

Addictive Personality? You Might be a Leader - tilt
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24addicts.html

======
hammock
I dont want to sound too hard, but I have an intuition that this is just a
load of hogwash. The author racks his brain and comes up with a few examples
of addicts who run big companies.

What about all the big companies run by non-addicts (the majority)?

What about all the addicts who don't run big companies (the majority)?

These things need to be addressed before I'll start to buy the argument. And
this comment coming from a habitual risk-taking leader himself.

~~~
jey
> What about all the big companies run by non-addicts (the majority)

Sure, but the real question is whether "addicts" are over-represented amongst
successful CEOs more than the general population.

~~~
jey
Looks like I should explain myself:

If there was no association between having an "addictive personality" and
being a successful CEO, we would expect "addictives" to be CEOs just as often
as non-addictives. If being an addictive helps with being a successful CEO,
we'd expect a higher concentration of addictives amongst the population of
successful CEOs.

The grandparent is presenting a argument a much stronger straw-man: that the
_majority_ of successful CEOs have addictive personalities. The original post
does not make that claim.

~~~
corin_
That isn't how statistics work. If 10% of people are "addicts", and 20% of
CEOs are "addicts", it's fair to say that there is correlation - despite the
fact that there are still five times as many non-addict CEOs.

edit: Think this is actually the point you're trying to make, though I think
you didn't quite nail it.

~~~
jey
I mis-spoke when I wrote "expect 'addictives' to be CEOs just as often as non-
addictives". I meant to write "expect to find 'addictives' amongst the
population of CEOs at the same rate at which they occur in the general
popluation" or something.

Would've been easier to write it out with math. :P

------
mannicken
I definitely feel that in my life. The urge to create things, to grow, to
change myself, the condescendence at anyone who is satisfied with current
situation. It's like someone is itching my brain, it feels very similar to
craving nicotine, or caffeine, or just mind-altering substances. It's like
someone is shouting at me "common, this sucks, now go do something" even when
everything is seemingly awesome.

~~~
presidentender
You have said in two sentences what I have struggled to express for many
years.

------
astrofinch
And here's Malcolm Gladwell making the argument that successful people are
_less_ likely to take risks:

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/18/100118fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/18/100118fa_fact_gladwell)

Reality is reality. If you take risks, you open yourself up to failures, but
the potential upside might be greater as well.

------
Mz
_The risk-taking, novelty-seeking and obsessive personality traits often found
in addicts can be harnessed to make them very effective in the workplace. For
many leaders, it’s not the case that they succeed in spite of their addiction;
rather, the same brain wiring and chemistry that make them addicts also confer
on them behavioral traits that serve them well._

This is ridiculous in some ways. Yes, certain personality traits predispose
you to certain things. But environment also plays a role. I imagine most
leaders suffer from something I would call "bored gifted kid syndrome". And if
they find a means to be adequately engaged, it goes away and stops being a
"personality problem".

In fact, framing it as "addictive personality" helps create problems by
vilifying them in a way that seems inescapable -- like "you were born
defective". My oldest son is profoundly gifted and was prone to "addictive"
behaviors (not drugs or alcohol, but video games and such) and when we figured
out how to meet his needs for mental stimulation adequately, he went from
behaving like your typical grumpy, socially defective addict to being one of
the calmest people I know. I never told him he was "defective". I didn't frame
it that way. And it helped him find his way out of what often ends up being a
psychological trap.

Edit: There is a book that addresses the social aspect of creating addicts by
imposing expectations that it is out of their hands -- for example, cultures
that blame alcoholism on the alcohol have higher rates of it than cultures
that hold the individual responsible. Title: "The Truth About Addiction and
Recovery". One wife of an alcoholic who tried to hand me my head for
recommending this book then went on to talk about "dry drunks" (people who
remain "addicted" to alcohol while not drinking for years at a time) and that
the real problem with alcoholism was all the "isms" (by that I think she meant
beliefs?) not the alcohol per se. She was on such a tear, I didn't bother to
point out that her remarks supported mine rather than refuting them.

EDIT: Since comment scores are not visible, I will note that this is being
upvoted, downvoted, upvoted, downvoted. I would be curious as to what is so
seemingly controversial. Any thoughts?

~~~
Alex3917
"Cultures that blame alcoholism on the alcohol have higher rates of it than
cultures that hold the individual responsible."

