Weirdo. How misunderstood humans are turned into misfits.

Social development: of hypo- and hypersocial gifted, ASD and ADHD children

Neurotypicality, normality and psychopathology

The evolutionary psychology of attraction and personality types: r/K selected mating
strategies according to subsistence economy

The striking similarities between gifted and autistic children

Normal sucks and why the levels of conformism are still so high

Bipolar Clowns and Borderline Comedians - Explaining the Sad Clown Paradox

Explaining the Imposter Syndrome and the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Understanding Genius - Sensibility, Sleeplessness, Sex, Suicide and Sense of Humour

ADHD, the hunter-gatherer hypothesis and orchid children

Einstein and the hobo or The curious case of the INTP

Preface

I am one of those people who often get the feeling they were born on the wrong planet. I
have always been an oddball (albeit a nice one), never seeming to fit in entirely and what’s
more I have attracted quite a lot of weirdos as friends. My oldest, gifted son has been
considered a weirdo since elementary school. Weirdos are actually often really good
company. ASD people certainly can be. The majority of people are afraid of “different”, they
conform easily to whatever is the norm and regard everyone who is different with suspicion. I
call those people “farmer-minds”, whereas the weirdos are most often people with hunter-
gatherer minds.

The content of this book (and much more) is available for free on my blog The Bigger
Picture. In fact, I have put the post of my blog together to create this themed ebook. A lot of
the core ideas therefore get repeated over and over again. I apologize to the reader.

Social development: of hypo- and hypersocial gifted, ASD and

ADHD children
March 28, 2020

One of the most amazing experiences both for parents and scientists is observing how
children develop. Psychologists will tell you that already from kindergarten on children form
social hierarchies and the kids are aware of who the “alpha pups” are. Some time later, in
elementary school you will find the first cliques that are relatively impermeable to new
members and, in which kids who had previously been friends are suddenly excluded..
It is my hypothesis, however, that some children are not genetically programmed to form in-
groups and social hierarchies and that among these children the majority of gifted, ASD and
ADHD cases can be found. Gifted children notoriously hate authority and have a high sense
of justice. These children are often hypersocial, as they are less likely to have any group
boundaries such as “my team”. These children might have inherited a greater amount of
hunter-gatherer genes as egalitarianism and out-group sociality are typical features of
hunter-gatherer societies. On the other hand, these hunter-gatherer children can also be
extremely hyposocial. The difference is often determined by introversion or extraversion.

Hypersocial kids: extraverted hunter-gatherer children typically want to be friends with

everyone. They call every kid they get to know at the playground their “friends”. When asked
what the name of their new friends is, they are likely not to know it. Frequently, these
hypersocial kids get rejected and are sad, because they don’t understand why everybody
wants to be friends with them They will tell you that they have many friends, but in reality
their number of friends is quite small. Parents of such children are often stressed because
their children want to invite over dozens of children or often invite themselves. Moreover,
they might have low social anxiety and easily start to talk to strangers, which may add to the
parents’ worries.

Hpyosocial kids: introverted hunter-gatherer children. Everyone has seen one of them. The
kid at the playground who is overseeing the other kids closely rather than participating in the
play. They are often extremely shy, completely reluctant to talk to strangers, and often take a
long time to “warm-up”. My oldest son would remain seated in the car for half an hour when
we visited friends - only then he was ready to engage in social activities. What makes kids
behave this way? Depriving themselves of childhood fun, learning possibilities and changes
to make friends? The feeling of being different and not being able to trust everyone. As
others are programmed differently it is hard to rely on them and predict their behaviour.
Hunter-gatherer children like real hunter-gatherers behaving in the presence of farmers:

from : Hunter-Gatherers of the Congo Basin

These two descriptions of African hunter-gatherer tribes (Baka and Aka) and their behaviors
among Bantu farmers might equally well apply to my two sons. At school they are quiet,
withdrawn, avoid eye contact and are serious and fearful. At home, however, they are totally
“normal” kids, however. They are relaxed, fool around and play and laugh a lot.
This transformation between home and public life is amazing and hard to explain. The only
explanation I have is that somehow hunter-gatherer kids try to figure out who is part of their
“tribe” and who isn’t. One common phenomenon seen among autistic children is that they
only allow certain people to be touched or even would not talk to people if they don’t trust
them.
One thing is certain, however, this kind of child non-involved behaviour must have been rare
in our past. I don’t find it surprising that clumsiness is very widespread among children with
ASD, ADHD and gifted children as many do not engage in play that requires dexterity with
other children.
A lot needs to be done in research to find out more. As these hunter-gatherer children are
programmed to be egalitarian they reject authority and might, therefore, fail at school and
develop oppositional defiant disorder. One out of five children with ODD goes on to develop
sociopathy. This can easily happen when the parents or teacher don’t understand the child
and force her to comply, which will only generate more defiance. Our world doesn’t want to
produce sociopaths when many of them would have the potential to become creative and
highly valuable members of society.
Early signs of hunter-gatherer minds in children may be:

● frequent tantrums
● frequently ask why they have to do something and question rules
● are often touchy and easily annoyed, angered or saddened by other people’s
behaviour
● frequent absent-mindedness, daydreaming, living in their own heads
● frequent nightmares and sleep problems
● often melancholic or phlegmatic
● imaginary friends

If the early years are difficult for hunter-gatherer children, the teens may be even worse.
There is considerable variation as to the onset of puberty. It is reasonable to assume that
this variation has at least partially evolutionary origins and I have argued that it depends on
our ancestral mode of subsistence and the expected lifespan related to it:
r/K theory and life history studies would predict the following traits (at least among males):
Shortest lifespan (pastoralist) medium (farmer) Long lifespan (HG)

