The Molecule of More

P
stands for: 
Psychoticism
. High 
P
scores are a risk factor for the development of 
schizophrenia. That doesn’t mean that all liberals are at risk for becoming psychotic, 
but many of them share things in common with highly creative people, who some-
times do tip into the realm of psychosis.

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THE MOLECULE OF MORE
really tend to support liberal policies? It seems that the answer is yes. 
Liberals often refer to themselves as progressives, a term that implies con-
stant improvement. Progressives embrace change. They imagine a bet-
ter future and in some cases even believe that the right combination of
technology and public policy can eliminate fundamental problems of
the human condition such as poverty, ignorance, and war. Progressives 
are idealists who use dopamine to imagine a world far better than the 
one we live in today. Progressivism is an arrow pointing forward.
The word conservative, on the other hand, implies maintaining the 
best of what we have inherited from those who came before us. Con-
servatives are often suspicious of change. They don’t like experts who 
try to advance civilization by telling them what to do, even when it’s in 
their own best interest; for example, laws that require motorcyclists to 
wear helmets, or regulations that promote healthy eating. Conservatives 
distrust the idealism of progressives, criticizing it as an impossible effort 
to build a perfect utopia; an effort that is more likely to lead to totali-
tarianism in which the elite dominate all aspects of public and private 
life. In contrast to the arrow of progressivism, conservatism is better 
represented by a circle.
Matt Bai, former chief political correspondent for the New York Times 
Magazine, inadvertently recognized the dopamine difference between 
left and right when he wrote, “Democrats win when they embody mod-
ernization. Liberalism triumphs only when it represents a reforming 
of government, rather than the mere preservation of it . . . Americans 
don’t need Democrats to stand up for nostalgia and restoration. They 
already have Republicans for that.”
The connection between dopamine and liberalism is further 
demonstrated by looking at specific groups of people. Dopaminergic 
people tend to be creative. They also work well with abstract con-
cepts. They like to pursue novelty and have a general dissatisfaction 
with the status quo. Is there any evidence that this type of person is 
likely to be politically liberal? Silicon Valley start-up companies attract 
exactly this type of person: creative, idealistic, skilled in abstract 
fields such as engineering, mathematics, and design. They are rebels, 
driven to pursue change, even at the risk of going broke. Silicon Valley 

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POLITICS
entrepreneurs, and the people who work for them, tend to be quite 
dopaminergic. They are tough-minded, risk-taking, sensation-seeking, 
and practical—personality features associated with liberals in the cor-
rected version of the American Journal of Political Science article.
What do we know about the politics of Silicon Valley? A survey of
startup founders revealed that 83 percent held the progressive view that 
education can solve all or most of the problems in society. Among the 
general public, only 44 percent believe this is true. Startup founders 
were more likely than the general public to believe that government 
should encourage smart personal decisions. Eighty percent of them 
believed that almost all change is good over the long run. And in the 
2012 presidential election, over 80 percent of employee donations from 
top tech firms went to Barack Obama.
FROM HOLLYWOOD TO HARVARD
Another example of the link between dopamine and liberalism can 
be found in the entertainment industry. Hollywood is the mecca of
American creativity, as well as the model of dopaminergic excess. Our 
highest-profile celebrities feverishly pursue more: more money, more 
drugs, more sex, and whatever happens to be the latest fashion. They’re 
easily bored. According to a study done by the Marriage Foundation, 
a U.K. think tank, the divorce rate among celebrities is almost twice 
that of the general population. It’s even worse during the first year of
marriage when couples must make the transition from passionate to 
companionate love. Newly married celebrities are almost six times as 
likely to divorce compared to ordinary people.
Many of the problems actors face are dopaminergic in nature. A 
2016 study of Australian actors found that despite “feelings of personal 
growth and a sense of purpose in the actors’ work,” they were highly 
vulnerable to mental illness. The actors identified a number of key 
issues including “problems with autonomy, lack of environmental mas-
tery, complex interpersonal relationships and high self-criticism.” These 
are challenges that would be most difficult for highly dopaminergic 

