Intelligence, Personality and Genius

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HJ Eysenck deserves primary credit for discovering and formulating the personality trait of Psychoticism (P) - but I believe the concept as he left it (an his death in 1997) requires further clarification and development.

One necessary clarification is to distinguish between Psychoticism and Psychopathy - that is, between Psychoticism-proper versus Psychopathy - I attempted that yesterday:

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/genius-and-eysencks-concept-of.html

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Another necessary clarification is to distinguish between the personality trait of Psychoticism, and the state of illness in which a person can be described as Psychotic.

I believe that Eysenck was wrong to suggest that high-Psychoticism-trait and Psychotic-illness should be seen as points of severity on a single dimension - with the personality trait as a moderately high Psychoticism, and the highest levels of the same trait being characterized by a Psychotic illness.

What follows is my attempt to distinguish clearly between Psychoticism and Psychosis; between Psychoticism-personality and Psychotic-illness (i.e. between the trait and the state) - but also to explain where there is a statistical association between the two (ie. why people high in Psychoticism-trait are more prone to Psychotic-illness).

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PSYCHOTICISM-TRAIT
1. Personality/ character - permanent trait, persists through life
2. Inherited (substantially), genetic
3. Hard-wired
4. Adaptive (on average increases reproductive success of the group)
5. Creative - Uses inner cognitions and perceptions to address external problems


PSYCHOTIC-ILLNESS
1. Illness - usually temporary state, seldom persists through life
2. Usually caused by environment - e.g. toxicity, trauma, infection
3. Reversible impairment in brain functioning
4. Maladaptive (while operative reduces individual reproductive success)
5. Non-creative - Absorbed-by (turned-in-on) inner cognitions and perceptions


RELATIONSHIP

Anyone can have a Psychotic-illness if the environmental cause is sufficiently strong - for example, delirium due to hallucinogenic drugs, or withdrawal of alcohol, will produce Psychosis in everyone; so will some types of dementia.

But those who are born hard-wired for high Psychoticism trait are more prone to 'flip into' the temporary state of a Psychotic-illness - it takes less than average of an environmental 'insult' or brain impairment to make a high Psychoticism person have a Psychotic episode.

This accounts for the often noticed and multiply confirmed observation of a higher frequency of Psychotic illnesses/ episodes among highly creative people (i.e. those people with high Psychoticism-trait).

Therefore, Psychosis (psychotic states) in a person with high Psychoticism (psychoticism trait) may not indicate severe brain malfunction - because a relatively mild degree of brain dysfunction may be sufficient to trigger psychotic symptoms in a person with high trait Psychoticism.

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Indeed, for a person with high trait Psychoticism, temporary episodes of Psychotic states may be of some positive, functional value in terms of creativity.

This is most obvious in tribal shamans who deliberately induce Psychotic episodes in order to access non-normal sources of knowledge (conceptualized as coming from the spiritual realm). Shamans usually use sleep deprivation, fatigue, prolonged and rhythmic dancing, music, singing to trigger these Psychotic episodes - and also hallucinogenic or other consciousness-altering agents where these are available (eg. among Amerindians).

Also modern creative thinkers, artists etc. have often been known successfully (albeit hazardously) to use consciousness-altering drugs such as alcohol and opium to stimulate creative insights and states in the context of a strategic Creative Quest.

(http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-geniuss-journey.html )

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In sum, high Psychoticism people are hard-wired in such a way as to be more-then-usually prone to brief Psychotic episodes, and may also deliberately trigger such temporary states in pursuit of creativity.

In biological terms, the major difference between high Psychoticism-trait and Psychotic-illness is that high levels of Psychoticism-trait are strategically functional, group-adaptive, evolved; in a nutshell high-P individuals exist for-a-reason; and that reason is essentially to enable creativity.

By contrast, the occurrence of Psychosis caused by the variabilities of existence and strength among the specific circumstantial causes of Psychosis.

And while Psychosis is commoner and more-easily-triggered in people with high Psychoticism trait - Psychoticism and Psychosis are causally distinct; and the relationship between Psychoticism and Psychosis is indirect, multistep, accidental and contingent on circumstances.

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Background: 

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/creativity-and-eysencks-psychoticism.html

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/evolution-of-creative-genius-in.html

It may be that Eysenck's personality trait of Psychoticism is the primary dimension of personality in humans - that which underlies and explains (and valuably-reconceptualizes) other personality traits such as Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion-Introversion, Schizotypy and Self-esteem.

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Here, as a reminder, is a summary of some of the defining characteristics of Psychoticism as they appear in self-reported personality evaluations:

High Psychoticism is in bold font; Low Psychoticism is normal font.

1. Cold - versus warm, charming
2. Aggressive - versus submissive
3. Egocentric - versus follows groups expectations
4. Unempathic - versus sympathetic, feels the emotions of others
5. Tough-minded (i.e. impervious to events) - versus tender-minded, strongly affected by experience
6. Antisocial - versus gregarious, needs other people
7. Impersonal - versus life consists of intense, direct relationships
8. Impulsive (behaviour dominated by current emotions) - versus behaviour dominated by predictions or weaker emotions.
9. Creative - versus applies peer-approved, learned rules and traditions 

[Note added 18 July 2013: I don't find the characterization of emotionally-cold to be quite correct. Indeed, it is probably misleading. High Psychoticism is more likely to be interpersonally spontaneous and natural - which could be engaging and pleasant or, in another person, selfish and cruel; while low Pychoticism would be lacking in these qualities - more conventional, polite, careful, 'diplomatic'...]

The underlying distinction here is, I suggest, related to the orientation-of, or domination-of, Short Term Memory (STM)

(STM includes explicit memory, awareness, attention, conscious will and deliberation - our 'self' as we perceive and know it directly.).

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High Psychoticism (P) is the orientation of STM toward Long Term Memory (LTM), and the subordination of STM to the associative processes of LTM.

Low Psychoticism is the suppression of this natural state of domination of the STM by the LTM - and instead an 'outward looking' orientation of STM towards the external perceptual (sensory) environment.

So,  high P is about inner/ memory worlds, while low P is about outer/ sensory worlds - and the cognitive difference between them relates to the contrasted associative logic of long term and short term memory.

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The natural (more evolutionarily ancient) state is high Psychoticism (see second link above about evolution of creative genius) - this is characterized by

1. A dream-like/ psychosis-like mode of highly associative thinking reflective of the functioning of LTM (i.e. high schizotypy, dream/psychosis-like mentation).

This happens because STM (and awareness) is orientated towards memories, and dominated by the way that memories are processed; rather than the external environment.