Most risk-taking/least fearful Least risk-taking/most fearful

Low empathy/low sensitivity High empathy/high sensitivity

Earliest onset of puberty Latest onset of puberty

Least paternal investment Most paternal investment

Most sociosexual Most pair-bonded

Higher sexual dimorphism Lower sexual dimorphism

Most in-group social Most out-group social

As can be seen from this table pastoralist types are typically early bloomers, whereas
hunter-gatherer types are typically late bloomers. This pattern might be broken, i.e. by the
absence of a father, which typically accelerates the onset of puberty.
Here are some typical behavioural patterns:
Early bloomers: tend to neglect school and social norms due to high risk-taking potential,
become status aware and interested in status symbols (branded clothes, motorbikes, etc.)
and show off how cool they are (use of illegal drugs, etc.) tend to form cliques and gangs;
due to high in-group sociality tend to exclude “losers” (i.e. teens not cool enough).
Late bloomers: typically continue their childhood, read comics while their early bloomer
peers already go out, smoke and drink alcohol. As they are cautious and non-risk taking,
they actually might become intimidated and socially withdrawn.

Late bloomers might typically lose their former early-bloomer friends who start to mock them
for not being cool, e.g. wearing the wrong clothes when girls, or being “gay” when male. The
late bloomers are typically out-group social, i.e. they are unlikely to be part of any group or
clique. If the late bloomers are introverts they might end up with no friends at all and become
easy victims for early bloomers, who enjoy displays of status to their peers. Often these
bullies are actually quite intelligent who start to do badly at school due to a lack of interest
and blame the nerds (typically late bloomers) for setting high standards in class.
Even when not being bullied, the hunter-gatherer types might become extremely insecure
and shy due to a feeling of not belonging or being weirdos not understanding mating
behaviour. As late bloomers tend to be more monogamous or at least more choosy, they
easily become disgusted by their peers’ mating behaviour, which often involves frequently
changing partners and might decide to stay out of the “mating-market” (at least for a few
more years).

Hunter-gatherer types are typically less sensitive to gossip and trends, they accentuate their
gender less and are cautious. These traits make them less attractive for teenagers who are
highly sensitive to social rejection and strive to have cool friends. Hunter-gatherer females
often don’t understand why their peers suddenly are so “bitchy and often start to feel more
comfortable around boys. The same is true for hunter-gatherer males who do not necessarily
share their peers’ passion for talking about girls, football and cars.
These developments usually take their toll on hunter-gatherer type self-esteem and
perceived reproductive potential. Being egalitarian other teenagers who are less so are often
perceived as a threat and social anxiety and depression might be a frequent outcome.

Neurotypicality, normality and psychopathology

November 22, 2019

The life-history model of psychopathology (e.g. Del Giudice 2016) postulates that certain
disorders are associated with the fast end or the slow end of life-history strategy. Dark triad
traits (psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) would be more typically found on the
fast end (early puberty) of life history (higher-risk-taking, less empathy). ASD people would
more typically be found on the slow-end of the spectrum (later puberty, and they are typically
the children of parents who started to have children comparatively late themselves, which
has led to the erroneous assumption that ASD is due to accumulated mutations).
In my model of the evolution of life-history hunter-gatherers are on the slow end, early
farmers (who had harder lives) in the middle and pastoralists, who probably had the most
violent lives, on the fast end of the spectrum. The further a person lies outside the band of
"normality" the less neurotypical they are and the risk of mental disorders increases:
Our (western) world is arguably a farmer world, with its 9-5 routine jobs (farmers like to get
up earlier, so 9-5 is actually a compromise with other types) and its focus on productivity and
status. Of course, some aspects are more shifted towards other personality types, e.g.
mainstream media and the tourist industry are often more shifted towards the high dopamine
pastoralists, whereas social values such as life-long learning, tolerance of diversity and
egalitarianism are more shifted towards the hunter-gatherer side of the spectrum.
Non-farmer types often struggle with typical “farmer jobs” (e.g. administrative, office jobs), as
they tend to get bored easily with repetitive jobs. So they have to carve out their own niches;
pastoralists types often become entrepreneurs (their own bosses), artists and performers or
go for jobs farmer types tend to avoid (irregular working-hours), whereas hunter-gatherers
often go for geeky jobs like software developers or university teachers, social jobs, or really
create something unique that suits them.
What is interesting to note, is that the conscientious farmer types are dominated by
serotonin, which makes people more aware of social norms and conform to them as well as
less open towards diversity. Unfortunately for the other two personality types that create a
rather narrow band of “normality”, beyond which people soon become outsiders. To name a
banal example, where I live, most cars are grey, typically expensive, elegant and restricted
to a few popular models. Another example: the almost uniform American suburbs.
My hypothesis is that people outside that narrow band of normality are more prone to mental
disorders for a variety of reasons, ranging from lower-income and lower status to less
acceptable to the point of feeling or becoming outcasts. It is therefore not surprising that
ASD people show high rates of comorbidity with social anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation,
and BDP.

In brief, my hypothesis is that many mental disorders are a problem of evolutionary

mismatch, i.e. evolved traits become dysfunctional in a society for which they were not
programmed. Of course, this might not apply to all mental disorders, like psychopathology,
even though the symptoms might be aggravated through environmental mismatch. In this
case, a mind that is not calibrated to the constant focus serotonin provides.
Some common signs of serotonin deficiency include:
● Depression
● Changes in sleep
● Chronic pain
● Memory or learning issues
● Anxiety
● Schizophrenia
● Problems with the body's internal clock
● Appetite issues.

