4 ms·

People with night-time chronotype more likely to be narcissists and psychopaths [pdf]

17 points by pdknsk 12y ago

pdknsk 12y ago
2014 Ig Nobel Prize Winner (Psychology) > Peter K. Jonason, Amy Jones, and Minna Lyons, for amassing evidence that people who habitually stay up late are, on average, more self-admiring, more manipulative, and more psychopathic than people who habitually arise early in the morning. http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/ http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/
- alexanderss 12y ago
  "The 2014 Ig Nobel Prizes were physically handed to the winners at a ceremony at Harvard University, by five genuine Nobel Laureates" I'm enjoying the thought of watching them being laughed at in-person at Harvard.
  - nraynaud 12y ago
    I don't know if we should really laugh at them, sometimes it's real science, it's just that the context or the subject makes it funny or disgusting. It's also I think a way to release some pressure from the shitty stuff you have to do to get some knowledge.
  - electromagnetic 12y ago
    > WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Peter Jonason Sorry only one of them showed up, although it was a multinational group.
BugBrother 12y ago
So people are night owls to abuse the tiredness of the early risers? It sounds a little to pat. What use is it to be manipulative of people that say "Talk about that tomorrow. <Yawn>"?! For instance, what is cause and effect? Many people become night owls when they get disconnected from normal society (studying/working alone for more than a few days). And the Dark Triad people are disconnected from other people emotionally, by definition. (Another question -- is it only Machiavellian people that think sick people should have a right to their own lives and be allowed assisted suicide?! I call that bravely showing mercy, despite having to face horrible facts about the situation? Or is that what Machiavellian people do?) Edit: I am aware of the definition of Machiavellian, 6d0debc071. The example I took up in parentheses was from the article.
- 6d0debc071 12y ago
  > (Another question -- is it only Machiavellian people that think sick people should have a right to their own lives and be allowed assisted suicide?! I call that bravely showing mercy, despite having to face horrible facts about the situation? Or is that what Machiavellian people do?) ----- 'Machiavellianism (MACH) refers to interpersonal strategies that advocate self-interest, deception and manipulation.' http://www.academia.edu/157853/The_dark_triad_and_personality http://www.academia.edu/157853/The_dark_triad_and_personalit...
- turingfail 12y ago
  I'm also puzzled by the assisted suicide question. I would think being against it as a healthy person might be a sign of greedy self interest, i.e. their right to the sick family member over the needs of the family member. There is also this little gem: Primary psychopathy also had a non-significant trend towards morning chronotype, (b = .16, p < .10) I had to combine it with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Primary_and_secondary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Primary_and_seconda... It sounds like people who have been abused by mainstream society or have awareness and anxiety about potential abuses tend towards nights and avoidance of banking hours as a loss avoidance, and people who feel they can actually exploit others (leadership skills, primary psychopaths, CEOs) like day time hours to seek their social gains. Perhaps they need to look at a society that runs differently to understand the links. For example, Egypt tends toward later hours to avoid daytime heat. Are secondary psychopaths morning people in Egypt and leaders and/or primary psychopaths night time people?
fchollet 12y ago
From the article: "It could be adaptively effective for anyone pursuing a fast life strategy like that embodied in the Dark Triad to occupy and exploit a low-light environment where others are sleeping and have diminished cognitive functioning." It irks me when people, sometimes even scientists, try to map ridiculous evolutionary causality schemes over what is really just correlation. There are over 20,000 genes in the human genome. Thousands of alleles share some statistical pairwise correlation, as a result of evolving within a same population. It would be pointless to seek causality links within every pair of them (tens of millions of pairs). Most of it is random. What these people are saying is conceptually equivalent to "blonde hair and green eyes are correlated! That's likely because green eyes have been selected by evolution among blonde people due to {{bullshit pop science reason}}.". Well, nope. These characteristics just happened to co-evolve within a same population.
- BugBrother 12y ago
  Scientists aren't idiots. Well, except for evolutionary biologists as described by Gould. :-) It is a hypothesis, to be tested. (I already wrote a comment arguing it is an unlikely hypothesis.) Edit: I might add, evol biologists routinely generate and test if e.g. genetic drift can be involved when they write papers.
  - fchollet 12y ago
    > Scientists aren't idiots. You'd be amazed at how little most practicing scientists are versed in rational thinking, statistical rigorousness, and the scientific method. Maybe a lack of proper math and statistics education? I've since long lost count of the neuropsychology and biology papers I've come across that not only presented as fact results that did not really disprove the null hypothesis at all, but even advanced convoluted, ridiculous causal explanation for the (as likely inexistent) correlations they found.
    - BugBrother 12y ago
      You find bad papers in every area. To criticize a paper's hypothesis which the authors explicitly show they didn't get good correlation for (and was surprised by), seems... well, a bit weird. Can you SHOW they are incompetent idiots? [Edit: At least that the paper is garbage, as you write?] You must have gotten that really quick, without reading their references? This is the end of the paper's discussion: "We proposed and tested a relatively new hypothesis to account for the presence of the Dark Triad as indicators of an evolved psychosocial strategy directed towards [...] We have provided a unique test, arguing and showing that those high on the Dark Triad may be characterized by cognitive biases that [..]" I agree that the paper is likely wrong -- but I see no proof the authors are a pack of incompetent f-ckwits, as you describe them as. As I wrote, they put forward a hypothesis and tried to test it.
jaekwon 12y ago
Are there any controls in the study to account for the possibility that staying up late chronically induces those traits of narcissism/psychopathy? Seems like the obvious hypothesis given the correlation.