It is this mode of high Psychoticism thinking which is creative, due to its exceptionally wide field of association/ connection-making; and which - when combined with high intelligence, drive and luck, leads to that rare but vital phenomenon of Genius (see HJ Eysenck's 1995 book Genius).

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2. A relatively inner-dominated, hence inward-looking disposition which is seen  as being:

a. Low in Agreebleness/ Empathy - because less orientated-towards and concerned-by other people feelings.

b. High in self-esteem - due to autonomy-from, indifference-to, the evaluations of other people.

c. Low in Conscientiousness - since C. is about subordination to an understanding of what 'other people' say is important, instead of what you personally feel to be important.

d. Introverted - because not very interested by other people, hence not reliant upon other people for psychological stimulation, hence likely to be less compulsively sociable.

Introversion may also be seen as a kind of self-sufficiency, autonomy, lack of need for external stimulus - which fits with the above conceptualization of Psychoticism.

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(Note: Eysenck, of course, had Introversion as a separate dimension from Psychoticism - but J Philippe Rushton's work on the General Factor Personality (GFP) showed that there is an underlying association between most of the main personality variables. Furthermore, I consider the Extraversion-Introversion dimension to be somewhat ill-formed by the excessive emphasis in questionnaires on social interactions as if these were the primary characteristic of Extraversion - which misses out the important sub-group of Autistic-Extraverts. This idea I am presenting about Psychoticism is therefore, to a considerable extent, a re-framing of Rushton's GFP as the inverse of Psychoticism, but with Psychoticism regarded as primary and high GFP as a more recently, and variously, evolved disposition.) 

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However, low Psychoticism is the commonest-personality type among the indigenous population in Western and East Asian Societies (especially in East Asia).

The person of low Psychoticism experiences life via Short Term Memory that has become, to a considerable extent, cut-off from (oriented-away from, independent of) the dream- or psychosis-like inner world of LTM; and instead is oreintated to the external environment as revealed from the senses and as evaluated by the explicitly experienced and narrowly 'rational' processes of STM.

The person of low Psychoticism is focused on the surrounding world, the world of vision (especially), and - due to selection pressures - the social world of other people. Hence a person of low Psychoticism is Empathic/ Agreeable (sensitive to the feelings of others), Conscientious and gaining the greatest satisfaction in performing socially-valued tasks, and low in impulsivity in the sense of suppressing actions that derive from unconscious long-term memory associations.

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A person of low Psychoticism is extraverted, in the sense that they require strong external (and usually social) inputs in order to maintain arousal.

However, the picture is muddied by 'autistic' extraverts,

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/autistic-extravert-reflections-on.html

who require external stimulus, but of a non-social kind.  

(This is in contrast to the low P introvert, whose stimulus comes interacting with the powerful associations deriving from their own LTM.)

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A person of low Psychoticism is un-creative, because they perceive reality at 'face value' of whatever comes to them via perception and social norms as analyzed by the relatively simple and limited 'rational' and 'explicit' processing of Short Term Memory.

By contrast, the high Psychoticism person deals has a greater tendency to deploy the much greater capacity system of Long Term Memory - with its vastly greater range of stored information, and the ability to consider associations among these memories, going beyond those of the narrow 'rationality' of STM.

Hence the positive association between high Psychoticism and creativity

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So, Psychoticism can be seen as the major general personality trait, underlying many of the other more specific traits for fundamental reasons to do with the nature of cognitive processing. 

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Eysenck's personality trait of Psychoticism is - overall - probably the best description of the typical personality of a creative intellectual genius

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Psychoticism

However, Psychoticism - in its usual self-rating questionnaire form - contains a lot of traits which could better be described as Psychopathic - and these are not necessary to genius, indeed they tend, overall, significantly to impair the functional role of a genius - which is to promote the reproductive success of the group.

In a nutshell - and as a generalization, to the extent that a genius has a Psychopathic personality, to approximately that extent he will have a legacy of harm rather than benefit.

Here I try clearly to distinguish Psychoticism from Psychopathy - I aim to show that while they may share superficial behaviours in common, they represent fundamentally different modes of thinking- different personality types.

In particular, high Psychoticism trait (properly understood) is necessary for the real creative genius type, but Psychopathy is not, and indeed overall detracts from Genius.

And in terms of natural selection; high Psychoticism trait as it occurs in a creative genius on average benefits the group; while high Psychopathy trait harms the group: the pure Genius is thus altruistic, while Psychopathy is parasitic.

Some Geniuses have also been Psychopaths, but the Psychopathy was not intrinsic to their Genius, and indeed these were the 'evil Geniuses' who (usually) overall harmed their group, and left a bad legacy.

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PSYCHOPATHY

Psychopaths are a fairly well-defined type of 'personality disorder'; which means that the word Psychopath names a characteristic personality type, substantially inherited, present from childhood, and tending to endure through life.

Because it is an innate personality type, this means that Psychopathy is not really an illness, cannot really be 'cured', and neither treatment nor punishment seem to have much effect; so that when they are criminals, for instance thieves or violent, Psychopaths tend to continue behaving that way despite repeated punishment, imprisonment, or whatever.

A personality disorder is therefore primarily a problem for 'other people' rather than for the person with that disorder - and this is certainly obvious for the Psychopath.

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The Psychopath is usually and characteristically (but not always) a man; and one core feature is an indifference to the feelings of others which is probably a product of an innate inability to empathise, or sympathize - so that observing suffering and misery in others does not evoke suffering and misery in the psychopath.

Thus the Psychopath is 'cold-hearted', and other people are regarded in an instrumental fashion - as means to the end of self-gratification.

Therefore the Psychopath is untruthful when this is expedient,since he feels no obligation to be truthful except when he benefits.

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So far, the Psychopath seems defective; but this is not quite accurate nor is it the whole story - the Psychopath is motivated by a sort of cruel, dominant pride; his main satisfaction is to assert himself, and his whole 'moral' perspective assumes that he himself is always in the right: the Psychopath is never wrong by his own lights, and whatever he does is justified and correct: he has no guilt, no remorse, and any problems are always due to 'other people' and not himself.

(The Psychopath-type has been called a Right Man,because he always believes himself to be right about everything; and bad happening are the fault of others. The worst he will admit of himself is that he was driven to do something wrong by another person's fault.)

Successful Psychopaths - that is to say 'successful' in terms of gratifying themselves and evading imprisonment, exile or execution; are often intelligent, quick-witted,  'charming', glib, socially-dominant, good at presenting an appropriate false front; quick to infer what other people want to hear, and tell it to them.

