I claim no expertize in cross-cultural psychology. I tried to analyze Donald Trump for a year and a half and I came up with a psychological assessment numerous other psychotherapists agree with: he’s a malignant narcissist.
I wouldn’ t even begin to speculate on what makes Kim tick. I can only hope Trump has experts in Asian psychology advising him through the State Department and the CIA.
I decided to see what others have written about the psychology of Kim Jung Un with a straightforward Google search of that phrase. Most of what I found dated back to 2013 and much of that is still relevant, for example THE PSYCHOLOGY OF KIM JONG UN – JUST A YOUNG MAN TRYING TO PROVE HIMSELF.
A madman, a lunatic, North Korea’s psychopath… even Eddie Mair felt comfortable speculating if Kim Jong un was “just nuts” on Sunday’s Andrew Marr show. But who, and more importantly what, is behind the actions of the 30-year-old North Korean dictator?
According to a leading psychologist, Kim is most likely none of the above, more a young man trying to prove himself while suffering “an inevitable deep sense of psychological threat that he will be perceived as weak and inadequate” by others within the regime.
Speaking to the Huffington Post UK, Professor Ian Robertson said that regardless of the politics, individual egos will always come into play, and though Kim is known to be very proud and nationalistic (his friends at his Swiss school recall him playing the national anthem over and over), the young dictator is unlikely to be driven by a desire for war, but a wish to carry on the family dynasty as an act of self preservation.
Something came up in my search among the 2013 articles surprised me because I hadn’ t run across a university-based group that specializes in the psychological assessment of politicians in all my research into Donald Trump’ s personality.
The Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics (USPP), established in 1999, “is a collaborative faculty–student research program in the psychology of politics at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict in Minnesota, directed by Aubrey Immelman, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology, who specializes in the psychological assessment of presidential candidates and world leaders.” It owns the URL http://personality-politics.org.
As far as I can tell nobody has lambasted them for not adhering to the Goldwater Rule even though they published psychological assessments of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and many others. ( An article by the eminent psychiatrist Paul Apelbaum about the Goldwater rule.)
Here’s their assessment of Kim Jung Un:
Preliminary 2013 analysis of the data suggested that Kim Jong-un’s personality is primarily an amalgam of the Accommodating and Outgoing patterns, a fitting descriptive label for which would be congenial–cooperative.
The core characteristics of congenial–cooperative leaders may be summarized as follows:
- Agreeable, acquiescent, and affiliation-motivated; tend to be inclusive, accommodating, and obliging in their relationships with others; characteristically gracious, neighborly, and benevolent, preferring to avoid conflict and seek harmony — occasionally at the expense of their own internal beliefs and values.
- Charming and socially gregarious, with a knack for focusing attention on themselves through dramatic or self-dramatizing action.
- Place a high premium on external approval, to the extent that in some respects they may value themselves more in terms of their relationships with others than for their own intrinsic qualities; by allying themselves with the virtues of others, they bolster themselves through a sense of shared competence.
- Tend to smooth over life’s problems, maintaining an air of pleasantry and goodwill, with a corresponding tendency to disavow disturbing emotions and maintain a relatively uncritical, optimistic outlook on human events.
- Value service to others and are sympathetic to others’ needs, which at times may be self-defeating in the sense of relinquishing too much authority, failing to assert themselves sufficiently, delegating too much responsibility, or hesitation in taking the initiative when circumstances demand boldness or daring.
The personality profile raises the question of who is really in charge in North Korea; in short, the bellicose rhetoric emanating from the DPRK is inconsistent with Kim Jong-un’s psychological profile.
Here are the updated 2018 conclusions:
Kim’s primary personality patterns were found to be Outgoing/gregarious and Dominant/controlling, supplemented by secondary Ambitious/confident, Dauntless/adventurous, and Accommodating/cooperative features. Given his Outgoing–Dominant primary personality composite, Kim may be classified as a high-dominance extravert.
