The Continuum of Conscientiousness: The Antagonistic Interests among Obsessive and Antisocial Personalities

Abstract

The five factor trait of conscientiousness is a supertrait, denoting on one hand a pattern of excessive labor, rigidity, orderliness and compulsivity, and on the other hand a pattern of strict rectitude, scrupulosity, dutifulness and morality. In both respects the obsessive-compulsive personality is conscientious; indeed, it has been labeled a disorder of extreme conscientiousness (Widiger et al., 2009). Antisocial personality disorder, in the present paper, is described as occupying the opposite end of the conscientiousness continuum. The antisocial is impulsive rather than compulsive, illicit rather than licit, and furtive rather than forthright.After clinically comparing the obsessive and antisocial personalities, the present paper invokes evolutionary theory to explain their resultant behavioral, ideological, political and demographic differences

The Evolutionary Logic of the Obsessive Trait Complex: Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder as a Complementary Behavioral Syndrome

“…Mealey's (1995) antisocial, then, is a coherent behavioral package in that multiple traits strategically covary in service of a particular adaptive end. Though antisocial and obsessive strategies are in almost every respect opposite (Hertler, 2014b), both might have been shaped into coherent behavioral packages by evolutionary pressures (Hertler, 2014b). Just as the antisocial combined restricted anxiety, empathy and guilt with high sensation seeking, impulsivity and roving behavior to exploit honest population members, so the obsessive combined anxious tension, future oriented thought and conscientiousness with low sensation seeking, compulsivity and routinized behavior to cope with predictably harsh seasonality.…”

“…It was alternatively suggested that an evolutionary model could most parsimoniously explain the existence of obsessive personality and its perpetuation from one generation to the next (Hertler, 2014a). Subsequently, such an evolutionary model was briefly sketched (Hertler, 2014b) and thereafter treated at length (Hertler, 2015a). In this latter work, obsessive character was described as a non-conditional, heritable behavioral complex, evolving during the Upper Paleolithic and Early Neolithic in response to changing selective pressures that came of northerly migration out of Africa.…”

“…In a real sense, however, conscientiousness is a supertrait (Dumont, 2010;Hertler, 2014b) having two poles, only one of which relates to conscientious laboring. The second pole of conscientiousness imparts "rigid moral principles," making the obsessive "excessively conscientious, scrupulous, and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values" (American Psychiatric Association, 2000, p. 726).…”

“…The obsessive, in contradistinction, is under the same pressure as the local small town business; both rely on iterative interactions and both thereby benefit from honest dealings and the reputation that comes of them. As will be discussed further, obsessives, by way of low sensation seeking and high anxiety, do not tend to roam far or move often (Hertler, 2014b). Also, their propensity to labor with its accrual of material goods, stable shelters and hoarded foodstuffs makes movement impractical.…”

“…Obsessives are moderately mistrustful. The obsessive world view evokes what Morey, Grilo, Zanarini, and Gunderson refer to as "stress related paranoia" (Morey et al, 2004, p. 451;Hertler, 2014b). Amplified surveillance and threat detection is, in some sense then, a natural outgrowth of the obsessive's anxious and fearful disposition.…”