Serotonin deficiency in the brain also occurs in OCD and ASD patients.
The life-history model also explains similarities between gifted and ASD people, who both
tend to be on the slow end of the spectrum.

This model would also support Ruth Karpinski's "Hyper-brain/hyper-body" hypothesis, which
states that high IQ people (typically on the slow end of the life-history spectrum) would suffer
not only from some of the above mentioned mental disorders (ASD, ADHD, social anxiety)
but also more often from physiological problems such as allergies and asthma. My personal
assumption is that the physiological conditions are caused by heightened stress levels
(cortisol), that arise for hunter-gatherer minds living in a farmer society.

The evolutionary psychology of attraction and personality types:

r/K selected mating strategies according to subsistence
economy
August 20, 2019

Evolutionary psychologists have been pointing out the problems with our monogamous
laws do not correspond to the more promiscuous human nature. The biggest problem,
however, has been explaining the variation in human behavior, as some people are clearly
more monogamous than others.
So, instead of assuming one monolithic human nature it makes more sense to investigate
mating strategies by personality type. Helen Fisher has just done that (quite successfully
IMHO), and found out that there are four personality groups and three preference
strategies: builders (traditional, family-oriented), explorers (freedom-loving) - both of who
prefer to find partners within their respective groups - and directors and negotiators who
prefer to bond with each other. Whereas Helen Fisher thinks that these personality types
have been present more or less equally since early humans arrived on the scene, I think
that their “genotypes” have been predominant in accordance with a particular subsistence
economy.
Hunter-gatherers are usually highly monogamous. Sexual dimorphism (a sign of
promiscuity) is largely diminished among hunter-gatherers, both compared to early human
ancestors and modern societies (e.g exaggeration of secondary sexual features and digit
ratio.

With increasingly longer onset of puberty (K selection), hunter-gatherers needed increased

parental investment, not only maternal but also paternal and from relatives (grandmother
hypothesis) and friends (alloparenting, see Sarah Hrdy). So, monogamy became the
norm, making our ancestors more similar to penguins than our close ape relatives, as far
as mating strategy is concerned.
With the advent of farming and pastoralism status could be acquired with the accumulation
of more material reproductive resources polygamy started to creep in (which might have
been in both male and female interests). As there was less paternal insecurity among
farmers, early farming societies actively tried to discourage polygamy (e.g. code of
Hammurabi), which made pastoralist societies the ones with the highest degree of
polygamy.
The following personality types correspond well with Helen Fisher's types (as well as
Myers-Briggs types):
Farmers prefer the traditional type of family we know from the Romans, with the pater
familias as the head. Hunter-gatherers prefer more “equal partners”.

hunter-gatherers farmers pastoralists

Late-onset of puberty average onset of puberty Early-onset of puberty

Tendency towards Tendency towards Tendency towards

monogamy; increasing monogamy; gets lost with polygamy
status doesn’t change that increasing status
much

Look for: soulmates Look for: helpmate Look for: playmates

Difficulties in finding Mostly still want to get Reluctant to get married

partners and reluctant to married and have children and have children when
have children in a once they have reached there are so many options
competitive society the desired status in modern life

High divorce rates due to Lower divorce rates High divorce rates due to
partner mismatch and/or promiscuous tendencies
prioritizing self-actualization

More egalitarian more status-oriented more status-oriented

Out-group social More In-group social More In-group social

Often dislike routine, playful Love routine, industrious Dislike routine, artful
and imaginative
 From the first row, it can be inferred that the respective mating strategies are r/K selected
and it is therefore not surprising that pastoralists are the least whereas hunter-gatherers
are the most monogamous strategy.

Farmer is the majority personality type and they are also the most adapted to our capitalist
society (love routine and 9-5 jobs, making a career, etc.) and are the group of people who
are most likely to start a family. Farmer women are the most likely to sacrifice a career to
have children.
Pastoralists are freedom-loving and find it hardest to commit. They start early and often
change partners in their teenage cliques. They often do settle down once they have
children, however. Some, like Donald Trump and Hugh Hefner, might never do, though.
Hunter-gather mating strategies can widely vary. They represent the smallest percentage
in society and therefore find it hardest to find a matching partner. Extroverted individuals
may be very promiscuous until they find their soulmate and then become very
monogamous. Introverted hunter-gatherers find it even harder to find a soulmate and
might prefer to stay celibate if they can’t find a partner. In general, hunter-gatherers strive
for a high degree of self-actualization (e.g. becoming a scientist) before settling down.
They tend to be the last ones to have children among their peers. Once hunter-gatherers
have found each other they tend to be very monogamous and not even high status may
come in between (examples: Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates).

When it comes to online-dating, hunter-gatherers are over-represented as it is hardest for

them to find their "soulmates" and online-dating might actually have the advantage of
getting somebody to know on a deeper level than real-life dating. For farmers, it is the
exact opposite, online dating has little to offer to them as far as their prospective mates are
concerned.

The striking similarities between gifted and autistic children

"It seems that for success in science or art, a dash of autism is essential"
Hans Asperger.

I suppose a lot of people who are labelled “weirdos” have at least a mild form of ASD. They
are in good company, there is a huge number of geniuses who are supposed to be on the
spectrum: Isaac Newton, Darwin, Tesla, Warhol and the list goes on and on. Autism is more
common in families of scientists, engineers and Silicon valley programmers than in the rest
of the population.

