My view is narcissistic folks push lies for control. Some folks believe in the narcissist. And yes the brain chemistry is certainly exploited.

I like “The Age of Reson” by Thomas Paine. Of writing the short piece challenging religion got Thomas Paine in trouble. Religious leaders love dogma and selective quotes from a Bible to control their flock. Of course today’s mega churches insist on a new jet plane to spread the word, increase revenue and so on.

Speaking of brains there are many types. Those in the center of the binomial distribution fit very well to your theory. Some brains have been trained to repeat patterns from their family upbringing, some are narcissistic., some are curious about world (scientific type) etc the stimulus response of humans is diverse. At least that my dopamine hit.