PERSONALITY AND THE PRESIDENTS



PERSONALITY AND THE PRESIDENTS

Contributed by Dr. David G. Winter

OVERVIEW

What makes a leader great? Is there a model of personality that all great leaders possess? Are great leaders also popular leaders? And do certain personality traits in leaders lead to war or to peace? This project examined the motives of 34 U.S. presidents in order to relate them to (1) the president's success as a leader, (2) the president's popularity based on the percentage of the vote, and (3) what happened during the presidency (i.e. war, peace, economic surgency). Each president's inaugural speech was coded for achievement, affiliation, and power motives. In addition, historians' ratings of greatness, information about events that occurred during the presidencies, and whether each president matched the society's profile at that time were included.

QUESTIONS

This study attempted to answer the following questions:

(1) Were presidents whose personality profile matched that of the society at the time popular?

(2) Did certain motives of the presidents correlate with popularity or greatness?

(3) Did certain motives of the presidents correlate with certain events such as war,

peace, or economic surgency?

SUBJECTS

Subjects for this project consisted of the 36 U.S. presidents who were elected to office, so presidents who did not give an inaugural speech (Tyler, Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Arthur, and Ford) were not included.

MEASURES

For the presidential motives, each president's first inaugural address was scored for achievement, affiliation, and power motive imagery using Winter's procedure for coding "running text" (Winter, 1989). The scores were expressed in terms of images per 1,000 words, and then standardized for an overall mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10.

For American society's motives during each presidency, scores were adapted from the work of McClelland (1975, chapter 9). McClelland collected cultural documents such as popular novels, children's readers, and hymns, from each decade (1790's through 1960's), and scored them for achievement, affiliation, and power motive imagery. The scores were expressed in terms of images per pages (readers), or images per 10-line segments (novels and hymns). For this study, the scores were standardized to obtain an overall mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10.

From these scores, the congruence between each president and American society at that time was created by taking the absolute value of the difference between each presidential score and the corresponding society score.

Additional personality variables came from the Adjective Check List (ACL; Gough & Heilbrun, 1965). Simonton (1987) applied this personality measure to all the presidents through Reagan. Included here are five subscales of the ACL: Friendliness, friendly and outgoing vs. unfriendly and cold; Intellectual brilliance, having wide and artistic interests; Machiavellianism, sly and deceitful vs. sincere and honest; Achievement drive, industrious and persistent; and Inflexibility stubborn and persistent.

Whether a war occurred during each presidency was determined using a list developed by Richardson (1960). This list defines war as interstate war, thus eliminating Indian conflicts because it is difficult to demarcate separate wars and determine casualty figures.

One indicator of the pursuit of peace was based on war avoidance. In some crises, war could have occurred, but war was avoided and the conflicts were settled peacefully. A second indicator of peace was whether or not an arms limitation was agreed upon during that presidency. The first arms limitation treaty was agreed on at the first Hague conference, so only presidents from McKinley on are included for this variable.

Presidential greatness was scored using a poll of 571 historians. Maranell (1970) asked the historians to rate the presidents on several dimensions, including general prestige, strength of action, presidential activeness, and accomplishments of the administration. These four variables were combined to form a consensus greatness score.

Another indication of greatness used in this project involves whether or not a president's decisions were judged as great. Morris (1967) compiled and judged presidential decisions, based on whether the decisions had a historic impact on the country and world. Some examples of great decisions include Jefferson's decision to purchase Louisiana, Jackson's decision to abolish central banking, and Theodore Roosevelt's decision to attack business trusts.

A third indication of greatness comes from the Murray-Blessing (1983) ratings. These were similar to the others, but include all presidents through Carter; thus this rating contains more data points than the others.

Whether an assassination was attempted on the president was determined using Clarke (1982). It should be noted that Nixon is included as having an assassination attempt made, even though the assassin hijacked an airplane, but never got close to actually succeeding.