If hunter-gatherer children are different from farmer children, it should be expected that other
kids share similar developmental trajectories as gifted kids. Right from the moment when my
son started to read around age one I was both delighted and worried. I had read about a
symptom called “hyperlexia”, that is quite common in children with ASD, just as common as
in children who are gifted. The difference, hyperlexia in children with ASD is often
accompanied by learning problems (surprisingly also verbal) whereas hyperlexic kids without
ASD are generally bright.
Darold Treffert distinguishes between three types of hyperlexia:

1. Neurotypical hyperlexia, i.e. gifted or precocious children

2. Hyperlexia in ASD children
3. A mixed type that shows signs of autism and then continues to develop in an NT
way.

Interestingly it looks like type 3 is on the way to developing autism and then takes the
trajectory of type one. I think all three cases are most likely to be found in hunter-gatherer
type children that take different trajectories. Even though a lot of ASD people favour a strong
genetic causality for ASD, I personally favour the hypothesis that all of these trajectories are
more dependant on (perhaps just subtle) differences in the environment.

At the time I tried to get answers to the question if my son was more likely autistic or gifted or
both by even writing to the world-renowned autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen.
However, nobody could really give me an answer. I just had to wait. Fortunately, my son
didn’t show most of the typical struggles of autistic children. He even developed an acute
sense for puns, his favourite type of humour.

That, however, is not the end of the stories. Despite not showing any major disabilities
typical for children with ASD, such as learning disabilities and a supposed lack of empathy,
there were some striking similarities with ASD children, most salient of all his inability to
connect to other children and his “special interests”, which varied from numbers and letters
as a toddler to dinosaurs in kindergarten.

The Davidson Institute, a private foundation serving profoundly gifted children up to the age
of 18, cites observed characteristics common to gifted kids and those with ASD, which
include:

● Verbal fluency or precocity

● Excellent memories
● Fascination with letters or numbers
● Specialized areas of focus or interest
● Hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli
● Memorization of factual information at an early age

All of these traits were true for my son, too. And there were more, as I was able to observe
from an ASD child among my relatives:

● social anxiety
● gets easily frustrated
● sticking to routines and fear of change of environment
● lagging behind in emotional development
● lagging behind in motor development/clumsiness
● neotenous traits, including delayed skeletal development.
● fussiness
 ● picky eater
● being skinny

It turned out that the similarities between the gifted and ASD children did not only include
psychological and behavioural traits but also physical traits, such as looking younger. Both
my sons lag behind their peers in growth and skeletal development. A roentgenologist
confirmed to us that our oldest son had the skeleton of a 10-year-old at age 12 In online
forums I found a lot of high IQ people as well as ASD people (or both simultaneously) who
confirmed my suspicion: they often looked younger than their peer during their
developmental year, even into their twenties. I myself was constantly asked for an ID when
ordering alcohol in a bar in my twenties.

ASD is frequently found in families with high IQ members, e.g. engineers and university
professors. Silicon Valley has one of the highest rates of ASD cases in the world. Geeks and
aspies seem to be relatives.

Another interesting fact about children with ASD is that they tend to have fathers who were
already quite old at the birth of their first child (not necessarily the autistic child). This fact
has spawned the “mutation load” hypothesis of autism, i.e. that autism is due to increased
mutations in older males. This hypothesis, however, is most likely to be nonsense. Often the
mothers of ASD children are also older at birth and what is more significant, genes involved
in ASD are ancient. Many of them might even date back to the time of Neanderthal genetic
admixture 40.000 years ago.

Normal sucks and why the levels of conformism are still so

high

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in
the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You
can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t
do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward,
and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones
who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Most people are familiar with the above quote from a famous Apple advert. Reading
Normal Sucks by Jonathan Mooney and The Power of Different: The Link Between
Disorder and Genius by Gail Saltz I have been reminded how people who don’t fit in
have the power to change the world. People with dyslexia become innovative
entrepreneurs (e.g. Richard Branson), people with ADHD and ASD develop exciting
theories (Einstein) and people with bipolar and schizophrenia create outstanding
works of art (Vincent van Gogh).

On the flip side, the majority of people are actually quite conformist. Of course,
conformism has certain advantages like regulating social life, but more often than
not it serves no other purpose than not being different, like the uniformity of
American suburbs illustrates.

I have argued before that a lot of those misfits and creatives have hunter-gatherer
minds (intuitive types in Myers-Briggs), whereas the majority of people, in particular,
the ones who are conformist have farmer minds (SJ types in Myers-Briggs). Intuitive
types also happen to have the highest rates of gifted and high IQ people. Studies
have shown that it exactly high IQ people tend not to be conformist: Majority Rules:
We Tend To Conform, Unless We Have A High IQ

High IQ people aren’t inherently antisocial or rebels, but they can become rebels when
their values are threatened. Sometimes it is about banal things, like traditional music, for
which high IQ people often have a distaste. Why? High IQ people tend to be freedom-
loving hunter-gatherer types whereas the majority of people are farmer types, who are
more likely to conform, because a high degree of conformism was likely necessary when
early farming started, whereas hunter-gatherer bands consisted more of independent
collaborators.

