The Psychology of Dictators:

Power, Fear, and Anxiety

Mao Zedong addresses a group of workers. He survived assassination attempts which may have
given rise to anxiety and paranoia.
PUBLISHED: 08/01/2016
54 LIKES

Seth Davin Norrholm, Ph.D.

from Emory University

Samuel Hunley, M.A.

from Emory University

They see themselves as "very special" people, deserving of admiration

and, consequently, have difficulty empathizing with the feelings and needs
of others Not only do dictators commonly show a "pervasive pattern of
grandiosity," they also tend to behave with a vindictiveness often observed
in narcissistic personality disorder.

Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong (or Tse-tung), Josef Stalin, Pol Pot names such as these haunt our
cultural imaginations. These men were, by all available accounts, totalitarian dictators, who sought to
maintain complete control over their respective governments and populations through radical
methods, including the systematic murder and imprisonment of all who stood against them 1-4. In
some cases, the terror they wielded helped them maintain power for years and emblazoned their
names into our history books forever. Each of the names listed above is responsible for more than a
million deaths, and even those citizens who were fortunate to have survived their reign lived in
persistent fear of death, forced labor, or torture.

Dictatorial leaders such as these represent the extreme potential of the human capacity for evil, and
yet, despite their apparent omnipotence within their individual spheres of power, these individuals
also tended to suffer from excessive anxiety mostly regarding paranoid fears of citizen uprising
and/or assassination. For example:
o

Saddam Hussein displayed a level of paranoia so great that he had multiple meals
prepared for him across the Iraqi land each day to ensure that no one knew where he
was eating. He even went as far as to employ surgically altered body doubles 5.

Kim Jong-il, the former leader of North Korea and the father of current leader Kim
Jong-un, exhibited such an excessive fear of assassination while flying that he
exclusively traveled via an armor-plated train6, including when he traveled as far as
Moscow7.

Than Shwe, a Burmese dictator, was so concerned about the tenuous nature of his
rule that he once moved the capital of Burma to a remote location in the jungle
without running water or electricity; an extreme tactic that was spurred on by the
advice of his personal astrologer8.

Power and Fear

In each of these dictatorial examples, men who sought to rule with an iron fist appeared to also
behave in a manner driven by a hidden, extreme, and sometimes irrational fear of what fate might
befall them.
This behavior does not seem to align with what we know of dictators. Not only do such individuals
wield far-reaching, real-world power, a large number of these individuals also maintained a cultural
and political environment that fed grand delusions regarding their self-importance. For instance,
Saddam Hussein thought of himself as the savior of the Iraqi people5. Muammar Gaddafi once had
himself crowned the "King of Kings" of Africa9, and the North Korean Kim line of succession
proclaimed themselves to be almost god-like10. Why would individuals who are so confident in their
power have such severe anxiety?
One explanation is that many of these individuals were actually under constant threat of
assassination. For instance, a former bodyguard to Fidel Castro said that he was aware of 638

separate attempts made on the leader's life, some of which were orchestrated by the CIA 8. Mao
Zedong survived an assassination attempt, plotted by high ranking officers within his own military 11,
and Saddam Hussein's own sons-in-law once attempted to kill his eldest son 5. With such real and
present threats, even from trusted allies, some sense of paranoia might be warranted.
Given the extremity of many dictators' fears, though, further explanation is warranted. An additional
explanation of their behavioral patterns might be rooted in their individual personalities. Colloquially
speaking, people often use "personality" as a synonym of how interesting a person appears to be in
the eyes of onlookers, both within and from outside their respective sphere of influence. For
instance, we might say that a loud comedian has "a lot of personality," whereas we might describe
someone we view as boring and quiet as "lacking personality12." In the psychological literature,
though, personality is defined as the "enduring patterns of thinking and behavior that define the
person and distinguish him or her from other people13." In other words, your personality is what
makes you distinct from those around you. In studying personality, psychologists can examine
common traits across people and note how these traits may interact to predict behavior. In so doing,
researchers can develop a better understanding of why people behave the way they do over the
course of many years.

