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One interesting thing I took from\xa0Evolutionary Psychopathology\xa0was a better understanding of the diametrical theory of the social brain.

There\u2019s been a lot of discussion over whether schizophrenia is somehow the \u201copposite\u201d of autism. Many\xa0of the genes\xa0that increase risk of autism decrease risk of schizophrenia, and vice versa. Autists have a smaller-than-normal corpus callosum; schizophrenics have a larger-than-normal one. Schizophrenics smoke\xa0so often\xa0that some researchers believe they have some kind of nicotine deficiency; autists have\xa0unusually low\xa0smoking rates. Schizophrenics are more susceptible to the\xa0rubber hand illusion\xa0and have weaker self-other boundaries in general; autists seem less susceptible and have stronger self-other boundaries. Autists can be pathologically rational but tend to be uncreative; schizophrenics can be pathologically creative but tend to be irrational. The list goes on.

I\u2019ve previously been\xa0skeptical\xa0of this kind of thinking because there are many things that autists and schizophrenics have in common, many autistics who seem a bit schizophrenic, many schizophrenics who seem a bit autistic, and many risk factors shared by both conditions. But Del Giudice, building on\xa0work by Badcock and Crespipresents the \u201cdiametrical model\u201d: schizophrenia and autism are the failure modes of opposing sides of a spectrum from high functioning schizotypy to high functioning autism, ie from overly mentalistic cognition to overly mechanistic cognition.

Schizotypy is a combination of traits that psychologists have discovered often go together. It\u2019s classified as a personality disorder in the DSM. But don\u2019t get too caught up on that term \u2013 it\u2019s a disorder in the same sense as narcissistic or antisocial tendencies, and like those conditions, some schizotypals do very well for themselves. Classic schizotypal traits include tendency toward superstition, disorganized communication, and nonconformity (if it sounds kind of like \u201cschizophrenia lite\u201d, that\u2019s not really a coincidence).