“[…] when the Spanish began their conquest of South America, one of their earliest
settlements was at the site of modern Buenos Aires. The settlement was a colonial failure
and soon abandoned because the local hunter-gatherers refused to work for the Spanish,
even under extreme duress. When the Spanish ventured farther inland and encountered
agriculturalists in Paraguay, they easily subjugated the local people by conquering and
replacing the aristocracy […]” (from: William von Hippel The Social Leap)

What was the difference between the hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies the
Spanish met? Agricultural societies are hierarchically structured. Conformism is an
absolute must in order to avoid hierarchical conflicts. The Paraguayans agriculturalist,
therefore, didn’t find it too hard to live under Spanish domination (after some initial
resistance). However, the egalitarian hunter-gatherers could never have lived as slaves
for the Spanish.

You will find the same pattern over and over again in history - the Native Americans, the
Aborigines, the Hadza, who were offered land to farm, they don’t easily integrate into
“farmer” societies.

Early farmers, on the other hand, needed both hierarchy and conformism to accomplish
the required levels of productivity. Conformism and status-thinking go hand in hand. It’s
playing keeping up with the Joneses. Interestingly, out of all companies exactly Apple -
who two decades ago used their think different campaign - has become a poster child
for this level of conformism and status-thinking.

Bipolar Clowns and Borderline Comedians - Explaining the Sad

Clown Paradox
It’s been dubbed the “Sad Clown Paradox” - comedians on average show high rates of
depression. Comedians commit suicide (Robin Williams, one of my all-time favourite actors),
attempt suicide (David Walliams, one of my children’s favourite authors, Stephen Fry), die
from drug abuse (John Belushi) or dieExtraversion: high (a bit inconclusive) young (Andy
Kaufman). It whatever way you see it, the lives of comedians are often more troubled,
twisted and shorter than those of the average population.

Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BDP) are common, not only for
the fictional stand-up comedian Arthur Fleck (aka The Joker, 2019), but also for real-life
comedians like David Walliams (BD) and Pete Davidson (BPD).

What about comedians is it that makes them depressed? First of all, comedians are often
outsiders, rarely belong to a group and detest herd mentality. In terms, of the Big 5 inventory
comedians are (source see):

● Openness: high (+ high IQ)

● Conscientiousness: low
● Extraversion: high
● Agreeableness: high (a bit inconclusive)
● Neuroticism: low (Woody Allen is rather an outlier here)

I have argued before that the traits high openness and low conscientiousness are associate
with hunter-gatherer minds as compared to farmer minds who are high on trait
conscientiousness and low on openness (early farmers needed to be able to do tough
routine work from dawn to dusk, whereas hunter-gatherers worked in brief bouts and rested
a lot). Here are some differences between these two personality types:

Hunter-gatherer types farmer types

High on personality trait “openness” high on conscientiousness, routine-loving

ADHD-like, hyperfocus on special interests Constant focus on routine work

Often night owls Larks

Strongly (actively) egalitarian, idealistic Status-seeking, materialistic

Tendency towards out-group sociality, Tendency towards in-group sociality

more accepting of diversity (e.g. different (identifies more strongly with a core group,
sexuality, refugees, etc.) like family, religious group or sports team)

More liberal ideology More conservative ideology

Less sexual dimorphism More (display of) sexual dimorphism

Later onset of puberty Earlier onset of puberty

Tendency to wanting fewer children Tendency to wanting more children

 More playful Work-loving

Less interest in small-talk and gossip Higher interest in small-talk and gossip

Play and laughter are important social-cohesive devices among hunter-gatherers.

Comedians (not unlike gifted children) often were already class clowns in elementary school.
In particular, those, who received little attention from their own parents (cold mothers, absent
fathers ). It is therefore not unlikely that comedians receive positive reinforcement early on
when they feel that humour makes the more accepted. Hunter-gatherers minds are highly
sensitive to social criticism and ostracism.

It is, therefore, this combination of hunter-gatherer personality types and early childhood
adversity that produces the most talented comedians. And the Sad Clown Paradox. Like
David Walliams wrote in his autobiography Camp David, the one thing he craved for most as
a child was his father’s appreciation. Billy Joel tells a story in his song “Leningrad” that has
always deeply touched me. It’s the story of Victor, a boy who lost his father in the battle of
Leningrad. He later became a clown to make sad children happy:

Victor was sent

To some red army town
Served out his time
Become a circus clown
The greatest happiness
He'd ever found
Was making Russian children glad
When children lived in Leningrad.

Of course, it’s not only early childhood adversity that causes depression. It’s having a
hunter-gatherer mind in a farmer society and a life-long feeling of not belonging. Hunter-
gatherer minds have higher stress-reactivity, are more likely to use substances as a coping
strategy and are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety in our world.

Explaining the Imposter Syndrome and the Dunning-Kruger

Effect
March 22, 2020
Imposter Syndrome is a fairly recently discovered and named syndrome (Clance and Imes,
1978), but one thing that has become clear since then is that it is mostly highly intelligent
people who are affected and that imposters don’t suffer from imposter syndrome.
Unfortunately, intelligent people seem to have self-doubt much more often than those who
aren’t. If you have ever experienced it you are in good company: Jodie Foster, Sheryl
Sandberg, Tom Hanks, Emma Watson and Robbie Williams have all experienced it, as well
as a host of academic high achievers.

So, what is it like to suffer from imposter syndrome? I have personally experienced imposter
syndrome when I started winning prizes and awards for digitally created work I did with my
students in high school. The first few times I or my students won an award I was convinced
that we had just been lucky. This is a typical reaction. After all, creative people are among
the first to explore new domains, in my case, there were simply not enough teachers doing
the kind of “experiments” I was doing (creating videos, wikis, and multimedia projects with
my students). There was simply not a lot of competition (true) and therefore I was among the
lucky winners. Except, that wasn’t the whole story. 10 years later and the majority of
teachers still aren’t doing the kind of “experiments” I was doing, even though the tools for
doing so have become progressively more simple to use.