Outgoing individuals are dramatic attention‑getters who thrive on being the center of social events, go out of their way to be popular with others, and are confident in their social skills; they may have an impulsive tendency and be prone to boredom. Dominant individuals enjoy the power to direct others and to evoke obedience and respect; they can be tough and unsentimental and often make effective leaders. Ambitious individuals are bold, competitive, and self-assured; they easily assume leadership roles, expect others to recognize their special qualities, and may act as though entitled. Dauntless individuals tend to flout tradition, conventional standards, and cultural mores, dislike following routine, and may act impulsively and recklessly; they are resistant to coercion and may exhibit a strong need for autonomy and self-determination. Accommodating individuals are notably cordial, cooperative, and amicable; they are willing to adapt their preferences to be compatible with those of others, to reconcile differences to achieve peaceable solutions, and to concede or compromise when necessary.
Kim Jong-un’s major personality-based leadership strength is a distinctly outgoing tendency, supplemented by an accommodating inclination, a fitting descriptive label for which would be congenial–cooperative. Leaders matching this profile can be expected to be jovial, socially gregarious, agreeable, accommodating, and obliging in their relationships with others; they are characteristically gracious, neighborly, and benevolent, preferring to avoid conflict and seek harmony with others.
An article from 2013 in Psychology Today is disturbing as related to Donald Trump because the president is new to having the absolute power Kim has had since he took control of N. Korea.
This article says “ Kim Jong-Un is as sane. He is not a psychopath – he made good friends while in school in Switzerland - and is quite intelligent, being good at mathematics although lazy in his studying, according to his closest friend at school, Portuguese diplomat’s son Joao Micaelo.” However it notes what absolute power can do to change personality:
Absolute power changes peoples’ brains and makes them feel like gods, or at least in communication with gods. In June 2003, George W. Bush told Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen that God had told him to invade Iraq. Osama bin Laden also believed his actions to be divinely inspired.
Kim Jong-Un almost certainly feels god-like because of the drug-like effects — the chemical messenger dopamine is a key player — that power has on his brain. Power is an aphrodisiac which casts a spell of charisma around the holder and bewitches those he has power over, and if that be millions of people, so be it.
This is applicable to understanding Trump and is not reassuring.
Here’s more from 2018
What do Kim’s action reveal about his greater ambitions?
Kim’s coda reveals much about his intentions, his psyche, and next steps. It is tempting – given past “failures” involving the 1994 Agreed Framework and the 2005 Six Party Talks – to assume that Kim is borrowing a page from his father’s playbook. But Kim’s projection onto the world stage may suggest loftier ambitions. In this sense, he is more like his grandfather [Kim Il-sung] than his father. Kim Il-sung was the master of grand gestures, having started the Korean War, and later, playing a large role in the Non-Aligned Movement. Kim too has his grandfather’s style, panache, and gravitas, and has now shown the ability to project confidence, savoir faire, and elegance on the world stage.
My conclusion is that Kim is crazy like a sane fox (who nonetheless will raid the henhouse) and that Trump is crazy like a rapid fox who is, to mix metaphors like a horse in a hospital. This is from a long joke comedian John Mulaney tells in his standup, Kid Gorgeous at Carnegie Hall, which I watched last night on NetFlix.
It (the joke) starts rather inauspiciously. Mulaney thanks the crowd for laughing at his “political gazebo material,” and then errantly toys with his mic cord as though it’s a lasso. “I’ve never really cared about politics, never talked about them much,” he says. “But last November, the strangest thing happened!”
“Here’s how I try to look at it, and this is just me: this guy being the president, it’s like there’s a horse loose in a hospital,” Mulaney says. “I think eventually everything’s going to be okay, but I have no idea what’s going to happen next. And neither do any of you, and neither do your parents, because there’s a horse loose in the hospital!”
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Mulaney’s “horse loose in a hospital” joke isn’t just special because it’s managed to last so long — it feels even more frustratingly relevant more time treads on, actually — but because it’s unique. No one else in comedy is taking this approach. It’s an absurd joke that does what the best comedy is always supposed to do: it speaks the truth, while also providing much-needed emotional catharsis. From The Decider