(Yes, this is very much the normal type of successful modern politicians, mass media people, advertisers and public relations consultants, lawyers, professors and those in 'management' and positions of 'leadership'.)

Since successful Psychopaths come-across as dominant, due to total lack of self--doubt/ indifference to others; their personality may be sexually attractive. Therefore psychopaths are often strategically sexually promiscuous, sexually-exploitative, -manipulative and -dishonest; and sexually violent when it suits their preferences and purposes.

They tend to be thieves, fraudsters, con-men, claiming responsibility for good outcomes and deflecting it for bad outcomes. 

Psychopaths may also be violently jealous - because sexual infidelity threatens their aim of total domination and control - they want others to submit, and signs of resistance may provoke coldly cruel torment or a murderous frenzy.

Psychopaths respond to love, kindness and generosity by regarding it as despicable weakness; they congratulate themselves on always taking much more than they ever give - and regard this as evidence of their natural superiority.

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PSYCHOTICISM

Hans J Eysenck made an important theoretical breakthrough in devising the personality trait of Psychoticism - in particular, in clarifying that this trait is usually high and causal in creative geniuses.

But one serious problem with the trait as it is generally conceptualized is that the usual self-rating questionnaire is focused on de facto Psychopathy.

This despite that Psychoticism is intended to be related to the mode of thinking characteristic of those having psychotic experiences such as hallucinations (e.g.hearing voices) or delusions(having false beliefs), or exhibiting dream-like highly-associative, highly-inclusive 'stream of consciousness' styles of thinking.

True Psychoticism is (I have argued) related to a constitutional inner-ness; inner attentiveness, inner-directedness, and domination by inner-generated cognitions (which are the creative mode of thought).

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/eysencks-personality-trait-of.html

And it is this true Psychoticism, nut not Psychopathy, which is causally-associated with creative genius.

That is to say, creative geniuses are necessarily high in traits of psychosis-like Psychoticism, but not necessarily (and only rarely) high in Psychopathic traits.

Furthermore, those higher-than-average-in-psychosis-type of people with Psychoticism; are usually creative, in the sense of high in spontaneous, driven, 'raw creativity' (although they may also have low intelligence and lack concentration, focus, and sustained motivation which thwarts their creative achievement).

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In contrast, most Psychopaths are utterly uncreative, except insofar as perceived (but maybe stolen or faked) creativity is expedient for the domination, exploitation or subordination of other people.

Even when a Psychopath is also creative, his achievement is undermined by his dishonesty, and the fact that it is usually easier for him to lie, cheat and manipulate his way to high status than actually to put in the long, hard, focused work necessary for even a Genius to make substantive achievements. 

The Psychopath will seldom resist an easy, but false, short-cut.

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In sum, Psychoticism may be, as it were, co-morbid with Psychopathy - but Psychopathy is not necessary nor intrinsic to Psychoticism.

Yet, if you look at the questions in a common form of the Eysenck Psychoticism rating scale you will see what I mean by its mistaken focus on Psychopathy.

http://www.swisswuff.ch/files/amputation/epqr/EPQR_1985_paper.pdf

http://wiki.mgto.org/eysenck_personality_questionnaire

The Wikipedia article summarizes Psychoticism as follows: " toughmindedness, non-conformity, inconsideration, recklessness, hostility, anger and impulsiveness. "  - which sounds almost exactly like Psychopathy; and says nothing about creativity, and not much about inner directedness.

And when we look at Eysenck's Psychoticism scalein detail, there are many specific 'diagnostic' questions which address typical Psychopathic behaviour:

For instance a high Psychoticism score is given for answering YES to the following: Would you take drugs which may have strange or dangerous effects? Do you enjoy hurting people you love? Do you enjoy practical jokes that can sometimes really hurt people? Are you more easy-going about right and wrong than most people? Would you like other people to be afraid of you?

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These are questions about Psychopathy, and not about Psychoticism-proper. Indeed, there is almost nothing about the 'psychotic' aspects of Psychoticism in the standard scale.

Why?


My feeling is that Eysenck was misled by the imperative to provide a reliable self-rating scale - and true Psychoticism is very rare (in particular, seldom seen at a high level in college students- who constitute most of Psychology samples) - the distribution of Psychoticism is NOT a normal distribution, but positively skewed (most people in a normal population scoring at a low level, and only a few at higher levels).

Population samples drawn from psychiatric patients will tend to show a high frequency of 'co-morbidity' for high Psychoticism  and high Psychopathy - and intelligent, successful Psychopaths can and will fake their self-rated answers if they regard it as expedient to do so. (Eysenck's effort to detect this with a 'lie scale' was laughable.)

Real 'creative' Psychoticism is also very difficult to self-rate. There is often a lack of insight - with high P people not realizing how atypical they are. Also psychotics tend to take for granted and to believe-in the reality of their experiences.

Indeed, the experience of psychiatry is that it usually takes prolonged and careful, one-to-one, 'phenomenological' interviewing - which invites reflection and educates in introspection - to elicit inner experiences.

Self rating questionnaires are simply not up to the job. 

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The Psychopath is therefore in a sense the opposite of the Genius.

The Psychopath is fundamentally parasitic (and harms the group, lives-off the group), while the genius is fundamentally altruistic (and benefits, the group; gives more to the group than he receives).

Psychotics and Psychopaths may superficially share several similar behaviours - especially an indifference to the opinions of other people, an autonomy from mainstream social values - but for completely different reasons!

Therefore is it wrong to conflate Psychotic and Psychopathic mechanisms in the same scale, and wrong to regard them as two sides of the same coin.

In other words, contrasting Psychoticism and Psychopathy, we can see that the same (or very similar) behaviour is typically a consequence of completely different thought processes. 

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For instance, a man high in trait Psychoticism is indifferent to the opinions of other people because he is focused on inner experiences and driven by inner motivations - thus he may be very solitary.

By contrast, the Psychopath is also indifferent to the opinions of other people, but because he is unable to empathize with them, has no sympathy for them, wants only to dominate and manipulate them for his pleasure (which is often a sadistic pleasure).

Similar behaviour, very different underlying psychology. 

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So, here is a pen-picture of the typical (high-Psychoticism but non-Psychopathic) Genius-type; compared with the typical Psychopath - to emphasize the stark differences in the way of thinking, the way of relating to the world: the basic motivation with respect to life.

The Typical Genius - Abstracted, eccentric, warm-heartedly emotional, vulnerable and sensitive in the way of being easily-hurt, loving towards family or close friends but uninterested by most other people, abstractly altruistic, tends to be asexual or monogamous, altruistic and well-meaning, innocently self-confident, open and undefended, concerned that his work will benefit others, inner-motivated, introverted, introspective, sweet-natured but not charming, non-violent unless thwarted and driven to desperation - when he may be wildly and desperately violent whatever the odds and without regard for safety or chance of success, loves life is seldom bored and has a lot he wants to do, modest about himself but inflexible and brave over matters of moral principle. A public benefactor.