At the time, however, I wasn’t aware of that, of course. I started to have self-doubts and told
myself that these achievements were nothing to pride myself for. I must be running out of
ideas (no, I wasn’t the ideas kept coming) and I finally came to the conclusion I must be a
fraudster. The other teachers weren’t doing the kinds of things I was doing because the kids
were clearly learning less. I was just playing instead of teaching and the other teachers were
aware of that. What I was doing was not even legitimate. It took me some time to understand
that most of the other teachers just weren’t aware of all the possibilities of digital media in
the classroom for the simple reason that they never felt a need or desire to use them.
So, what makes people susceptible to imposter syndrome? The Dunning-Kruger effect can
help explain this phenomenon. These two scientists found out that less competent people
tend to overestimate their skills, whereas more competent tend to underestimate their skills
up to a certain degree when it becomes really hard not to understand that one is far
advanced compared to the majority of people.

The takeaway, people with moderately high intelligence are actually the ones most likely to
underestimate themselves. For imposter syndrome to occur two personality traits must be
present: high openness to new ideas and humility. I have argued before that in human
evolution our ancestral environment:

hunter-gatherer farmer-herder
 High on personality trait “openness”, High on personality trait
(often) low on “conscientiousness” “conscientiousness”, low on “openness”

Strongly (actively) egalitarian, more Status-seeking, less modest

modest

More sensitive to criticism (ostracism) less sensitive to criticism (ostracism)

The table shows that hunter-gatherer minds should be more susceptible to imposter
syndrome than farmer-herder minds. In fact, humility is a highly important trait in hunter-
gatherer societies, ensuring their egalitarian social system. When a successful hunter comes
home with a big prey, he typically downplays the importance of the catch, a practice referred
to as “insulting the meat”. A hunter praising himself or showing off would be punished with
laughter and in the worst-case ostracism. A hunter has more to lose from being ostracised
than a successful farmer or herder. I assume therefore that hunter-gatherers are more
sensitive to criticism and therefore also more prone to self-doubt when their perception is so
different from the majority.

What this doesn’t mean, is that hunter-gatherer personality types can’t overestimate
themselves. They might easily do so, when narcissistic, for example. However, hunter-
gatherer types would typically feel uneasy when they suddenly feel that they are somehow
“above” the others as they are programmed to be more egalitarian and therefore also more
humble.

Understanding Genius - Sensibility, Sleeplessness, Sex,

Suicide and Sense of Humour
March 20, 2020

Many geniuses in history were oddballs and/or outcasts. Geniuses have a variety of traits
and it is not always easy to find a common denominator. However, many researchers will
come up with a similar list of traits like the following:
 ● open to experience
● driven, but not by money or status (idealistic)
● hyposexual or hypersexual
● surprisingly humble
● great sense of humour
● playful
● individualistic/rebellious
● often very reclusive
● sleep less, like to stay up late (and/or get up in the early morning hours)
● less stereotypically male or female
● frequently suffer from mental issues like depression and Aspberger’s
● frequently had difficult childhoods and/or disliked school

This bundle of traits can be explained with a single hypothesis have argued before that
personality types have evolved from our ancestral mode of subsistence:hunting-gathering,
farming and herding. The vast majority of historic geniuses will be found in the hunter-
gatherer group. Early farmers evolved the following genetically determined traits as opposed
to hunter-gatherers:

hunter-gatherer farmer

High on personality trait “openness”, High on personality trait

(often) low on “conscientiousness” “conscientiousness”, low on “openness”

strongly (actively) egalitarian status-seeking

Tendency towards out-group sociality, Tendency towards in-group sociality

more accepting of diversity (e.g. different (identifies more strongly with a core group,
sexuality, refugees, etc.) like family, religious group, country or
sports team)

More liberal ideology More conservative/traditionalist ideology

Less sexual dimorphism More (display of) sexual dimorphism

Monogamous to polyamorous Monogamous to polygynous (with

increasing social status)

More idealistic, interested in ideas more More materialistic (focus on material

than material goods productivity and material status symbols)

Higher physical and/or social sensitivity Lower physical and/or social sensitivity

Night owls Early risers

“Lazier” when it comes to routine work More hard-working and ambitious,

Hyperfocus on relevant/interesting work focus on planning and routine work

highly rebellious when feeling personal status-seeking, but also more conformist
freedom and values are threatened and highly loyal to their core group(s)

Less interest in small-talk and gossip, high Higher interest in small-talk and gossip,
interest in ideas less interest in ideas
Many of the traits in the hunter-gatherer category correspond directly to traits of geniuses.
Early farmers had to become more conscientious, focussed on routine work (often having to
rise at dawn) and hard-working, but they also became more in-group social (doing away with
the sharing/caring hunter-gatherer mentality) and status-seeking as higher material
productivity ensure more offspring. Farming required higher levels of collaboration Sticking
to tradition, social rules and social rank ensured a relatively peaceful collaborative
environment, copying the individuals with higher rank ensured their status.
Hunter-gatherers, on the other hand, never needed to work as hard as early farmers and
thee was less routine work. Being able to hyperfocus during short intervals of hunting and
gathering was much more important that steady focus on routine work. Moreover, hunter-
gatherers needed to keep an open mind (openness also correlates with IQ and creativity) to
changing conditions and environment and maintain childlike playfulness up to adulthood.
Play, laughter and heightened social senses (among the caregiving/female personality
profile) are important social kit. Hunters always have to remain humble to avoid conflict and
a hunter typically downplays the importance of a catch. Hunter-gatherers are also likely to
have sharper, more sensitive physical senses to help them survive in the wilderness as
opposed to a farmer village.

