Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently (18 page)

At that time, Ford was working for the Edison company, and, not too surprisingly, there was little interest in gas-powered forms of transportation. The focus was on electricity. The prevailing opinion was that electricity, not gasoline, would be the power of the future. Ford bucked this trend and became an iconoclast when he quit his job in 1899 to go into the automobile business. He spent the next three years developing a two-cylinder engine that was powerful enough to move a “horseless carriage.” The result was the famous Model A. It sold for $750 (about $17,000 in 2008 dollars) and could reach a speed of 45 mph. The Model
A wasn’t a best seller—more of an oddity—but Ford did well enough to plow the profits into the development of what really made the Ford Motor Company: the Model T.

The Model T became possible only when Ford heard about a new type of steel that was being smelted in France. French steel contained a secret ingredient, vanadium, which made it three times stronger than regular steel. This changed everything for Ford. As with other iconoclasts, his perception of the automobile instantly changed when he saw what could be done with a vehicle that weighed a third less. Now, little gas engines that struggled to pull a heavy car suddenly weren’t so anemic anymore. A little engine could do a lot with a car that didn’t weigh very much. The Model T was released in 1908, and within the first year, Ford had sold 10,607 of them, more than any other manufacturer.

None of this was luck. Ford believed steadfastly in the value of work: “Freedom is the right to work a decent length of time and to get a decent living for doing so.”
¹²
At the core of his philosophy lay the belief that he had an obligation to face the uncertainty of the future and not fear failure (two of the three basic fears that distort perception). Ford wrote: “One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail.”
¹³

With time, Ford came to believe that money was at the root of these fears: “Thinking first of money instead of work brings on fear of failure and this fear blocks every avenue of business—it makes a man afraid of competition, of changing his methods, or of doing anything which might change his condition.”
¹⁴

Ford sets a good example of how successful iconoclasts deal with fear. The first step, indeed the most important step, is the recognition that fear permeates any business. Fear is to be taken as a warning sign, not as guide for action or inaction. Once fear is recognized, it can be deconstructed and reappraised. Ford also points out that when fear is deconstructed, you will often find fear of losing money to be at the root
of it. Even so, the iconoclast vanquishes the fear of failure. Ford also gives a good example of how reframing fear of failure, as in the possibility of learning from one’s mistakes, allows a potential negative be turned into a positive.

Using Genetics to Diversify a Team and Mitigate the Effects of Fear

Are iconoclasts born, or are they made? Some, like Feynman, seem to fall in the first category, while others, like Ford and Dreman and Miller, seem self-made. The fact is that all brains are not created equal. The neuroimaging evidence points to dopamine as a key neurotransmitter in decision making, so it follows that there should be something different about how dopamine is released in the iconoclastic brain. Although it is not possible to measure dopamine levels directly in the human brain, the level of dopamine activity can be inferred from an entirely different source of information: an individual’s genetic fingerprint. And taking a cue from the law of large numbers, there should be substantial benefit to diversifying the genetic composition of a decision-making team.

The human genome is comprised of DNA, itself composed of complementary pairs of four nucleic acids (base pairs). This DNA is broken up into twenty-four chunks that make up the chromosomes. All told, there are about 3 billion base pairs in the human genome. Most of this is so-called junk DNA because it doesn’t code for genes. The rest, however, contains the code to make proteins, which are the building blocks of the body. Amazingly, the genome contains the instructions for building every one of the proteins in the body.

When dopamine is released into the synaptic space, two things happen. First, the dopamine binds to the dopamine receptor, which causes a chain of biochemical and electrical events in the postsynaptic neuron. Second, after the initial event, the dopamine molecules must be reab-sorbed into the neuron that released them. The dopamine transporter,
or DAT, is the protein that serves this function. The DAT is interesting in its own right because virtually all the stimulant-type drugs, such as cocaine and amphetamine, bind to the DAT and block its function. This typically results in an excess of dopamine floating around the synapse. After dopamine is reabsorbed into the releasing neuron, it might be repackaged for a subsequent release, or it might be broken down into its constituent parts. This breakdown process, or
catalysis
, is accomplished by another protein called catechol-o-methyltransferase, or COMT for short. Together, the DAT and COMT regulate the amount of dopamine available for release.

DAT and COMT are proteins; thus the human genome contains instructions to make them like every other protein in the body. It turns out that there are subtle variations between people in their gene sequences for these proteins. Both DAT and COMT are big, a little over 1,000 base pairs for COMT and 3,900 for DAT. The mutation of a single base pair within this chain means the substitution of one amino acid for another. For COMT, a single base-pair mutation changes the 158th amino acid from a valine (Val) to a methionine (Met). Because everyone has two copies of every gene, one inherited from each parent, some people have two valines (Val/Val), some people have two methionines (Met/Met), and some have one of each (Val/Met). It turns out that Val/Val individuals have four times as much COMT activity as their Met/Met counterparts. The DAT gene is similar, and, like COMT, it is found in two common forms, called 9R and 10R.
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The 9R form has been linked to a lower amount of DAT synthesis, which, like cocaine, may have the end result of lowering the clearance of dopamine from the synapse.