The Psychopath - Charming but cold-hearted, subject to strong and contradictory moods, manipulative, possessive rather than loving, preys-upon the vulnerable, sensitive but in the way of prickly and likely to take offense, indifferent to all people (including family and 'friends'), easily bored and motivated by need for external stimulus (extraverted), needs to dominate and control and humiliate, sexually promiscuous, strategically violent when expedient (but backs down and becomes submissive, even docile, in face of superior force or will), over-confident because wildly overestimating his own abilities, impulsive and risk-taking because he does not intuitively perceive or understand hazards, prone to aggressive suicide attempts or suicide motivated by wanting to hurt and harm others, self-righteously asserting moral principles for others but in a wholly self-serving and morally-inconsistent way (e.g angrily accusing others of selfishness or cowardice at one moment, while at another moment boasting of 'looking after number one' and ridiculing the idea of his own self-sacrifice). A parasite on society.

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Acknowledgement: My thanks are due to Michael A Woodley for conversations which stimulated the above reflections. 

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Wednesday, 27 June 2012

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Why did the European population develop such a high concentration of Creative Geniuses growing and peaking sometime late-ish in the span between 1000 and 2000 AD?

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Creative genius requires:

1. High general intelligence

2. High creativity - which is correlated with the personality trait of Psychoticism
(as described by HJ Eysenck).

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There is a selection pressure for higher general intelligence in various overlapping situations: agricultural societies, complex societies (with specialization of labour and other functions), high latitude societies (with the problem of surviving through winter).

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There is a selection pressure for lower Psychoticism in various situations which overlap with the selection factors for high intelligence.

High Psychoticism is in bold font; Low Psychoticism is normal font.

1. Cold - versus warm, charming
2. Aggressive - versus submissive
3. Egocentric - versus follows groups expectations
4. Unempathic - versus sympathetic, feels the emotions of others
5. Tough-minded (i.e. impervious to events) - versus tender-minded, strongly affected by experience
6. Antisocial - versus gregarious, needs other people
7. Impersonal - versus life consists of intense, direct relationships
8. Impulsive (behaviour dominated by current emotions) - versus behaviour dominated by predictions or weaker emotions.
9. Creative - versus applies peer-approved, learned rules and traditions

High trait Psychoticism supports creative genius; low Psychoticism makes a person more assimilable to large scale, complex human society.

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Thus, a relatively complex agricultural society will - over time - tend to Increase Intelligence and reduce Psychoticism.

In other words, complex agrarian societies will tend towards a Smart and Tame population.

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(In animal terms, perhaps a group of high-P types could be compared with a wild hunting pack of carnivores such as wolves; while a group of low-P types is somewhat like a herd of domesticated herbivores such as cattle; bearing in mind that when coordinated - e.g. in a stampede - cattle can kill a pack of wolves.)

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Creative Genius requires both Intelligence and Psychoticism to be high - so eventually a complex agricultural society will become Smart but Tame - highly intelligent but uncreative.

However, it is possible that the selection pressure for increasing intelligence may (under certain circumstances) be stronger than the selection pressure for reducing Psychoticism: thus the smartening may happen faster than taming.

In such a situation, there would be a temporary period when the population was both intelligence and also creative.

This is the 'sweet spot' for Creative Genius.

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On this basis, it is plausible that the European population underwent selection both for Higher Intelligence and lower Psychoticism during the medieval period; but that Intelligence increased faster than Psychoticism reduced, and led to a few centuries of Western Creative Genius, before the taming selection reduced creativity.

Other parts of the world had different experiences: for example, East Asia had a much longer history of complex (and peaceful) agrarian society - thus the population became, after many generations, much lower in Psychoticism as well as higher in Intelligence: to generate the Smart and Tame type of population. Presumably, at an earlier period than in Western Europe  (after, presumably, a much earlier era when the more rapid selection for Intelligence led them to they hit the 'sweet spot' for Creative Genius).

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And then, from about 1800, selection began to work against high intelligence due to a combination of declining child mortality rates differentially affecting most the less intelligent and declining fertility initially and most strongly among the most intelligent.

Probably, from about 1800, in Europe average Intelligence began to fall, and average Psychoticism to rise - and Creative Genius dwindled quickly (to become very rare by the mid-twentieth century). 

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The Creative Intelligence combination of high Intelligence and high Psychoticism has probably not happened in many populations in the history of the world; and seems likely to be an unstable and transitional state passed-through in moving between the more stable combinations of creative, chaotic, individualistic low-I/ high-P societies on the one hand; and stereotypical, ordered, communalistic high-I/ low-P societies on the other hand.

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High trait Psychoticism is in bold font; Low trait Psychoticism is normal font.

1. Cold - versus warm, charming
2. Aggressive - versus submissive
3. Egocentric - versus follows groups expectations
4. Unempathic - versus socially-expressed agreeableness, empathy, sympathetic
5. Tough-minded (i.e. impervious to events) - versus tender-minded, strongly affected by experience/ people
6. Antisocial - versus gregarious, needs other people
7. Impersonal - versus life consists of intense, direct relationships
8. Impulsive (behaviour dominated by current emotions) - versus conscientious.
9. Creative - versus applies peer approved, learned rules and traditions 

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My assumption is that ancestral humans were high Psychoticism on average - for example, anthroplogical accounts of recent hunter gatherers show that they exhibited extremely high trait Psychoticism behaviours. 

Therefore high P is the baseline, and low P is something that evolved more recently - probably due to multiple generations of selection in complex/ agricultural/ high latitude societies. 

So - high P is the original and natural state for humans.

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But what unifies all the behaviours characterized as high Psychoticism?

My answer is that the specific behaviours of high P are all products of a characteristic mode of thinking or cognitive style. 

And this high P cognitive style is similar in form to the mode of early childhood, dreams, trances, delirium, psychedelic drugs, and psychotic states - except that it may occur in an adult, alert, aware and fully-orientated person.

Also - this high P cognitive style is that which is characteristic of creative genius - a fluid, multiply-valenced, widely-associated style of thinking with direct links to behaviour. 

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It is the cognitive style of High-P which leads to the apparently self-contained, self-confident person, of high self-esteem; interested-by, absorbed-by, motivated by their own vivid and emotionally-engaged subjective, imaginative experiences - thus not easily influenced, nor easily-deflected from their chosen course of action. 

