In researching the corruptive effect of power I read “Was Saddam Hussein Like Adolf Hitler?” The article was basically a report on the results of personality disorder tests that were done on both Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler. I thought a comparison of both of these men would provide some interesting information and some useful arguments for my ARP. I’m sure it will not come as much of a surprise to most people, but this article showed both Hussein and Hitler scored very high in many of the categories of personality disorders. However, the sadistic, antisocial, paranoid and narcissistic categories for both men were exceedingly high, and both had very high scores in most of the tested realms of personality disorders (sadistic, paranoid, antisocial, narcissistic, schizoid, schizotypal, obsessive-compulsive, dependent, depressive, self-defeating, borderline, passive-aggressive, histrionic, avoidant). Hussein’s sadistic features were more profound that Hitler’s, and the research provided that Hussein might have been a paranoid schizophrenic.
This article provided me with some very useful information about Hitler and Hussein, as well as, gave me some personalitiy disorders to look for in other tyrannical or unjust rulers. From this article I can assuming that most power-hungry people or people that misuse power will also have some sort of personality disorder.
Coolidge, Frederick L., and Daniel L. Segal. "Was Saddam Hussein Like Adolf Hitler? A Personality Disorder Investigation." Military Psychology 19.4 (2007): 289-299. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 7 Apr. 2011.
Given how people with such disorders often have trouble interacting with people, I would find it very interesting to see if these traits helped them into power, or if they managed to get into power despite these traits.
ReplyDeleteThat would be an interesting thing to find out. I know from psychology class that most cult leaders, like Charles Manson, had personality disorders and sometimes those personality disorders make them more charismatic.
ReplyDeletehaving personality disorders could explain why they might have done some of the crazy messed up stuff they both did.
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