Sutton is not a Trump supporter, but, sipping an iced tea from the building’s beleaguered Starbucks, he is hesitant to outright label Trump an asshole, although his definition (“a person who leaves people feeling demeaned, deenergized, and disrespected”), he agrees, “certainly applies.” But Sutton doesn’t want to be, you know, an asshole: “Most of politics is everybody calling everybody else assholes.” And assholism, after all, is contagious. “Nasty behavior spreads much faster than nice behavior, unfortunately,” Sutton says. As he points out in his book, research shows that even a “single exposure” to negative behavior, like receipt of an insulting email, can turn a person into a “carrier.” “Literally like a common cold,” he adds. Similarly, when the president calls his detractors “haters and losers” in a tweet, when the wallpaper of life is made up of faces that belong to certified assholes like Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, Don Jr., etc., etc., ad infinitum, it most likely has a trickle-down effect. “The more assholes you’re around, the more asshole-y you get.” But there are other factors that have led to this explosion of assholes, Sutton points out, everything from heat and crowding to imbalances in power and the wealth gap. “The research says that when we’re in those situations, there’s envy going up, and sort of disdain goes down.” Research also shows that technology has increased the “asshole problem,” as Sutton puts it, because people are much more likely to be mean if they don’t have to make eye contact. And because technology has created the expectation for things to happen faster, and at all hours of the day, hurriedness and sleep deprivation have become major factors., Jessica Pressler is a staff writer at New York magazine. She is the the former editor of the magazine’s news blog, Daily Intelligencer, and a regular contributor to GQ and Elle. In 2015, Pressler was nominated for the National Magazine Award., Boobs! Boyfriends! Baywatch! Pamela Anderson is iconic for her role as the ultimate babe. Now she would like you to know there are brains inside that body, thank you very much. But is this a woman on a quest to find her true self—or has Pam been one step ahead of us all along? “Omigod!” […].