stature in the field.

So, no, I'm not duplicating the efforts of the APA.

I would like to point out that, much as I am disenchanted on the whole with the field of psychology, the research being done by people like Kent Kiehl, Joseph Newman, Michael Posner, Essi Viding, Steven Pinker, David Sloan Wilson, and Augustine Brannigan is just fantastic. My work would have been nothing without them.

4) Let's talk about Hitler and Manson and these types of malevolent beings. Are you trying to say that there is some chromosome or gene that causes this type of behavior and that there is no free will?

Let me ask a return question.Let's say that a person comes down with Huntington's disease. Would you be upset at me if I tried to say that this was due to some chromosome or gene?If I did insist that it was a genetically-based disorder, would you then conclude that there is no free will?

The reality is that Huntington's is a genetically based disease, and those with it will inevitably succumb to the disorder.The civilized world has not ceased to exist because of this knowledge.In fifty years, people will likely accept the fact of the effects of genetics on personalities just as easily as they now accept the effects of genetics on the physical body.They'll be laughing at the delicate and dogmatic sensibilities of the people of 2008, just as educated people now laugh at the strange beliefs of 1908, when women's feminine sensibilities were thought to be incapable of handling certain ideas.

Free will is a very, very complex philosophical issue, but in common sense terms, it does seem that some people have much more flexibility in being able to make changes in their personalities than others, just as some people have more or less by way of athletic, musical, or mathematical abilities than others.That's just the way it is.Nature is not politically correct.

5) I have discussed with many psychologists and psychiatrists the issue that some pedophiles are simply out of control- they cannot control their behavior- they are driven, and other than prison, there are no external controls that will modify their behavior. Your thoughts?

I agree.What's sad is that so many professionals in psychology were able to take advantage of the system for so long in running programs that provided a loophole for criminals to get back into society and continue their depraved behavior.Incidentally, counseling programs to help psychopaths eventually had to be stopped because they were found to actually worsen psychopathic behavior.We're in the same situation now with court-ordered anger management programs—some of these programs can actually worsen people's ability to control their anger.

6) Now let's talk about the people at Enron. In their warped minds, they are either trying to make money or are driven by profit or simply don't care about other people. In a capitalistic society, should we not somehow understand and comprehend this behavior?

Enron was an extreme pathological case of what can happen when a greedy, self-serving person at the head of a business was able to illegally circumvent most of the checks and balances that provide for relatively ethical business environments.Yes, we should try to understand this behavior, just as we should try to understand the behavior of the greedy, self-serving president of Texas Southern University, who illegally circumvented most of the checks and balances that provide for relatively ethical academic environments.A case could be made that the severe corruption that TSU's president fostered did as much if not more damage to the people of Texas as Enron.Unethical people exist in every social structure, including politics, business, religion, and academia.If one of these charming, charismatic individuals rises to the top, it can be bad news for thousands, or even millions of people.

7) Now, if your sister was as weird, crazy, and emotionally unbalanced as you say she was, what should be done with people like her?

The reality is that there are even more deeply disturbed individuals than my sister in every community of any size.You would probably bolt the door, bar the windows, and lie awake all night with a gun or baseball bat at your side if you happened to learn what your local police chief knows about your community.We simply don't have the ability to fix many, if not most, of these individuals, whether they be alcoholics, serious long-term drug abusers, pedophiles, rapists, child abusers or serial killers.The best we can do is punish the guilty to serve as an example to those who are aware enough to take heed, and to try to keep the riskiest of these individuals separated from the rest of society.That is what we try to do at present, although there are obviously many problems with our system.

8) I have been in the prisons in two states and have found many inmates to be learning disabled, some to be extremely emotionally disturbed and others simply the victims of an extremely poor childhood and no parents. With all these variables at work, how can you point to "genes" as the one and only explanation?

Actually, I never point to genes as the one and only explanation, except in a few cases where twin studies have provided clear evidence that psychopathy does have a genetic basis.Even for my sister, it was clear that both genetics and environment (in the form of the damage done by the polio virus), probably played an important role in the development of her pathological personality.My reverse question would be—why have researchers for so long been certain that environment was the one and only explanation, and why have they been so extraordinarily antagonistic towards simple and obvious scientific findings involving genetics?

