Psychological Approach

Introduction and overview: the appeal and drawbacks of psychological analysis. Do you think it is important to know a presidential candidate’s personality type? How should this be used in screening candidates?

Early theorists: Each have a different view on human nature and it influences their view of the proper form of government: Aristotle – democratic city states; people create the good society through interactions with each other; Plato – masses not capable of ruling, they need Philosopher Kings; Machiavelli and Hobbes: people are self-interested and we need strong rulers (the Prince or

Views of human nature

Leviathan); Locke – people are rational, but can build collective institutions; Rousseau – belief in people’s basic goodness, the general will and common good.

Modern theorists: Freud – psychoanalytic. Unconscious motivation of human behavior. Adorno – the authoritarian personality. Try to explain Hitler and the Holocaust. Stanley Milgram experiments (1961). Philip Zimbardo and the Stanford prison experiment (1971). More relevant for mass behavior than presidential.

Harold Lasswell – elite behavior

Harold Lasswell – Power and Personality (1948): involvement in politics as a compensation for low self esteem and compensation for previous deprivations. Examples of the type of deprivations for which politicians may be trying to compensate: please parents, rise above background, blighted careers, physical limitations, early illness, an ambitious mother who “married beneath her.”

James David Barber

The Presidential Character (1972). Adaptive approach that is applied specifically to U.S. presidents. Important thing for voters in selecting a president is not primarily positions on issues and the record of the candidate, but who the candidate is as a person. Nixon prediction. Quote on the need to screen candidates in the modern world – costs are much higher of choosing wrong.

Components of his theory: personality (which is made up of style, world view, and character) interacts with the external climate of expectations to create the dynamics of a given presidency. Style is how the president behaves with regard to rhetoric, people, and work. Determined in early adulthood by the “first independent political success.”

Barber, cont.

World view – fundamental philosophical and ideological premises that shape the president’s behavior. Oddly, doesn’t pay much attention to this in his work,

Character is central. Energy that president puts into the job (active/passive) and his affect toward the job–does he enjoy it (positive/ negative). Creates the two by two typology. Active positives are the best, active negatives are the ones to avoid. Review in Nelson.

How character shapes behavior.

Barber, cont.

Critiques of Barber’s theory? Applying the psychological approach to

Clinton – Clinton’s personality– Implications for leadership– The Clinton Enigma – the Lewinsky affair and “the

speech.” What does it reveal about the Clinton presidency?