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This leads onto the question of what is the characteristic cognitive style of 'Not-P', or low trait psychoticism?

The answer is that there is no single characteristic style of low-Pychoticism; instead it encompasses a variety of cognitive style, which are united not by similarity but by the fact they are not-P. 

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This can be clarified by an analogy of Poetry versus Prose: Poetry represents high-P while Prose represents low-P. 

Poetry can be defined in terms of characteristics like rhythm, rhyme, alliteration; by prose is merely defined as Not-poetry: there are innumerable styles of prose.

So we get Poetry versus Not-Poetry: P versus Not-P: 

Thus Poetry has a positive definition in terms of what is is; but Prose has only a negative definition: as being something other than poetry. 

There is therefore no characteristic form of Prose, its forms are unbounded, you cannot say prose is 'like this' in the way that can be done with poetry.

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So, non-Psychoticism, or low-Psychoticism forms of thought are not like the cognitive style of early childhood, dreams, trances, delirium, psychedelic drugs, and psychotic states... but what there are like cannot be briefly stated, and will vary according to circumstance. 

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Another, and psychologically-related, example is comparing the characteristically natural, spontaneous way that people behave (for example as young children) can be contrasted with formal manners, etiquette, courtesy or social protocols. 

There are innumerable different systems of manners - there is not a characteristic style of manner. And manners must be learned for each specific human society and typically for specific niches within society (e.g. different manners for the two sexes, ages, classes, or occupations).

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I believe that it is precisely because high Psychoticism is natural and spontaneous that it is the mode of thinking which drives creative genius - which offers least friction, and harnesses the primary motivations; while by comparison other modes of low-P thinking are learned, artificial, shallow, and less driven. 

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NOTE: Regarding Psychoticism as original, primary and spontaneous entails a re-framing of the Big Five traits of Agreeableness (essentially same as Baron Cohen's Empathizing) and Conscientiousness. these become outcomes of an evolved reduction in Psychoticism, rather than positive things in their own right. In particular, there would not be a specific mode of thought characteristic either of Agreeableness/ Empathizing or Conscientiousness; rather they would be the outcomes of learned forms of thinking.


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I am beginning to believe that - important though it was in understanding creativity - it may be necessary to replace Eysenck's personality trait of Psychoticism to distinguish between adaptive and pathological causes.

The sub-traits which constitute Psychoticism have been summarised here:

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/eysencks-personality-trait-of.html

In brief they are

High Psychoticism is in bold font; Low Psychoticism is normal font.

1. Cold - versus warm, charming
2. Aggressive - versus submissive
3. Egocentric - versus follows groups expectations
4. Unempathic - versus sympathetic, feels the emotions of others
5. Tough-minded (i.e. impervious to events) - versus tender-minded, strongly affected by experience
6. Antisocial - versus gregarious, needs other people
7. Impersonal - versus life consists of intense, direct relationships
8. Impulsive (behaviour dominated by current emotions) - versus behaviour dominated by predictions or weaker emotions.
9. Creative - versus applies peer-approved, learned rules and traditions 
I believe that there may be two distinct reasons why a person is rated as high in Psychoticism:

1. One cause is pathological, i.e. functional brain damage from various causes - innate/ genetic, traumatic, drugs or toxins, and psychotic diseases. These increase the susceptibility to altered states of consciousness, and damage evolved psychological adaptations for social living.

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2. The other cause is adaptive - the evolution (probably by some kind of group-selected mechanism, associated with an extreme K of slow Life History) whereby some minority of individuals are developmentally specialised for socially valuable roles in creativity; by means of a variety of lop-sided maturational trajectories that lead to some highly developed cognitive motivations and intuitive abilities at the cost of others.

For example, among the most extreme creative - creative geniuses - there are 'always' some deficits indicative of an imbalance away from 'normal' abilities and motivations - for example a reduced interest in sex and reproduction, reduced interest (and often aptitude) in social affairs (including indifference to the opinions of others), reduced motivation to achieve power, status, wealth and other socially-valued 'goods'.

And highly creative people often use states of day-dreaming, trance, sleep and other altered states as the primary mode of their creative thinking - but not because these states are imposed on them by disease and deficit; rather as a deliberate strategy, because these states are when creativity is facilitated.

These altered states are usually only deployed in solitude - and switched-off when full alertness is needed (driving a car, operating dangerous machinery etc.), or in social interactions.

So high creativity is a package of positive abilities and emotions, and also a relative indifference to aspects of life which would tend to interfere with creative autonomy and self motivation.

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However, pathology might mimic evolved creativity, when there is focal damage to social/ sexual psychological adaptations - leading someone to pour all their interest into a specific and idiosyncratic interest. But such pathologically focused individuals would lack the positive aspects of creativity - the type of mind capable of make wide and unusual associations and jumps of logic. Pathological individuals would perhaps be obsessed with a subject - but only in learning about it and not in making original contributions to it.

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So, what could be a term for the trait displayed by those High Psychoticism individuals who are creative?

Perhaps Creativity is indeed the proper and best term?

So, the category of Psychoticism could be broken down into sub-categories of 1. Pathological Psychoticism, and 2. Adaptive Creativity - and the list of sub-traits modified accordingly.

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I suggest the following Creative Triad as characteristic of those who display adaptive (and presumably evolved) high level creativity - Creative Genius:

1. A characteristic mode of thought - primarily intuitive, associative and generative; rather than logical and rational and factual. This mode of thought is attained in some kind of altered state of consciousness, usually attained in solitude - rather than full alertness and social interaction.

(Logic, reason and facts are of course necessary to creation - but come after the creative process; as a test applied to the products of creativity.)

2. High ability of a specific kind - different in different creative people: mathematical, inventive, artistic, philosophical etc.

3. Internal, self-motivation to channel one's major energies into the subject of that High Ability.

(High specific ability is of little value unless it is fed with sufficient time and energy to develop that ability, and to apply the outcomes of that ability.)

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Speculation time...

Creative Genius is a combination of high general intelligence (g) and (moderately) high Psychoticism (see elsewhere on this blog for the evidence) plus some other things, including luck.

But these are the necessary attributes - intelligence gives metal quickness, quick learning and general knowledge - and psychoticism provides the creativity plus the personal autonomy required to focus on something due to its intrinsic interest and in despite of social pressure to stop doing it and do something else.

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1. In the beginning, hunter gatherers were low in intelligence and high in Psychoticism - they were creative back lacked cognitive ability, and seldom made discoveries.