The traits of geniuses that aren’t directly related to hunter-gathers are a result of them living
in a society of a majority of farmer minds. They might find adapting to a farmer world hard
starting from early childhood on, including schooling, which many geniuses found to be a
prison-like experience. Being more sensitive they find it easier to focus at nighttime and
might easily become night owls (or very early birds).

In order to understand the sexuality of geniuses, it is important to know that hunter-gatherers

practice alloparenting, i.e. a lot of individuals help raise the children (it takes a village to raise
children) and that gender differences between hunter-gatherers are less pronounced and
there is no hierarchical relationship between men and women. While some geniuses are
known to have been hypersexual (e.g. Goethe and, Picasso) the majority of geniuses had
rather troubled love lives (e.g. Van Gogh) or even remained virgins and childless (the list
here is very long: Newton, Tesla, Kant, Warhol, Jane Austin, Lewis Caroll, H C Anderson,
etc.). It’s not unlikely that their unfulfilled sexual desires contributed to their creativity. But
why didn’t they find partners? One reason was certainly that there were many fewer potential
partners as the majority of people have been farmer types for the past 7.000 years or so. In
particular female hunter-gatherer, types will find it hard to live in a traditional farmer society,
being “subject to” their husbands and having little support to raise the children. Also notable
is the high percentage of homosexuality among geniuses (Leonardo da Vinci,
Michaelangelo, Oscar Wild, Alan Turing, etc.). Most hunter-gatherer minds are, however,
fairly monogamous, with fathers having high paternal investment in their children. When
asked what his highest achievement was, the famous physicists Freeman Dyson answered
“raising six children”.
The higher incidence of mental disorders among geniuses can be explained by minds not
living in the environment they were programmed for. After all, our world is mostly a farmer
world. The number of geniuses (Ludwig Boltzman, Turing, George Eastman, let alone the
more sensitive artists and poets like van Gogh and Virginia Woolf), who committed suicide
is simply shocking. All this, however, sadly also means that geniuses reproduce less
frequently than neurotypicals.
ADHD, the hunter-gatherer hypothesis and orchid children
The relationship between genius and ADHD is similar to the one between genius and ASD,
with the difference that in ASD it is the more technologically and scientifically minded people
who are affected, whereas there is said to be a connection between ADHD and creativity in
general. Leonardo da Vinci is assumed to have had ADHD

When I came up with my hunter-gatherer vs farmer hypothesis I was researching personality

differences between people (e.g. openness to experience), giftedness, ASD and altruism in
connection with the OXTR gene. No other research at that stage pointed to a hunter-
gatherer origin of these phenomena until I discovered Thom Hartmann’s hunter-gatherer
hypothesis in connection with ADHD. In brief: Hartmann speculated that ADHD might have
benefitted hunter-gatherers in the Savannah due to the hyperfocus it comes with more than
the farmers that came later who required more routine focus on their work. You can imagine
ADHD a bit like a radar that circles around until it hits something interesting and then
hyperfocuses.

ADHD is linked to the DRD4-7R allele, which is associated with novelty seeking. This variant
has a much higher occurrence in nomadic populations (hunter-gatherers and pastoralists)
than among sedentary farmer populations.

Hyperfocus is not only common in ADHD, but also in ASD (special interests) and gifted
children. My gifted son wouldn’t stop learning about a new special interested until there
wasn’t much left to learn about it. He was hyperlexic as a toddler and learned three different
alphabets around two years of age. He was so focused on learning each alphabet that it took
him merely a few days to learn the Russian and Greek alphabets:

My hunter-gatherer hypothesis had come full circle and ADHD was only another piece in the
puzzle. ADHD is often comorbid with

● Oppositional Defiant Disorder

● Depression
● Anxiety
● Hypersensitivity
● Bipolar Disorder
● Conduct Disorder
● Tourette Syndrome
● Sensory Integration Disorder
● Learning Disorder
● Dyslexia
● Early Speech/Communication problems
● Sleep disorders
 ● Eating disorders (and picky eating in childhood)
● Substance abuse
● Addictive behaviours and addiction to digital media

My hunter-gatherer hypothesis had already “predicted” many of these traits as a

consequence of a mind that is programmed to work in a different environment than in a
“farmer world”. Extreme childhood anxiety and depression are hard to understand otherwise,
as the kids often haven’t experienced a trauma that would explain their condition. One
“solution” would say, the kids have a genetic defect, as ADHD, as well as many of the other
conditions, run in families. However, there are no “recent” mutations that would point to
genetic defects, all of the involved genes are ancient genes, part of our hunter-gatherer
heritage.

You often hear stories about six-year-old gifted children who find the world extremely unjust
and they wish they had never been born. Gifted kids are more prone to commit suicide as
teenagers of adults and above all gifted kids are often “orchid children”, i.e. they may turn
into beautiful flowers or just wither away. There is also a high incidence of "twice-
exceptional" gifted kids, i.e. kids who are both gifted and have learning disabilities (typically
ADHD, dyslexia and ASD).