17 points by pdknsk 12y ago

2014 Ig Nobel Prize Winner (Psychology) > Peter K. Jonason, Amy Jones, and Minna Lyons, for amassing evidence that people who habitually stay up late are, on average, more self-admiring, more manipulative, and more psychopathic than people who habitually arise early in the morning. http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/ http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/

alexanderss 12y ago
"The 2014 Ig Nobel Prizes were physically handed to the winners at a ceremony at Harvard University, by five genuine Nobel Laureates" I'm enjoying the thought of watching them being laughed at in-person at Harvard.
- nraynaud 12y ago
  I don't know if we should really laugh at them, sometimes it's real science, it's just that the context or the subject makes it funny or disgusting. It's also I think a way to release some pressure from the shitty stuff you have to do to get some knowledge.
- electromagnetic 12y ago
  > WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Peter Jonason Sorry only one of them showed up, although it was a multinational group.

BugBrother 12y ago

So people are night owls to abuse the tiredness of the early risers? It sounds a little to pat. What use is it to be manipulative of people that say "Talk about that tomorrow. <Yawn>"?! For instance, what is cause and effect? Many people become night owls when they get disconnected from normal society (studying/working alone for more than a few days). And the Dark Triad people are disconnected from other people emotionally, by definition. (Another question -- is it only Machiavellian people that think sick people should have a right to their own lives and be allowed assisted suicide?! I call that bravely showing mercy, despite having to face horrible facts about the situation? Or is that what Machiavellian people do?) Edit: I am aware of the definition of Machiavellian, 6d0debc071. The example I took up in parentheses was from the article.

6d0debc071 12y ago
> (Another question -- is it only Machiavellian people that think sick people should have a right to their own lives and be allowed assisted suicide?! I call that bravely showing mercy, despite having to face horrible facts about the situation? Or is that what Machiavellian people do?) ----- 'Machiavellianism (MACH) refers to interpersonal strategies that advocate self-interest, deception and manipulation.' http://www.academia.edu/157853/The_dark_triad_and_personality http://www.academia.edu/157853/The_dark_triad_and_personalit...
turingfail 12y ago
I'm also puzzled by the assisted suicide question. I would think being against it as a healthy person might be a sign of greedy self interest, i.e. their right to the sick family member over the needs of the family member. There is also this little gem: Primary psychopathy also had a non-significant trend towards morning chronotype, (b = .16, p < .10) I had to combine it with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Primary_and_secondary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Primary_and_seconda... It sounds like people who have been abused by mainstream society or have awareness and anxiety about potential abuses tend towards nights and avoidance of banking hours as a loss avoidance, and people who feel they can actually exploit others (leadership skills, primary psychopaths, CEOs) like day time hours to seek their social gains. Perhaps they need to look at a society that runs differently to understand the links. For example, Egypt tends toward later hours to avoid daytime heat. Are secondary psychopaths morning people in Egypt and leaders and/or primary psychopaths night time people?

fchollet 12y ago

From the article: "It could be adaptively effective for anyone pursuing a fast life strategy like that embodied in the Dark Triad to occupy and exploit a low-light environment where others are sleeping and have diminished cognitive functioning." It irks me when people, sometimes even scientists, try to map ridiculous evolutionary causality schemes over what is really just correlation. There are over 20,000 genes in the human genome. Thousands of alleles share some statistical pairwise correlation, as a result of evolving within a same population. It would be pointless to seek causality links within every pair of them (tens of millions of pairs). Most of it is random. What these people are saying is conceptually equivalent to "blonde hair and green eyes are correlated! That's likely because green eyes have been selected by evolution among blonde people due to {{bullshit pop science reason}}.". Well, nope. These characteristics just happened to co-evolve within a same population.

BugBrother 12y ago
Scientists aren't idiots. Well, except for evolutionary biologists as described by Gould. :-) It is a hypothesis, to be tested. (I already wrote a comment arguing it is an unlikely hypothesis.) Edit: I might add, evol biologists routinely generate and test if e.g. genetic drift can be involved when they write papers.
- fchollet 12y ago
  > Scientists aren't idiots. You'd be amazed at how little most practicing scientists are versed in rational thinking, statistical rigorousness, and the scientific method. Maybe a lack of proper math and statistics education? I've since long lost count of the neuropsychology and biology papers I've come across that not only presented as fact results that did not really disprove the null hypothesis at all, but even advanced convoluted, ridiculous causal explanation for the (as likely inexistent) correlations they found.
  - BugBrother 12y ago
    You find bad papers in every area. To criticize a paper's hypothesis which the authors explicitly show they didn't get good correlation for (and was surprised by), seems... well, a bit weird. Can you SHOW they are incompetent idiots? [Edit: At least that the paper is garbage, as you write?] You must have gotten that really quick, without reading their references? This is the end of the paper's discussion: "We proposed and tested a relatively new hypothesis to account for the presence of the Dark Triad as indicators of an evolved psychosocial strategy directed towards [...] We have provided a unique test, arguing and showing that those high on the Dark Triad may be characterized by cognitive biases that [..]" I agree that the paper is likely wrong -- but I see no proof the authors are a pack of incompetent f-ckwits, as you describe them as. As I wrote, they put forward a hypothesis and tried to test it.

jaekwon 12y ago

Are there any controls in the study to account for the possibility that staying up late chronically induces those traits of narcissism/psychopathy? Seems like the obvious hypothesis given the correlation.