Further comparisons among the dictators revealed that Kim Jong-il had more in common with Saddam Hussein (their profiles had a correlation of .67) than with Hitler (their profiles had a correlation of .20). Indeed, both Jong-il and Hussein had sadistic personality disorder as their highest rated item, and their scores were nearly identical – more than three standard deviations above the population average!

The nagging question is: how could an individual with such extreme personality disorders – especially ones that have a “spectrum relationship” to psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia – attain and hold such high positions of power and control over others? Schizophrenia is, after all, highly debilitating. Coolidge and Segal point out, however, that there are other well-known cases of “murderous schizophrenic persons” who had likewise held tremendous power over others, such as Charles Manson and Jim Jones, though admittedly on a smaller scale.