HG = Low IQ & High P

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2. In stable and large scale agricultural societies there was selection for higher intelligence and higher 'General Factor Personality' GFP - GFP is what J Phillipe Rushton termed a putative underlying unitary 'pro-social' personality trait which can be assumed to underpin the Costa and McCrae Big Five (i.e. High GFP =  high Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Openness and low Neuroticism) or Eysenck's Big Three (i.e. High GFP = high Extraversion and low Neuroticism and Psychoticism).

(GFP statistically-underpins the various specific personality traits in just the same way as g underpins the various cognitive abilities.)

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Such populations became high in intelligence but uncreative, since individuals would be focused on social expectations (for stable emotions, sociability, hard work and empathy) and would be most rewarded hence motivated by conforming to social expectations.

Their whole mental set up would be outward looking at other people - as contrasted with the inward looking self-evaluating set-up which seems to be required for creativity.

Agriculturalists = High IQ & High GFP (i.e. Low P)

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3. Specifically in European societies (of the Middle Ages) there was a further selection for economic specialization in men.

This selection worked because the most reproductively successful men were cognitive specialists - merchants, skilled tradesmen, doctors, lawyers, clerks... indeed these were the ONLY men who actually managed to raise on average more than two children per family.

In order to do such work, these men were Naturally Selected to be motivated not by 'other people' but by the innate rewards of their, often solitary, cognitive and physical skills. This was in fact selection for high Psychoticism - for creativity.

Despite not being very sociable nor very 'charming', such men got good wives via arranged marriages - since parents of a young and healthy girls would prefer their grandchildren not to starve to death.

The result was a population that was both intelligence and creative - due to having high P.

Europeans = High IQ & (relatively) High P

But the High P of the Europeans is NOT the same as the High P of the Hunter Gatherers - it is a High P which is not 'natural and spontaneous' but a High P which has secondarily evolved-from a High GFP.

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So we get three types of world population in terms of what I regard as the primary variables of general intelligence (g) and Psychoticism

H-G - High Primary P and Low g

Agric - High GFP and High g

European - High Secondary P and High g.

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This is my explanation for why a high incident rate of Creative genius was confined to European populations.

As I said - this is speculation!

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If the standard 'natural selection' model of creativity is regarded as deficient, as previously argued - I mean the 'Simonton' model in which creativity is explained as a product of the high-Psychoticism-trait (high-P) personality producing wide-ranging and abundant random variations on old ideas, and high intelligence sieving and sorting-through these abundant randomly-varied ideas on the basis of coherence and memorized knowledge - then what do I propose to put in its place?

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The key relevant difference between my view and the natural selection view - and the difference which leads to the following alternative model for creativity - concerns the nature of the high-Psychoticism trait.

Eysenck sees Psychoticism in terms of a tendency towards loose or broad associations - in other words a partially-pathological state. Psychoticism is seen as a partial breakdown in the normally tightly controlled and narrow associations of ideas to a situation being more like we have all experienced in dreams, and some people have experienced in delirious states of illness or alcohol withdrawal, or psychotic illnesses such as mania or schizophrenia, or under the influence of psychosis-inducing drugs (such as mescaline or LSD).

By contrast, I regard high-Psychoticism-trait as being an innate, substantially heritable, hard-wired set-up of the nervous system in which some individuals experience a higher dominance by 'inner' states than do most normal people. High-P individuals are inner-attentive, inner-aware, inner-engaged and inner-motivated.

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So how does high-P work in producing 'creative solutions'?

The short answer is that the creative insight is preceded by a period of focused 'quest' (which may last many years) during which the mind is filled with more-or-less relevant ingredients. The inner-directed processes then observe, work-on, try to understand these various facts and concepts - try to select among them, achieve a clear view of their proper or best organization or arrangement,

This means that such high P individuals are attentive to their inner states (i.e. their thoughts and emotions, their 'stream of consciousness'), they are more spontaneously aware of their thoughts and feelings, they find these inner experiences more engaging, spontaneously more interesting than external matters such as social and sexual interactions (which fascinate most people for most of the time) - and these inner states provide the dominating motivations for such people, such that they are therefore substantially autonomous - that is to say indifferent to, independent-from peer pressure and socialization.

The process by which the mind works on these ingredients to give a breakthrough is a 'black box' - so far as science is concerned. (Although it can be said that the inner, unconscious mind works by different rules than those of conscious logic.) But it is the high-P person who has the focused abstract interest to bring together the ingredients, to watch the processes of understanding and organization, and to get a clear view of the answer as it emerges; and then powerfully to feel the rightness of the right answer as energies and positive emotions are triggered and experienced.
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Although this inner-dominance can be caused by diseases and toxicity or brain damage; which can cause any normal person to be overwhelmed by powerful and pathological inner stimuli, or cut-off-from outer perceptions - the idea of Psychoticism is that high-P is a relatively rare but hereditary personality trait - commoner in men than women, inborn, emerging in childhood and persisting through maturity and adulthood.

The reason that high-P is hereditary, is that it is an evolved adaptation with a useful functional role to play - i.e. creativity - and the reason it is rare is that not many (i.e. not a high proportion) of creative people are required by a society; and high-P tend to be associated with lower reproductive success overall (as would be expected when individual invest more time and other resources in the inner life, and therefore relatively less resource into social and sexual life).

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So high-P creative people are sometimes very useful to a particular human society (assuming that society 'takes advantage' of their special abilities) but there cannot be too many and indeed not many are needed.

The reason that high-P people are needed, but not often, is that most socially relevant problems (of population survival and expansion) are dealt-with by habitual and traditional means - the individual is socialized into the usual way of dealing with problems through childhood, and these usually work.

But most human societies have recognized (whether explicitly, or more often implicitly, tacitly, that some problems do yield to tradition or habit, and other problem do not always yield to tradition or habit - and what then?

In a nutshell, then is the time to bring in the creative specialist - the Shaman, the mystic, the intuitive priest, the scientific or inventive genius, the Holy Fool: someone who has resisted socialization and instead thinks by different rules, because he is more engaged with the inner world

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So the assumption is that high-P has evolved at a low frequency by some (unknown) group-selection mechanism that leads to a reliable but rare supply of high-P individuals to do this vital but infrequent job. And part of this group-selection must also be a recognition from the majority of low-P individuals that these high-P 'oddball' or 'eccentric' individuals must be tolerated, supported, and asked for advice and guidance in certain relatively unusual circumstances when their special abilities are the best (or only) hope for group survival.

Since the supposed mechanism is group selection, and different human group shave experienced widely different selection pressures; then it is likely that high-P is not found with identical frequency everywhere. This presumably explains why creative genius is very unevenly distributed by time and geographical space - and why its frequency varies over time within the same culture - not least because group selection is always open to being subverted by individual-level selection.