Narcissism Is A Consistent Trait

With regard to dictators, one particular trait that consistently stands out as relevant is narcissism.
Narcissistic individuals have a "greatly exaggerated sense of their own importance" and are
"preoccupied with their own achievements and abilities13." They see themselves as "very special"
people, deserving of admiration and, consequently, have difficulty empathizing with the feelings and
needs of others.
When narcissism becomes extreme to the point that it:
o

interferes with daily life

appears to be unusual as compared to others within a society, or

permeates multiple areas of an individual's life

that individual may be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, which is defined by a:

"pervasive pattern of grandiosity"

"need for admiration" and

"lack of empathy14."

These individuals are "preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success" and "power." They believe
they are unique and can only be associated with others of equally high status. Furthermore, they
require excessive admiration to remain happy, possess an extreme sense of entitlement, exploit
others, and are often envious of others.

Vindictiveness Is Common
Descriptions of narcissistic personality disorder seem reminiscent of what we know of dictators. Not
only do dictators commonly show a "pervasive pattern of grandiosity," they also tend to behave with
a vindictiveness often observed in narcissistic personality disorder. For instance, in now famous
psychological experiments, researchers found that highly narcissistic individuals were more likely to
try to punish those individuals who negatively evaluated their work, even when the narcissistic
person believed they were administering painful electric shocks 15-16. More recent work shows that,
after a negative evaluation, narcissistic people will demonstrate greater aggression even to
individuals unrelated to the feedback17. Such experiments can help us understand the aggressive
behavior of dictators, who are known to lash out against negative evaluations 18.
Surprisingly, narcissism could also help explain the anxious behavior displayed by dictators.
Researchers have identified two forms of narcissism: grandiose narcissism and vulnerable
narcissism19. Though grandiose narcissism is associated with all that you might expect from a
narcissist (e.g., grandiosity and aggression), vulnerable narcissism is associated with an "insecure
grandiosity," which seems to produce intense defensiveness and feelings of inadequacy 20. Such
individuals are often described as being "worrying, emotional, defensive, anxious, bitter, tense, and
complaining19".
These components can be so extreme that narcissistic personality disorder can be misdiagnosed as
borderline personality disorder, which is associated with high levels of anxiety 14. The intensity of the
emotional experiences produced by narcissism in combination with actual dangers could produce

remarkable levels of anxiety, worry, and uncertainty to the point that one might actually consider
moving their entire capital to the middle of a jungle based on the advice of an astrologer 8.

Predicting Future Dictators

Given that the majority of dictators seem to be incredibly narcissistic, could we possibly use that fact
to predict individuals who are likely to become dictators? That is, if we know the prominent people in
an unstable country, could we predict which of those people are likely to try force their way into
power and try to stop them? This question is difficult to answer. First, not all dictators come to power
in a similar manner or under similar circumstances. For example, Hitler came to power after an
intense propaganda campaign and copious amounts of intimidation and violence on the part of the
Nazi Party21. Mao Zedong became dictator after serving as a successful military leader throughout a
long civil war22. Saddam Hussein climbed his way through the Iraqi political system for years until he
was able to strong arm his way into power23. Finally, Kim Jong-un, who by available accounts, was
raised in an extremely privileged, "Western" childhood24 also went on to exhibit the traits of a dictator.
Moreover, researchers remain uncertain as to why narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic
behaviors emerge. We know that the majority of individuals diagnosed with the disorder are male 14,
and researchers speculate that certain genetic factors and parenting styles may increase the chance
that someone develops the disorder. However, further research is necessary to understand whether
these factors cause narcissistic personality disorder.
Combined, these factors make it incredibly difficult to predict which leaders will embody dictatorial
tendencies. We simply do not fully understand the contributions of cultural, environmental, or political
influences that facilitate the rise of a dictator. However, that does not mean that research into these
issues is a fruitless endeavor. By better understanding the sociopolitical contexts that allow dictators
to attain and maintain power and further investigating the role of personality, we may one day be
able to proactively identify and attenuate dictatorial leadership prior to the emergence of their often
horrific actions. In so doing, there would be the potential to save countless lives and stem the tide of
years of oppression in many countries.
Date of original publication: August 01, 2016