Psychological Neoteny?





Charlton BG. The rise of the boy-genius: psychological neoteny, science
and modern life. Medical Hypotheses. 2006; 67: 679-81

The rise of the boy-genius: psychological-neoteny, science and modern
life
ABSTRACT
The mid-twentieth century saw the rise of the boy-genius, probably
because a personality type characterized by prolonged youthfulness is
advantageous both in science and modern life generally. This is the
evolution of 'psychological-neoteny', in which ever-more people
retain for ever-longer the characteristic behaviours and attitudes of
earlier developmental stages. Whereas traditional societies are
characterized by initiation ceremonies marking the advent of adulthood,
these have now dwindled and disappeared. In a psychological sense, some
contemporary individuals never actually become adults. A child-like
flexibility of attitudes, behaviours and knowledge is probably adaptive
in modern society because people need repeatedly to change jobs, learn
new skills, move to new places and make new friends. It seems that this
adaptation is achieved by the expedient of postponing cognitive
maturation - a process that could be termed psychological neoteny.
('Neoteny' refers to the biological phenomenon whereby development
is delayed such that juvenile characteristics are retained into
maturity.) Psychological neoteny is probably caused by the prolonged
average duration of formal education, since students' minds are in a
significant sense 'unfinished'. Since modern cultures favour
cognitive flexibility, 'immature' people tend to thrive and
succeed, and have set the tone of contemporary life: the greatest
praise of an elderly person is to state that they retain the
characteristics of youth. But the faults of youth are retained with
well as its virtues: short attention span, sensation- and
novelty-seeking, short cycles of arbitrary fashion and a sense of
cultural shallowness. Nonetheless, as health gets better and cosmetic
technologies improve, future humans may become somewhat like an axolotl
- the cave-dwelling salamander which retains its larval form until
death.

* * *
The mid twentieth century saw the rise of mathematicians and physicists
who looked and behaved in a markedly youthful style, and this
boy-genius stereotype spread to include most other branches of science.
My suspicion is that that a personality type characterized by prolonged
youthfulness is advantageous not just in science, but in most areas of
modern life due to its need for flexible specialization. We are
witnessing the evolution of 'psychological-neoteny', in which
ever-more people retain for ever-longer the characteristic behaviours
and attitudes of earlier developmental stages.

Perhaps the most famous boy-genius was James Watson around the time he
co-discovered DNA. Iconic is the famous 1953 publicity photograph of a
gangly, shock-haired Watson gazing-up in wide-eyed wonder as a balding,
middle-aged-looking Crick points at a big molecular model [1]. But
surveying photos of the discoverers of molecular biology in Judson's
The eighth day of creation [1] the reader sees a parade of youthful
enthusiasts. What a contrast between the skinny, bespectacled Max
Delbruck (who often wore short trousers) and Victorian images of the
bearded-ancient Darwin or the mutton-chop whiskered TH Huxley.

In physics, too, there is a world of difference between the sage wisdom
of Einstein and the perpetual youthfulness of his best-known successor
Richard Feynman. And despite chronic illness, their popular heir Steven
Hawkins even now retains a distinctly 'schoolboyish' quality. There are
also boy-genius types among scientists like Bill Gates who have become
both rich and powerful.

In science, medicine, and most of modern life there has been a powerful
and progressive trend toward specialization [2]. Originally science
arose by differentiating itself from philosophy, which budded-off
theology. Then science broke into physics, chemistry and biology -
which have super-specialized into many thousands of sub-disciplines.
Consequently, the scientist stereotype has transformed from an
omniscient sage, with encyclopaedic knowledge of his whole general
subject area, who worked essentially alone; to the current scientific
research situation comprising (mostly) teams of super-specialized
whiz-kids each of whom know only what is necessary to solve the problem
at hand.

It should also be noted in passing that the phrase 'boy-genius'
must now be taken to include women - since in modern science the
whiz-kids are quite frequently female. Traditional tribal and
agricultural societies are characterized by 'initiation ceremonies'
marking very clear-cut transitions between the stages of life:
especially the advent of formal adulthood [3]. Indeed, some traditional
societies are 'gerontocracies' in which age accumulates prestige.
But over recent decades in liberal democracies, these transitional
ceremonies have dwindled in importance, and often disappeared
altogether. The 'coming of age' now serves only as an excuse for a
party. The reason is that, in an important psychological sense, some
modern people never actually become adults - or, if they do, the
process is delayed into late middle age when loss of youthful
appearance and vitality becomes impossible to deny.

The timing of significant marker points of maturity - such as
graduation from college, marriage, first child - which used-to occur
at almost fixed ages, are in modern cultures stretched across a much
larger time span than in the past, mainly by increasing delays in some
individuals. This has been very obvious among educated people, where
both marriage and childbearing now quite commonly occur over a span of
more than two decades. With such a chronological spread of events, each
individual's experience is now probably unique in its specific
combination and timing of such significant events - which further
erodes the predictable progress through formal stages of maturity
characteristic of traditional societies.