This group selected nature of high-P potentially explains why creative genius is all-but absent from many continents and nations, and also why it may appear in abundance (e.g. in ancient Greece) then disappear. However since genius also requires high general intelligence (high-g) then too low an average level of g, or a decline in g, may also be a cause of declining rates of genius.

But I think it fair to say that high-P is a more crucial aspect of genius than high-g, because any high-P individual who is sufficiently higher in intelligence than the majority of his group can perfom his creative social role; while a low-P person will not be creative, no matter how high his intelligence.

So I imagine that the 'shamans' of a recent hunter gatherer tribe will typically have had an intelligence level that is high for their tribal group, but of a lower than average level for a Western nation (as measured by IQ tests). However, such (by Western standards) 'low-IQ' individuals could nonetheless perform their highly valued and effective social function - so long as they had the high-P, creative personality trait.

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Although creativity is strongest in those high in the personality trait of Psychoticism (P), it is not restricted to those of high-P personality: probably, everyone is creative to some extent.

How then does creativity show itself in low-P individuals? - given that the distribution of Psychoticism within the population is 'positively-skewed' - in other words a majority of people are low in psychoticism, and only a small proportion high in P.

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-rarity-of-creativity.html

Furthermore, Psychoticism trait has a higher average in men than women, and a lot more men are high in P than women. This shows itself both in terms of the typical creative interests of 'normal' boys-men and girls-women - and also in the much higher proportion of men among the most creative people: the geniuses.

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In people low in Psychoticism, creativity is there but weak, seldom activated, not-dominant, short-lived and - as a rule - subordinated to social (including sexual) imperatives which are the primary drive for most people.

Of course, almost by definition, creativity in the normal majority of people is not necessarily impressive or rare. So this creativity tends to be private, and almost invisible at a societal level (especially in large modern societies).

The easiest way to see creativity is perhaps in children - especially in older but pre-pubertal children, and their 'crazes' and hobbies.

Boys often have very creative hobbies in which they become mini-experts and avid dissenters of subjects like cars, aeroplanes, sports, crafts etc - also in reading particular books (on favourite themes or by favourite authors), or TV series. These children often live chunks of their leisure time psychologically-inside a very intense parallel 'fantasy world'.

Girls may also have crazes on particular books; also they may become passionate about horses, or fashion, or hairdressing, or pretending to be a teacher.

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Aside - It is noticeable that girls crazes tend to be more socially-inflected and less abstract; and this follows through to adult life, and high achievement. The highest frequency of genius, or near-genius, level achievement among women is focused on the most social and human aspects of the arts and sciences - and much rarer in abstract areas.

For instance, there are many and well known women novelists in the front rank - the novel being the most 'social' of art forms. And in science, the highest achievements of women are in the human sciences rather than the physical sciences - and within biology women have been very prominent in social areas like primatology and anthropology.

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But to return to the theme, normal and average creativity is seen in hobbies, and how people use their discretionary time; and the fact that hobbies are for most people subject to work, relationships and daily life is due to the low-P, low creativity personality.

Normal people are creative, to some subordinate extent; and they fit creativity into their lives.

But geniuses fit their lives around their hobbies, and geniuses make their hobbies (avocations) into their life (their vocations).

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Thus Robert Frost (a poet of genius) expresses the difference:

Two Tramps in Mud Time

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You'd think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
The judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right--agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

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I realized recently that I lacked specific knowledge of the psychology of perhaps the greatest ever scientific genius: Isaac Newton; so I have been reading Richard S Westfall's biography Never at rest.

Having developed the Creative Triad as a simple framework for explaining genius -

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-creative-triad-need-for-new-concept.html

- I was curious to see how Newton's mind and life fitted with this model. The answer is: extremely closely.

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The Creative Triad is:

1. Innate ability

2. Inner-motivation

3. Intuitive thinking

Genius is made possible when all these flow together - a person is internally-motivated to pursue that for which he has a natural ability; and does so in an 'intuitive' way that mobilizes his deepest self, all his mental powers.

Newton's intellectual ability, his intelligence, was very obviously stratospheric; so what I was most interested by was to discover his personality. HJ Eysenck established that the high level creative personality type was approximated by the trait of High Psychoticism, which I have attempted to elucidate in recent years

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/eysencks-personality-trait-of.html

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Newton's biography reveals that he was an extreme example of the Psychoticism trait. Psychoticism is important to genius because it describes someone who is uninterested and uninfluenced by the normal human concerns - which are essentially 'other people' Most humans are social animals, who see life through social spectacles, and who are motivated by the desire for friends, sex, status and so on. But not Newton. He simply wanted to be allowed to get on with his work.

As a child and young man of science he would spend nearly all of his time alone, when in company he would be silent, he had essentially no friends, formed no relationships with women, and made very little effort to fit-in - indeed as a boy his relationships with other boys tended to be antagonistic and at times rather sadistic (Newton was not likeable).

Newton was taught Latin at school; and nothing else. In terms of mathematics and science he was an autodidact. Whatever he did, he did because he wanted to do it; and he did it at close to 100 percent effort. Thus in a year or less he went from knowing no mathematics to mastering the subject and being among the best in the world; and then immediately went to to make some of the greatest ever mathematical discoveries.

(Newton's own explanation of his achievement emphasized the distinctive creative personality - he was asked how he made his discoveries and gave such answers as "By thinking on it continually" and "I keep the subject constantly before me".)

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Then he all-but dropped mathematics, and moved on to one area of physics after another - making major discoveries, and moving-on. This reminds me of the 'schoolboy crazes' or obsessions, typical of some highly intelligent young men.

Stories of Newton's consuming focus abound - he would think solidly for hour upon hour - sometimes standing lost in abstraction half way down the stairs; forget to eat, forget to sleep; forget that he had visitors. For years he seldom left his college, almost never left Cambridge.

In all of human history there can have been very few (and perhaps nobody of Newtons astonishing intelligence) who gave such intense and sustained concentration to whatever problem they were working on.

And while Newton's academic performance was good, it was not amazing, and was somewhat erratic. It seems he performed badly in his BA examination - which was a disputation, needing to go on to a second round of questions (rather than passing straight away), which was regarded as somewhat disgraceful.

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His methods were highly intuitive, reasoning from a relatively small base of axioms and principles, building out from them, making predictions and testing his ideas against general observations. This can be contrasted with the method typical of highly intelligent and conscientious uncreative people - who read widely, learn many facts, and apply other-people's solutions to problems. 

But Newton, the autodidact, worked things through for himself; thought things through using only those facts and principles he trusted. From this; creativity follows quite naturally and without being deliberately sought.

