The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity―and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race

by Daniel Z. Lieberman

But there’s a downside. Sometimes having lots of dopamine is a liability. High levels of dopamine suppress H&N functioning, so brilliant people are often poor at human relationships.

We need H&N empathy

to understand what’s going on in other people’s minds, an essential skill for social interaction. The scientist you meet at the cocktail party won’t shut up about his re...

In a similar vein, Albert Einstein once said, “My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings.” And “I love Humanity but I hate humans.” The abstract concepts of social justice and humanity cam...

Understanding how the brains of geniuses work provides further insight into the dopaminergic personality, and the different ways it can manifest itself. We’ve already seen the impulsive pleasure-seeker who has difficulty maintaining long-term relationships and is vulnerable to addiction. We’ve also seen the detached planner who would rather stay late at the office than enjoy time with friends. Now we see a third possibility: the creative genius—whether painter, poet, or physicist—who has so much trouble with human relationships that he may appear to be slightly autistic.

In addition, the dopaminergic genius is so focused on his internal world of ideas that he wears different-color socks, forgets to comb his

hair, and generally neglects anything having to do with the real world of the here and now. Plato wrote about an incident in which Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, stood glued to one spot for an entire day and night, thinking abou...

These three personality types appear to be very different on the surface, but they all have something in common. They’re overly focused on maximizing future resources at the expense of appreciating the here and now. The pleasure seeker always wants more. No matter how much he gets, it’s never enough. No matter how much he looks forward to some promised pleasure, he is in...

The detached planner also has a future/present imbalance. Like the pleasure seeker he also has a constant need for more, but he takes a long-term view, c...