The gradual diminution of initiation ceremonies and indefinite
postponement of adopting a stable, integrated adult personality is no
accident: these facts recognize that modern societies are characterized
by a continual requirement, throughout life, for a child-like
flexibility of attitudes, behaviours and knowledge [2, 4]. People need
repeatedly to change jobs, to learn new skills and information, to move
to new places and cultures, to make new friends - all of these are a
cultural novelty for human animals evolved to cope with small hunter
gatherer societies of just a few hundred people [1, 4]. Since mature
adults have not evolved to manage these challenges, it seems that
people have adapted by postponing their psychological maturation - a
process that could be termed psychological neoteny.

The boy-genius can be seen as a specific instance of psychological
neoteny which is apparently adaptive in modernizing cultures, and it
occurred early in science because science is one of the most
'modern' and advanced social systems [2]. 'Neoteny' refers to
the biological phenomenon whereby development is delayed such that
juvenile characteristics are retained into maturity. It represents a
relatively fast and simple way of evolving adaptations - for instance
modern humans in Western Europe have evolved the ability for adults to
digest dairy products (which were not a part of the hunter gatherer
diet) by the simple method (presumably by a single gene mutation) of
neotenously perpetuating the activity of the milk sugar-digesting
enzyme lactase from the breast-fed infant throughout mature life.

Probably, the main proximate cause of psychological neoteny in
modernizing societies is the prolonged duration of formal education -
which may be why the boy-genius arose in an American context where mass
higher education and extended schooling was first established [5]. So
long as a person is in formal education, or is open to the possibility
of returning for more formal education, their minds are in a
significant sense 'unfinished'. Perhaps this could be one reason
why scientists so often strike other people as 'immature' in their
manners and behaviour? Scientists need to be somewhat child-like in
order to keep learning and developing. As mass higher education becomes
a feature of all liberal democracies, and as the average number of
years spent in formal education progressively increases [6], we may
expect to accumulate ever-more chronologically middle-aged and elderly
people who remain youthfully-minded.

Since modern cultures favour cognitive flexibility, such people tend to
thrive and succeed and now set the tone of contemporary life. The
biggest praise that can be given to an elderly person is that they have
retained the characteristics of youth - not just a youthful
appearance, but also the youthful vitality and drive. The modern
exemplary geriatric should continue to compete for high status, remain
actively interested in love and sex, show themselves adaptive to
change, and continually seek new experiences and challenges. Because
such attributes are highly valued, they seem to have become much more
common.

But of course there is a downside to psychological neoteny, in that the
faults of youth are retained as well as its virtues. Modern society is
characterized by a short attention span, frenetic sensation- and
novelty-seeking, ever-shorter cycles of arbitrary fashion, and (so
cultural intellectuals would argue) a pervasive emotional and spiritual
shallowness. There are a lot of divorces and broken families. Modern
people - it seems fair to say - also lack a profundity of character
which seemed commoner in the past. The personality difference between
Einstein and Feynman shows this clearly: Einstein had a mature and
harmonious personality of great wisdom [7]; while Feynman was vital,
protean, witty and life-enhancing - but he was certainly not a sage,
and was quicksilver-clever rather than deeply wise [8].

I would expect that this trend to maintain flexible immaturity through
adulthood will continue. Psychological neoteny will be matched by
perpetuation of youthful appearance: partly natural due to improved
health and social conditions, and partly artificial due to continued
advance in cosmetic technologies. In future, the most successfully
adapted humans may become something like the axolotl - a
cave-dwelling salamander which retains its larval form through sexual
maturity and until death.

But even as whiz-kids dominate mainstream culture, the popularity in
modern societies of traditional sources of insight and integration -
from Rembrandt and JS Bach to Einstein and Tolkien - implies that a
niche will surely remain for the profound repositories of ancient
wisdom.

Acknowledgement - thanks to Martin Trow, of the University of
California at Berkeley, whose wise and deep comments sparked-off this
line of thought.

References

1. Judson HF. The eighth day of creation: makers of the revolution in
biology. Jonathan Cape: London, 1979.

2. Charlton B, Andras P. The modernization imperative. Imprint
Academic: Exeter, UK, 2003.

3. Campbell J. The masks of god: primitive mythology. Penguin: New
York, USA, 1991.

4. Charlton BG, Andras P. Universities and social progress in
modernizing societies: how educational expansion has replaced socialism
as an instrument of political reform. CQ (Critical Quarterly). 2005;
47: 30-39.

5. Martin Trow. 'Comparative Perspectives on American Higher
Education', in University and Society: Essays on the Social Role of
Research and Higher Education, ed. Martin A Trow and Thorsten Nybom,
(London: Kingsley Publishers, 1991);

6. Trow, M. 'From Mass Higher Education to Universal Access: The
American Advantage', Minerva 37(2000), 1-26.

7. Snow CP. Variety of Men. Macmillan: London, UK, 1967.

8. Gleick J. Genius: Richard Feynman and modern physics. Abacus:
London, UK, 1994.


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