Overskeid Geir
Department of Psychology, University of Oslo Oslo, Norway.
Front Psychol. 2016 Aug 31;7:1290. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01290. eCollection 2016.
Autistic traits can help people gain and sustain power, and has probably done so throughout history, says the present paper. A number of testable claims follow from this assumption. First, the powerful should have more autistic traits than others - which they do appear to have. Among other things, powerful people, and those with many autistic traits, tend to prefer solitary activities and are often aloof. Moreover, they are often rigid and socially insensitive, low on empathy and with low scores on the trait of agreeableness - and as a rule they do not have many friends. Both groups are also more self-centered than others, more honest, less submissive, more sensitive to slights, and with a stronger tendency to engage in abstract thinking. They tend to behave in bossy or dominant ways, and their moral judgment is more based on rules than on feelings. In addition to experimental evidence, I cite biographies showing that a surprising number of presidents, prime ministers and other powerful people seem to have had traits like those in question - and interestingly, in animals, leaders are often rigid and insensitive to group members' needs and feelings, mostly acting the way they are themselves inclined to, not responding much to others. Problem solving is important in leadership, and people with many autistic traits appear often to be better thinkers than typical subjects with similar IQs. However, these and other congruities could be coincidences. Hence the question of whether traits the two groups have in common also have a common cause constitutes a strong test of the paper's thesis - and a common cause does appear to exist, in the form of testosterone's effects on the central nervous system. Finally, there is evidence that, other things equal, powerful men have more reproductive success than others. If men wielding power do indeed have more autistic traits than those less powerful, this will lead to, other things equal, such traits becoming more common - which can help explain the prevalence of autistic traits.
本文指出，自闭症特质能够帮助人们获取并维持权力，而且在历史上可能一直如此。基于这一假设可得出一些可验证的论断。首先，有权势者应比其他人具有更多自闭症特质——而他们似乎确实如此。有权势的人以及具有许多自闭症特质的人往往喜欢独自活动，常常冷漠孤傲。此外，他们往往刻板、对社交不敏感、缺乏同理心且宜人性特质得分较低——通常他们朋友不多。这两类人也都比其他人更以自我为中心、更诚实、更不顺从、对轻视更敏感，且更倾向于进行抽象思维。他们往往表现得专横或具有主导性，其道德判断更多基于规则而非情感。除了实验证据，我还引用了一些传记，这些传记表明，数量惊人的总统、总理和其他有权势的人似乎都有上述特质——有趣的是，在动物界，领导者往往刻板，对群体成员的需求和感受不敏感，大多按自己的意愿行事，对他人反应不多。解决问题在领导力中很重要，具有许多自闭症特质的人似乎往往比智商相似的普通人更善于思考。然而，这些以及其他的一致性可能只是巧合。因此，这两类人共有的特质是否也有共同原因这一问题，构成了对本文论点的有力检验——而共同原因似乎确实存在，其形式为睾酮对中枢神经系统的影响。最后，有证据表明，在其他条件相同的情况下，有权势的男性比其他人有更高的生殖成功率。如果掌权的男性确实比权力较小的男性具有更多自闭症特质，那么在其他条件相同的情况下，这将导致这些特质变得更加普遍——这有助于解释自闭症特质的普遍存在。