It's important to remember that although genes and environment both can play important roles in the development of personality, in an individual case, either genetics or environment may be more important.For example, the Romanian orphans who grew up with no love or attention while they were infants became pathologically disturbed.It didn't matter at all what their genetics was—their (extremely pathological) environment overrode everything.On the other hand, research into psychopaths, as mentioned above, has shown that for some unfortunate individuals, environment doesn't matter—genetics underpins the development of their deeply disturbed personalities.

Researchers are making valiant efforts to develop therapies for kids with profound traits of psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder, in much the same way that therapies have been developed to help children with autism and dyslexia.But so far, little by way of effective therapies has been found.Let me emphasize that some of these psychopathic children come from perfectly normal homes, with parents who have are at their wits' ends with their dangerous and destructive child.It's important not to jump to conclusions and immediately assume a child's psychopathic-like traits must be the parents' fault.We don't want to make the same mistake as in the 1950s, where parents with schizophrenic or autistic children were felt to have caused the disorder.This misdiagnosis of the real source of the problem caused untold heartache for thousands of families.

Incidentally, some of the forms of learning disability you mention above have been found to have strong genetic components.If we only look for environmental causes for dysfunctional individuals, we would be missing great potential for developing the technologies and therapies to help treat these individuals at an early age and keep them out of prison.Likewise, very recent studies have shown that individuals with certain genetic predispositions are far more prone to becoming troubled if they have an abusive childhood.Children without these predisposing genes are far more resilient.This finding may lead to powerful new therapies that are specifically targeted for those most at risk.Pretending that there is no a genetic component to troubled behavior, particularly when science clearly indicates otherwise, hamstrings the very research that may be most helpful in finding treatments that work.

9) How do you reconcile your education, training and experience with this book. Aren't you going off on some tangent here?

Preeminent historian of science Thomas Kuhn has stated that innovations in a field are generally made either by young people or people from outside the field.Even though I originally come from an academic background that includes linguistics and a doctorate in engineering, as well as broad experiences outside academia, my work related to psychology has received high praise from some of the world's leading researchers in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, and other fields.The people who tend to try to say I'm just off on a tangent are usually those whose work is diminished by the obvious flaws that I'm pointing out.

10) Some people are "mean" in my opinion, because no one bothers to correct them. Teachers don't bother, principals are apprehensive, schools fear lawsuits and investigations, and even social workers don't know how to deal with psychopathy. Thus, no one ever intervenes and corrects mean behavior. In one sense, this question is, whose responsibility is it to correct "mean" behavior?

My friend Amy Alkon is writing a book entitled Revengerella: One Woman's Battle to Beat Some Manners Into Impolite Society.Clearly Amy feels that it is everyone's responsibility to help maintain a polite and civil society. I agree.It seems that the growth of political correctness and a culture emphasizing self-esteem and not judging others, along with other social forces, have made people shy away from correcting rudeness, not to mention behavior like plagiarism or outright criminality.

For example, the only female student in one of my recent engineering classes introduced herself by saying that she liked working in a male-dominated field because she despises working with other women, who are more stupid than men.The entire class shifted uncomfortably, but none of the other students said a word.Who on earth let this young lady get to the point where she felt comfortable saying such a rude, demeaning, and prejudiced thing in public?And to a female professor like me, no less!(This woman then went on to say that one of the most important considerations for her in selecting a profession would be the openness of the industry to female advancement.My Lord, what has the combination of political correctness and feminism wrought!)

Game theory shows that never remonstrating against others is a recipe for exploitation by nastier sorts.When a convenience store clerk can be fired for simply protecting himself by standing up to a criminal, the inadvertent side effect is to encourage criminal behavior.

11) What question have I neglected to ask?

"What's your favorite movie about the "successfully sinister" people you describe in your book?"

Shattered Glass, starring Hayden Christensen.If you have to deal with a successfully sinister person in your life, you will love this movie.Incidentally, there is a neurological reason behind why you feel so good seeing a nasty person get a well-deserved payback.

Published September 8, 2008