…“We conclude that individuals with high levels of sadism show a diminished startle reflex that is relatively immune to potentiation by negative environmental stimuli,” the study authors wrote. “These findings provide further insight into the biological markers of the Dark Tetrad traits and their unique facets. Our findings may also have implications for fields beyond psychology, like business and economics, where managerial effectiveness (e.g., navigating workplace crises) and financial decision-making (e.g., loss aversion and risk-taking) may depend on the personality of a single individual with socially aversive tendencies.”
The study makes an important contribution to the scientific understanding of biological markers of dark traits. However, it also has limitations that need to be taken into account. Notably, most of the study participants were students. Although the second study included participants with very high levels of sadism, it is still unlikely that it included many individuals with truly high levels of this malevolent trait.
The study: “Blunted startle reactivity in everyday sadism and psychopathy”, was authored by Erin E. Buckels, Douglas A. Williams, Paul D.Trapnell, Siavash Kermani Koosheh, Owen M. Javra , and Sasha C. Svenne.
Today’s leaders of the Western world, including Israel, clearly exhibit extreme Dark Tetrad personality traits—narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism. This study relies on student subjects (a limitation) but corroborates physical markers of the startle reflex convincingly enough to provide decent evidence for the hypothesis. I singled out Western leaders above but am sure that almost all major political leaders throughout history have had Dark Tetrad traits. Human social instincts lean heavily toward hierarchical submission and it takes outliers to climb that ladder. Nice guys finish last is one way to say it. Given humanity as it is today biologically, I see no hope in changing this. Given the promise of gene selection through selective breeding of non-coerced willing parents, I see a lot of hope that human societies will improve enough to remove our most vulgar, violent, destructive traits. I hope readers of this site have cast off the negative shroud surrounding the word eugenics. Done properly, without force or humiliation, eugenics would be a very good thing for our species. As it is, people do it all the time on their own anyway through partner selection, birth-control, abortion, in vitro gamete and zygote selection, and so on. ABN
American Buddhist Net 