In my work as a teacher, I have found that “hunter-gatherer” kids tend to be among my star
students, as well as being overrepresented in special education. Here is the motley crew of
hunter-gatherer kids in schools:

● The gifted (i.e. excellent grades plus tend to choose difficult college majors after high
school)
● the creative kids (interested in writing, creating videos and animations, etc.)
● Special ed kids (ADHD, ASD, ODD, etc.)
● The outcasts (isolated kids with social anxiety)
● The “weirdos”: Emos, Goths, geeks, and nerds
● Teens with self-harming behaviour (cutting, substance abuse).

All of them non-neurotypical hunter-gatherer minds. Not all of them suffer from ADHD, but
symptoms tend to overlap. If you think of Einstein you can assume that many of them would
have applied to him, like ASD, early speech disorder, dyslexia, ADHD and depression.

ADHD has also some other surprising links. When two of my hunter-gatherer students were
talking about their iron-deficiencies recently, I was reminded that I had the same condition
myself as a kid. A few minutes of googling later I found out that there is a well-known
connection between ADHD and iron deficiency. While this article here claims that iron
deficiency causes ADHD, I think it is more likely that there is simply a correlation. Hunter-
gatherer kids (gifted, ASD) tend to be picky eaters in childhood.
I have to note here, that high risk for ADHD is not restricted to hunter-gatherer types. Thom
Hartman does not make a distinction between “farmer” and “pastoralist” types. A lot of the
cases he discusses as “hunter-gatherer” cases are really “pastoralist” cases. From my
experience as a teacher, the “impulsive” types tend to be “pastoralist” types, whereas the
inattentive and mixed ADHD types are most certainly hunter-gatherer type children.

Einstein and the hobo or The curious case of the INTP

December 27, 2019
What do the Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Einstein, Edward Snowden,
Stephen King and Mona Lisa have in common? They are all male and INTP. INTPs are the
most fabled of the 16 types of the Myers-Briggs type indicator. They are the heroes of the
science and tech world. They can come in the form of famous comedians like Louis de
Funès, or an actress like Maryl Streep, and whenever you meet a hobo, chances are high it
is an INTP.
In whatever form they come, they are easy to spot. They all have long rectangular heads,
like a shoebox (a true INTP won’t take offence here), often accompanied by long noses and
big ears.

Hobo (stock photo)

In fact, whenever someone on the web refers to themselves as “Mr Cowhead”, I am pretty
sure that there is an INTP person behind this nickname.
So, why do INTPs have those elongated heads, whereas most people have round or oval
heads? I have noticed that modern hunter-gatherers also tend to have elongated heads.

San hunter (South Africa)

This is one of the reasons why I prefer to think of INTPs as hunter-gatherer minds. The MBTI
is considered not scientific, but INTPs are easily spotted by their Big 5, or OCEAN profile,
which looks something like this:
Openness 0.8
Conscientiousness 0.1
Agreeableness 0.1
Extraversion 0.3

Neuroticism: varying, but high more often than low

Now, who in their right mind would hire a person so low in conscientiousness? What the Big
5 doesn’t capture: people who are low in conscientiousness (or serotonin) are extremely
high in creativity and have a high exploration drive. Here is a table from a recent database
that describes typical jobs for INTPs:

here is the link to the database: behavioral-ds/VocationMap

It is interesting to note that many employers would probably avoid employing people with
such a low conscientiousness level as INTPs have. And this is definitely one shortcoming of
the OCEAN model, low levels are usually considered negative traits (at least true for low
conscientiousness, emotional stability, agreeability). The MBTI on the other hand, also
highlights the positive sides of the P (perceiving) trait, i.e. flexibility and versatility. Paired
with big-picture thinking these are great qualities in software developers.
Why doesn’t everybody employ INTPs then? INTPs are low in agreeableness, but not
because they are selfish and nasty people (on the contrary, they can be very altruistic), it’s
because they have difficulties understanding social conventions. Social conventions like
excessive politeness are really inventions of early farmers, INTPs have inherited hunter-
gatherer minds. Having low-serotonin (low conscientiousness) INTPs also have extreme
difficulties getting through a 9-5 routine job. As INTPs are non-materialistic and non-status
seeking many of them would rather opt for a job like running a comic book store than a well-
paying office job.
Google is a great hunter-gatherer workplace. Even though INTPs only make up about 3% of
the population, they make up an estimated 30% of the highly skilled workforce at Google.
Google provides ample possibilities for hunter-gatherer types to de-stress and develop their
creativity with fringe benefits such as floating working hours, lots of possibilities to relax or
exercise during the workday, 20% creativity time plus plenty of free healthy foods.
What did INTPs do before Google? Well, they were philosophers and scientists, few other
types have their drive and cognitive skills to seek the meaning of life and the deep truth
behind the obvious. But mostly they struggled in keeping up with life in a farmer society.
Even though INTPs have the highest rates of gifted people
They are one of the types with the lowes income:

In the past they probably often became crazy and the village idiot:

If male INTPs have if rough in this world, female INTPs are even worse off. They are turned
off by macho behaviour and are absolutely clueless when it comes to dating conventions.
They are the type that least corresponds to social norms of “femaleness”. In the past, they
might have been easily burned as witches, living outside social conventions and knowing
stuff nobody else knew.

This, in brief, is the curious case of the INTP. It is a sad story because INTPs are good
people. They have highly egalitarian, altruistic (if they can afford to be), idealistic beautiful
hunter-gatherer minds.

In memory of my grandfather Heinrich and my uncle Erwin, two INTPs who struggled with
alcohol addiction

Read more about hunter-gatherer minds in my book: The hunter-gatherer neurotribe: gifted,
geeks, aspies and other aliens in this world