Elaine Aron

One of these characteristics was an inherited tendency to “overreact to stress.” Or in our terms, to be easily overaroused.

One of these characteristics was an inherited tendency to “overreact to stress.” Or in our terms, to be easily overaroused.

At any rate, Kramer raised fascinating social questions about a drug being able to change one’s entire personality. How do we feel about someday perhaps being able to change personalities like outfits? What happens to our sense of self if the self can be changed so easily? When a medication is taken when there is not enough wrong with people to label them ill—they just want to feel a certain way—how is this different from “street drugs”? Will everyone have to take Prozac, and then Super Prozac, just to have that competitive edge of high stress tolerance? And a question that Kramer returns to dozens of times: What would be lost to a society in which everyone opted to take such drugs?