I don't think either of those options squares with the science, e.g.
[http://www.nijc.org/pdfs/Subject%20Matter%20Articles/Drugs%2...](http://www.nijc.org/pdfs/Subject%20Matter%20Articles/Drugs%20and%20Alc/ACE%20Study%20-%20OriginsofAddiction.pdf)

And also the science about genetic differences in the way people process
alcohol and experience pleasure also contradicts that dichotomy.

~~~
thisrod
I only know of one experiment on this: <
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park> >. It concluded that morphine
addiction in ordinary rats is not just influenced by their environment, but
pretty much determined by it.

I'd be interested to hear how much that can be changed by breeding the rats
selectively. Until you know that, I won't believe anything you say about
genetic influences on addiction. It seems that no one has tried to find out.
So I assume that Addiction Studies (or whatever it's called) has very little
to do with science.

------
xmmm
Isn't this the reason why doctors give people with ADHD amphetamines? So that
they would feel content leading their somewhat mundane lives?

------
Hyena
The article is mostly about addictive personality and the connections between
addictive personality and innovation or success aren't really well drawn.
Moreover, their anecdata suffers from the problem that people who are in a
high stress environment may exhibit addiction-like behaviors which are are
actually self-medication for stress.

------
schiptsov
Rediscovering sublimation? Again? ^_^

It is said thousands years ago - control your emotions or be controlled by
emotions. Freud emphasized that energy bounded to some emotions and mental
states can be redirected, transformed, controlled.

General Taosist example is a river overflowed with monsoon water. It sweeps
out everything when uncontrolled, but if people have built some dams and walls
in advance, then all flooding waters will run into more-or-less controlled
way.

So, if one can control himself why not use ones obsessions instead of being
used by them?

~~~
philwelch
"Freud emphasized that energy bounded to some emotions and mental states can
be redirected, transformed, controlled. General Taosist example is a river
overflowed with monsoon water."

Freud was a pseudoscientific hack, and Taoism. while a nice philosophy, is not
empirical science either. You've fallen far short of any decent standard of
evidence here.

~~~
schiptsov
I have no time and intention to launch into a big discussion about scientific
approach to mental states and their relation to the bodily ones. What I can
tell for sure - describing and studying them scientifically in separation from
other dynamic processes is deeply flawed approach.

You can, for example, find tons of studies about so-called 'attention window'
or 'working memory span', but they didn't even mention that those
characteristics could be dramatically reduced under stress or any other state
of overload. There are a dozen variables on which it depends on, from the time
of day to a noise level.

And, of course, calling Freudian works a hack is a little bit naive. Yes, you
could call his Interpretation of dreams a hack, but he developed and extended
a more general theory of mental dynamics, which, ironically, was known for
aeons in the East.

~~~
philwelch
_You can, for example, find tons of studies about so-called 'attention window'
or 'working memory span', but they didn't even mention that those
characteristics could be dramatically reduced under stress or any other state
of overload._

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=working+memory+under+str...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=working+memory+under+stress&hl=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C48)

 _Yes, you could call his Interpretation of dreams a hack, but he developed
and extended a more general theory of mental dynamics, which, ironically, was
known for aeons in the East._

Which, by the way, is all scientifically unsubstantiated bullshit until you
show me some properly documented and controlled experiments demonstrating
otherwise.

~~~
schiptsov
_Which, by the way, is all scientifically unsubstantiated bullshit_ this
statement is too bold to continue any reasonable discussion. ^_^

Freud was extended and popularized the theory of unconscious mental dynamics
which need not to be explained to any educated person. It covers almost
anything from cognitive tasks and linguistics to somatic processes.

Secondly, he developed theory of therapist-patient relationships which was
extended after him to anything from propaganda and advertisements to NLP and
other influental techniques.

Of course, unconsciousness was known since Upanishads, but Freud was
popularisator.

~~~
philwelch
I'm not saying that Freud was unimportant in the history of ideas or anything;
I'm saying there's no concrete evidence any of his theories have any
predictive value over the actual behavior of human beings.

You see, I can afford to be categorically dismissive of Freud, Taoism, the
Upanishads, and Miss Cleo because of a far more important development in the
history of ideas: empiricism.

------
FreeFull
From the title I would have thought the article would be about personality
spreading among people, not about the personality of addicts.

------
matthewslotkin
what is the claim here? that some great leaders were addicts, so addiction is
a trait of a great leader? please. it is interesting to note that some can
simultaneously battle substance addiction and lead productive lives, but
nothing in this article even remotely resembles proof of causation.

that said, i can believe that the greatest thinkers and inventors in human
history are those that were completely obsessed (addicted?) with what they
were doing. people can become addicted to pursuing their vision, and in this
sense the article has some merit. not well communicated however.

~~~
matthewslotkin
show me a neurological study comparing passion/obsession with substance
addiction!

------
aj700
That applies to everyone. Everyone will be, is likely to be later, or most
likely IS addicted to something: caffeine? their lovers? orgasms?
money/credit? shopping? chocolate? unhealthy floury carbs? cheese? power over
underlings?

if any of these are hard to go without in their current consumed amounts,
they're addictions.

~~~
tilt
I guess that's because how brain receptors work for anyone. Still, author is
talking about people that are LESS satisfied than the norm, so they always
need more (like addicts).