It is clear that Newton's solitary, wilful and autonomous personality; his un-empathic, un-conscientious, anti-social and eccentric ways - in sum his high Psychoticism traits - were as necessary a part of his supreme genius as was ultra-high intelligence.


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It may be wondered why I am so confident that genius is group-selected (apart from the fact that Michael A Woodley persuaded me!) considering that the status of group selection remains controversial within evolutionary biology.

That groups selection remains controversial is largely, perhaps, the result of the influence of Richard Dawkins's 1976 book The Selfish Gene; which hugely popularised the kin selection/ inclusive fitness ideas of WD Hamilton - which were presented as if they refuted the case for group selection; while omitting that WD Hamilton was himself a lifelong believer in the reality of group selection (as may be seen from his three volume collection Narrow Roads of Gene Land).

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Note added: What is the essence of group selection of genius? 

It is simply that genius is essentially for the benefit of the group and not for the benefit of the genius himself.

In terms of natural selection, this means the work of genius is 'for' the genetic benefit of the group; in broader terms this means the works of genius are 'for' general social benefit (therefore, not for the specific private benefit of the genius himself).

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The basic reason for entertaining the hypothesis of group selection for genius, is that on average genius has poor reproductive success - with an average of less than two offspring per genius from most estimates; indeed many geniuses seem to have had no children at all (Newton, Beethoven) - and especially among the relatively few women geniuses (e.g. Jane Austen, George Eliot, Emily Dickenson).

Certainly, there is near-zero evidence of enhanced reproductive success for geniuses - indeed this is extremely implausible given that geniuses invest far less effort and resources into social and sexual goals than average people do - due to their investing so much more effort and resources into the subject matter of their genius.

Therefore, the 'standard' mechanism of natural selection is apparently not the cause of geniuses, and we must look at indirect mechanisms.

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The theoretical problem with group selection is that if an allele occurs by chance which reduces differential reproductive success (RS) in direct descendants while enhancing the success of the group overall, then this mutation will tend to go extinct over not many generations.

This is true enough, so far as it goes; but does not eliminate the possibility that a population may produce an enhanced number of geniuses by group selection for at least several generations - if there is some mechanism to over-compensate for the reduced differential RS of genius - i.e. the decline in the proportion of the 'genius alleles' in the population may be overcompensated by a mechanism leading to an increase in the absolute number (not proportion) of genius alleles.

The answer is that a reduced proportion of 'genius alleles' in the group can be over-compensated by the massive effect of even one world-historical genius on the group as a whole - and more so by the presence of several major geniuses.

So if the presence of a genius results in the expansion of the population of his group (or arrests the decline of a sufficiently large group), then genius alleles might survive in increased numbers for several generations.

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What seems to have happened in England, for example, is that during the Medieval period, natural selection acted to increase the average intelligence of the society - which had the effect of increasing the capability of the geniuses - so that their work became of world-historic (rather than merely local) importance.

The initial effect, from about the seventeenth century, seems to have been an increase in the proportion and number of geniuses, leading to a strengthening and expansion of the kind of society which had led (by various means) to that initial high proportion of geniuses.

English geniuses began to accumulate so quickly, and make so many innovations in agriculture and industry, that the English population expanded very rapidly; and the English 'group' began to spread around the world to India, North America, Australasia, South Africa, and so on.

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In other words, the genius alleles in England were probably a relatively-slowly dwindling proportion of a very-rapidly expanding population - thus genius alleles were (for several generations) increasing in number, even as they reduced in proportion. Genius preserved itself, for a while; even though the genius alleles led to on-average reduced reproductive success.

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The reason why genius may confidently be assumed to be potentially group selected is therefore that the cultural impact of a genius upon the group is so vast that it dwarfs any potential genetic influence.

So one single genius who provides a breakthrough that massively enhances something like food production, military technology, building, the cohesive benefits of religion, effectiveness of societal organization, price or swiftness or trade or transportation, or economic efficiency... can enormously expand the size and domination of this genius's group - such that the rising tide (of culture) floats all (genetic) boats (at least for a few generations).

In other words, the genius's large 'group' of cultural partners will experience a tremendous boost to their reproductive success - thereby expanding the same kind of society which (through whatever combination of genes and culture and whatever else) produced, sustained and recognized the genius in the first place.

In sum a genius will tend to enhance the genius-friendly society which produced him.

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On top of this, it may be that the conditions which favoured genius in the first place, do so because (in that particular, contingent, time and place) groups can survive and grow only by creative innovation. Clearly this has not been the usual or typical case in the history of most places; but it certainly looks as if it may have been the case in and around Europe throughout the Middle Ages.

Since the personality trait of Psychoticism seems to provide the creativity aspect of genius; then all that is required was for natural selection to lead to a positively-skewed and sexually differentiated distribution of Psychoticism trait - so that the population would contain a small (but vital) proportion of High Psychoticism Males  - as the specialist creative innovators.

This would explain the distribution of High Psychoticism - in a minority because the majority are needed for reproduction; and in males, because there is a relative surplus of males, and through most of history the majority of reproduction has been done by a small minority of optimal fitness males selected by a strong selective sieve of high mortality rates, and validated by intensive male-versus-male competition for mates and matings. 

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On the other hand, what might be termed a bad, or destructive genius - will also have a massively damaging effect to the culture which produced him. The work of a negative genius will tends to damage the size, effectiveness, efficiency, reproduction, cohesion or some other useful attribute of the group which produced him.

Therefore, when a genius is bad, the amplification effect works in the opposite direction to wreak wholesale destruction.

Indeed, since it is easier to destroy than to create; it might be expected that bad geniuses will have a larger effect than good ones. It is plausible that Napoleon (building on the French Revolution) single-handedly inflicted permanent damage on the French nation by the mass maiming and slaughter of the most able, and able-bodied, men. Hitler perhaps did much the same to Germany; Lenin and Stalin to Russia. From England, the genius of Karl Marx and other 'reformers', socialists, feminists, sexual revolutionaries, atheists and radicals - unleashed truly massive group damage; initially locally, but affecting by now the whole world.

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In summary, genius is an unstable product of nations.

A nation with conditions that produce many geniuses may find itself undermined both by the success of its good geniuses (because such is the amplification effect on genius, that useful innovations are difficult to keep secret, and tend to spread from the originating group to that group's enemies); and by its bad geniuses.

Genius may, for a while, lead to more genius - by group selection. But sooner or later, the massive amplification effect of genius is likely to destabilize and destroy the system that engendered it; or else the fitness-reducing effect of genius alleles will tend towards genetic extinction.

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