In a recent neuroimaging study, Christian Büchel, a neuroscientist in Hamburg, Germany, measured the relationship between fMRI activity in the striatal dopamine system during a gambling task similar to the one used to study the Ellsberg paradox.
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Büchel genotyped all of the 105 people who participated in his study. He then looked for differences in brain activation that were linked to the different genotypes for COMT
and DAT. Büchel found greater activity in the dopamine-rich areas of the brain when winning was more likely. How much greater depended on the particular combination of genes the individual had. Büchel found that people with the Val/Val form of COMT
and
the 10R form of the DAT showed no relationship between brain activity and probability of winning. In other words, these people were insensitive to the level of risk. On a standard measure of personality type, these people also scored high in sensation seeking.

The implications are striking for decision making, especially group decision making. These particular genetic variants are associated with lower dopamine activity, which is borne out at the level of brain activation. If a relative insensitivity to dopamine means that these individuals exhibit risky behavior when the potential rewards do not offset the level of risk, they might be driven to goose their brains with dopamine by ever-higher levels of risk taking. They thrive on risk and are comparatively immune to the damaging effects of fear on decision making. We don’t know whether these forms of the genes are more common in iconoclasts. Nobody has done such a study. But given the rate of advance in both imaging and genomics, it may not be such a bad idea to find out which you are. And if you are assembling a team of individuals, it might make sense to take a cue from modern finance theory by diversifying the genetic portfolio of your team.

H
OWARD ARMSTRONG
was an iconoclast because he invented things, such as FM radio, that others thought could not be done, but when he killed himself, he died an unsuccessful iconoclast. His failure was not in perception or a lack of courage to stand up for what he believed. His failure was one of social intelligence: he couldn’t sell his idea. To be clear, social intelligence is not strictly necessary to be an iconoclast, but it is necessary to be a successful one.
The issue comes down to the iconoclast’s ability to connect with other people. As we shall see in this chapter, connecting with noniconoclasts depends on two key aspects of social intelligence:
familiarity
and
reputation
. Both functions can be understood through the circuits in the brain that implement them.

Consider two of the most iconoclastic artists of modern times: Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso. Paintings by both have fetched over $100 million.
¹
And both of them are responsible for some of the most iconic images in the art world: Van Gogh’s
Self-Portait
(the one sans earlobe) and
Starry Night
, and Picasso’s
The Old Guitarist
and
Guernica
. But there is an important difference between Van Gogh and Picasso. Van Gogh died penniless, while Picasso’s estate was estimated at $750 million when he died in 1973. Although both were iconoclasts, it was Picasso who was the successful one, at least during his lifetime.

For the iconoclast, two aspects of social intelligence figure prominently in success or failure: familiarity and reputation. The two go hand in hand. In order to sell one’s ideas, one must create a positive reputation that will draw people toward something that is initially unfamiliar and potentially scary. Familiarity helps build one’s reputation. Picasso was a master at both. He became familiar to the art world through his massive productivity. While Van Gogh produced about nine hundred paintings in his lifetime, Picasso produced over thirteen thousand paintings and about three hundred sculptures, making him the most prolific artist ever. And everyone loved Picasso. People were drawn to him because of his charisma. That many were lovers illustrates the correlation between the charisma he displayed in peddling his art and the charisma that attracted people to his bed. Since he was five foot three, physical stature had little to do with Picasso’s appeal. Van Gogh, on the other hand, while equally brilliant in his art, repelled people. The whole earlobe incident was provoked by an argument with Paul Gaugin—the recipient of Van Gogh’s “gift.” Where Picasso smoothly navigated multiple
social circles, Van Gogh struggled to maintain connections with even those closest to him. Van Gogh inhabited an alien world. Picasso, on the other hand, was a social magnet. And because he knew so many people, the world was at his fingertips. From his perspective, the world was smaller.

Picasso was a
node
. He possessed a rare combination of social skills that allowed him to function both as what Malcolm Gladwell called a “connector” and as a “persuader.”
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Picasso’s unique position illustrates a key point that differentiates successful iconoclasts from obscure ones (and Van Gogh and Armstrong fall in this category, at least during their lifetimes). Successful iconoclasts connect with other people and, in the process, shrink their worlds.

The most meaningful way to measure the size of the world today is the ease by which one person can find another. Geography no longer matters. When you can instant message, text, or Skype someone anywhere in the world, physical distance loses all relationship to the cost of communication. For someone like Van Gogh, who painted in a tortured world in which only a few people knew him, the distance to people who had money to buy his paintings was huge. Van Gogh’s primary connection to the art world was through his brother, and this connection did not feed directly into the money that could have turned him into a living success. Picasso’s world could not have been more different. His wideranging social network, which included artists, writers, and politicians, meant that he was never more than a few people away from anyone of importance in the world.

Picasso offers pointed lessons on how to shrink the world. Increase the world’s familiarity with you through productivity and exposure. And develop a reputation so that people are drawn to you and not repelled. Easier said than done. But neuroscience tells us about the biological underpinnings of these two functions—familiarity and reputation—and potential ways to make the most of what you have.

Stanley Milgram and the Six Degrees of Separation

What does it mean to connect to people? Some might think of an emotional bond. Others think of shared interests. The problem for the iconoclast is that, by definition, he will begin his journey alone and nobody will share his point of view. To be successful, then, he must foster networks, even if initially superficial, with other people. The science of networking goes back to another social psychologist of the 1950s, Stanley Milgram.