Power addiction and Dopamine
The human Central Nervous System (CNS), our brain and spinal chord, uses a reward system or feedback system that influences future choices we, our CNS, make in our respective journeys through life. We follow the dopamine reward pathway mindlessly. It is a very powerful catalyst in converting thoughts into action. It converts intangible thought energy into tangible conformational change in the real world.
Dopamine feels good and is influential in our thoughts.
The half-life of Dopamine is 2 minutes.
What a human needs to thrive is just the right amount of the right thing at just the right time, including dopamine.
I recognise the dopamine system as a high quality high precision tool used by the human CNS to reward the very same CNS for success in planning. Brilliant system for learning and retaining knowledge of helpful patterns. We can learn unhelpful patterns just as easily, if we don't check information is correct we can be easily mislead.
The neurochemistry of power refers to the way that the brain processes and responds to experiences of power and social hierarchies. Research has shown that the neurotransmitter dopamine is closely linked to the experience of power and social status.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is associated with reward, motivation, and the experience of pleasure. When an individual experiences an increase in power or social status, the brain releases dopamine, which can lead to feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. This release of dopamine can also lead to a desire for more power and social status, creating a feedback loop that reinforces the desire for power.
Additionally, research has shown that people with higher levels of dopamine receptors in the brain tend to be more successful in achieving and maintaining power. Furthermore, studies have shown that people in positions of power tend to have higher levels of dopamine in the brain, and that the experience of power can lead to changes in the brain's dopamine system.
However, it is important to note that the relationship between power, dopamine, and behaviour is complex, and the effects of dopamine on power can vary depending on the individual and the specific context. Additionally, the effects of dopamine on power and social status can be both positive and negative. For example, while some research has suggested that dopamine release can lead to better decision-making, other studies have suggested that dopamine can lead to impulsive behaviour and poor decision-making, specifically in those who are in positions of power.
The Neurochemistry of Power: Implications for Political Change By Nayef Al-Rodhan
Power, especially absolute and unchecked power, is intoxicating. Its effects occur at the cellular and neurochemical level.
They are manifested behaviourally in a variety of ways, ranging from heightened cognitive functions to lack of inhibition, poor judgment, extreme narcissism, perverted behaviour, and gruesome cruelty.
The primary neurochemical involved in the reward of power that is known today is dopamine, the same chemical transmitter responsible for producing a sense of pleasure. Power activates the very same reward circuitry in the brain and creates an addictive ‘high’ in much the same way as drug addiction. Like addicts, most people in positions of power will seek to maintain the high they get from power, sometimes at all costs. When withheld, power – like any highly addictive agent – produces cravings at the cellular level that generate strong behavioural opposition to giving it up. In accountable societies, checks and balances exist to avoid the inevitable consequences of power. Yet, in cases where leaders possess absolute and unchecked power, changes in leadership and transitions to more consensus-based rule are unlikely to be smooth. Gradual withdrawal of absolute power is the only way to ensure that someone will be able to accept relinquishing it.
Dopamine and Addiction, human beings are characterized by “emotional amoral egoism”. Humans are emotionally driven and (for most of us, most of the time), our moral compass is malleable and heavily influenced by circumstances, survival value, and our perceived “emotional self-interest”. Emotions, however, are not immaterial: they are neurochemically-mediated and physical insofar as they have neurochemical correspondents.
Dopamine is responsible for producing a sense of pleasure and helps us to retain information and engage in reward-driven learning. It is released in certain parts of the brain by rewarding experiences, such as achievement, food consumption, and other pleasures of life. However it is also produced in behaviours that may be unhealthy and life-threatening, such as substance abuse or gambling. Either way, dopamine release is what makes people want to re-engage in these activities.
Dopamine activates a reward system that has been essential to our survival as a species, encouraging us to re-engage in behaviour that is essential for life. Even the expectation of a reward is believed to function in a similar way to reward itself. Yet, just as healthy behaviour is repeatedly induced by our reward systems, so too is unhealthy behaviour. Drugs, such as cocaine, nicotine and amphetamines, also lead to an increase of dopamine in the reward system of the brain. Addiction is an extreme form of behaviour that employs existing neuronal networks that produce manic behaviour, manifested as elation, increased cognition and grandiose self-perceptions. Hitler, Stalin and Napoleon, for example, all appeared incapable of empathy and of comprehending the value of human life, condemning thousands to death in suicidal military campaigns. Yet, it is likely that power itself (rather than any specific behavioural aberration), may have been responsible for exaggerating certain behavioural traits that each individual exhibited. Dopamine and Power The brain is neurochemically pre-programmed to seek pleasure, regardless of its social acceptability or how it is derived. We are therefore, all addicts, of one sort or another, to the extent that we are all engaged in pursuits that ensure dopamine and other neurochemicals flow. As such, we all avoid doing things that would result in dopamine withdrawal. In a similar way to drug addicts and alcoholics, people find it hard to admit that they are addicts of acceptance/esteem/power because of dopamine withdrawals that would result in doing so. Moreover, stopping addictive behaviour that is harmful to self or others is not simply a question of will power. Much like addictive drugs, power uses these ready-made reward circuitries, producing extreme pleasure. In moderate amounts, dopamine can enhance dimensions of cognitive function, but may also make people impulsive, less risk-averse and less empathetic. High levels of dopamine are associated with a sense of personal destiny, risk-taking, preoccupation with the cosmic or religion, and emotional detachment that can lead to ruthlessness, and an obsession with achieving goals and conquests. Absolute power can also lead people to believe that a spiritual force is guiding them even within established democracies. For example, former US President George Bush told people that God wanted him to wage war against Iraq and his ally in the Iraq War, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is also thought to have believed that God wanted him to take the country into war to combat evil. The certainty that such leaders seem to possess is a symptom of extremely high levels of dopamine. Not only are powerful individuals likely to be egocentric, but also paranoid. The latter may be a consequence of self-deception in the face of conflicting advice from close associates. Neuro-politics and Political Change The neurochemistry of power has implications for politics and for political change. Since power activates our neuronal reward systems in the brain and, as such, is addictive, people in positions of unchecked power are likely to lack the self-awareness required to act with restraint or to seek a consensual form of decision making. Dictators are, therefore, more likely to appear in situations where checks and balances are not present or consolidated. Brutality and a lack of regard for citizens of countries governed by leaders with absolute power will tend to be the rule, regardless of the psychological state of the ruler. Since sudden withdrawal of power, like the abrupt withdrawal from drugs, produces uncontrollable cravings, those who possess power, especially absolute power, are highly unlikely to give it up willingly, smoothly and without human and material loss. It is important to remember that power, like all human emotions, is neurochemically mediated and that unchecked power can create irrational, addicted and destructive impulses.
Nayef Al-Rodhan is a philosopher, neuroscientist and geostrategist. He is a Senior Member of St Antony`s College, University of Oxford, and Senior Fellow and Director of the Centre for the Geopolitics of Globalization and Transnational Security at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. Author of The Politics of Emerging Strategic Technologies: Implications for Geopolitics, Human Enhancement and Human Destiny (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