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individuals, who need to feel in control of their environment and often 
have difficulty navigating complex human relationships.
As for politics, liberal views dominate Hollywood. According to 
CNN, celebrities donated $800,000 to President Barack Obama’s reelec-
tion campaign, compared to just $76,000 to Republican challenger 
Mitt Romney. The Center for Responsive Politics, which publishes the 
website Opensecrets.org, reported that during this same election cycle, 
people who worked for the seven major media corporations donated six 
times as much to Democrats as they did to Republicans.
Next on the list is academia. Academia is a temple of dopamine. 
Academics are described as living in an ivory tower (as opposed to an 
earthen hut, for example). They devote their lives to the immaterial, 
abstract world of ideas. And they are very liberal. You’re more likely 
to find a communist than a conservative in academia. A New York Times 
opinion piece noted that only 2 percent of English professors were 
Republicans, while 18 percent of social scientists identified themselves 
as Marxist.
The enforcement of liberal orthodoxy is more widespread on uni-
versity campuses than in any other setting. Comedian Chris Rock told 
a reporter for The Atlantic that he won’t perform on college campuses 
because the audience is too easily offended by speech that runs counter 
to liberal ideology. Jerry Seinfeld also said in a radio interview that 
other comedians had told him not to go near colleges. “They’re so PC,” 
he was warned.
ARE LIBERALS SMARTER?
A career in academia is generally a sign of superior intelligence, but does 
superior intelligence extend to liberals in general, to people more likely 
to have highly active dopamine systems? It probably does. Testing the 
ability to manipulate abstract ideas, courtesy of the dopamine control 
circuit, is a fundamental part of how psychologists measure intelligence.
To explore the question of the relative intelligence of liberals and 
conservatives, Satoshi Kanazawa, a scientist at the London School of

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Economics and Political Science, evaluated a group of men and women 
who had taken IQ tests back when they were in high school. The scores 
were averaged by political ideology, and a remarkably clear trend 
emerged. Adults who described themselves as very liberal had higher 
intelligence scores compared to those who described themselves as 
simply liberal. The liberals had higher scores than those who described 
themselves as middle of the road, and the progression held steady all the 
way down to those who described themselves as very conservative. With a 
score of 100 representing the average, very liberal adults had an IQ of
106 and very conservative ones had an IQ of 95.
A smaller but similar trend was seen with regard to religiosity. 
Atheists had an IQ of 103, whereas those who described themselves as 
very religious averaged 97. It’s important to emphasize that these are 
averages. Within the larger groups there are brilliant conservatives and 
not-so-brilliant liberals. Furthermore, the overall differences are small. 
The “Normal” range is 90 to 109. “Superior intelligence” starts at 110 
and “Genius” at 140.
Mental flexibility—the ability to change one’s behavior in response 
to changing circumstances—is also an ingredient in how we measure 
intelligence. To evaluate mental flexibility, researchers at New York 
University set up an experiment in which they asked test participants to 
press a button when they saw the letter W and to refrain from pressing 
when they saw the letter M. The participants had to think fast. When 
the letter was displayed, they had only half a second to decide whether 
or not to press the button. To make things even harder, the researchers 
sometimes switched up the rule: press on M, refrain on W.
Conservatives had more difficulty than liberals, particularly when a 
series of press signals was followed by a refrain signal. When the signal 
for change came, they had trouble adjusting their behavior. 
To get a better understanding of what was going on, the scientists 
attached electrodes to the participants’ heads so they could measure 
brain activity during the test. There wasn’t much difference between 
liberals and conservatives when the press symbol was displayed. But 
when the no-press signal came up, and the participants had half a sec-
ond to make a decision, the liberals instantly fired up a part of their 

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brain responsible for error detection (involving anticipation, attention, 
and motivation) in a way the conservatives did not. When circumstances 
change, liberals do a better job of rapidly activating neural circuits and 
adjusting their responses to meet the new challenge.
WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE? 
Intelligence has been defined in many different ways. Most 
experts agree that an IQ test is not a measure of general 
intelligence. It more specifically measures the ability to make 
generalizations from incomplete data and to figure out new 
information using abstract rules. Another way of saying it 
is that an IQ test measures a person’s ability to build imagi-
nary models based on past experiences, and then use those 
models to predict what will happen in the future. Control 
dopamine plays a large role.
However, there are other ways to define intelligence, 
such as the ability to make good day-to-day decisions. For 
this type of mental activity emotions (H&N) are essential. 
Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist at the University of 
Southern California and the author of