In order to assess how scandal-ridden a presidency was, a score was created using how many pages, per year of presidency, were written about each president in Woodward's (1974) compilation of presidential responses to charges of misconduct. These were responses, by the president or an aide, to charges of misconduct, where the misconduct was alleged to be illegal. Thus, the more pages in this book, the more scandal-ridden a presidency was supposed to be. This compilation included the presidents from George Washington to Lyndon Johnson.

Finally, indications of economic change, such as Inflation, were coded using statistics from the U. S. Census Bureau (1976). The Gross National Product was scored from 1909-1970, so it only includes Taft through Johnson. Productivity was scored from 1929-1968, so it only includes Hoover through Johnson.

From a number of sources, David Winter coded the following variables: support for the president at the beginning of the term, the number of military interventions, the president’s strictness regarding resignations, political skill, the proportion of department who had experience, the presidential advisors, the number of years in office, and whether the president lost the re-election.

A number of demographic and personal history variables were drawn from Kane (1993). These include whether the president previously served as a state governor, as a vice-president, in congress, or in the military; each president’s height, birth order, zodiac sign; whether his father had been involved in politics; his age at marriage (if he was married more than once, age for the longest marriage is given), his wife’s age at marriage, the duration of the marriage, and whether his wife had a B.A.; the number of sons and daughters as well as total number of children born to each president; and the president’s age at death.

Note: students can add more scores if they desire. Many of the variables do not include data for recent presidents, but these data may be readily available and can be added to the data file.

FILE

FILE= PRES.SAV

REFERENCES

Clarke, J.W. (1982). American assassins. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Gough, H.G., & Heilbrun, A.B. (1965). The Adjective Check List manual. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Hart, R. (1984). Verbal style and the presidency. New York: Academic Press.

Kane, J.N. (1993). Facts about the presidents: A compilation of biographical and historical information. New York: Wilson.

Maranell, G. (1970). The evaluation of presidents: An extension of the Schlesinger poll. Journal of American History, 57, 104-113.

Morris, R.B. (1967). Great presidential decisions: State papers that change the course of history (rev. ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott.

Murray, R.K., & Blessing, T.H. (1983). The presidential performance study: A progress report. Journal of American History, 70, 535-555.

Richardson, L. (1960). Statistics of deadly quarrels. Pittsburgh, PA: Boxwood Press.

Simonton, D.K. (1987). Why presidents succeed: A political psychology of leadership. New Haven: Yale University Press.

United States. Bureaus of the Census. (1976). Historical statistics of the United States, from colonial times to 1970. New York: Basic Books.

Woodward, C.V. (1974). Responses of the presidents to charges of misconduct. New York: Delacorte Press.

Winter, D.G. (1989). Manual for scoring motive imagery in running text.

CODEBOOK

CODE: VARIABLE LABEL:

ID President's Last Name

ACHMOT Achievement Motive from Inaugural Speech

Standardized: mean=50 standard deviation=10

High = more achievement motivation

AFFMOT Affiliative Motive from Inaugural Speech

Standardized: mean=50 standard deviation=10

High = more affiliative motivation

POWMOT Power Motive from Inaugural Speech

Standardized: mean=50 standard deviation=10

High = more power motivation

DISCRACH Achievement Discrepancy between President and society

during that presidency

DISCRAFF Affiliation Discrepancy between President and society during that presidency

DISCRPOW Power Discrepancy between President and society during

that presidency

SUMDISCR Total Discrepancy: sum of DISCRACH DISCRAFF

DISCRPOW

ACLFRND Adjective Check List—Friendliness

High = more friendliness

ACLINTBR Adjective Check List—Intellectual Brilliance

High = more brilliance

ACLMACHI Adjective Check List—Machiavellianism

High = more Machiavellianism

ACLACHDR Adjective Check List—Achievement Drive

High = more drive

ACLINFLX Adjective Check List—Inflexibility

High = more inflexibility

SUPPORT Support of President at beginning of term:

Based on the margin of victory, and the percentage of the

President's party in the House of Representatives

WAR Did a war occur during the presidency?

Does not include Indian Wars from Richardson

1 No

2 Yes

PEACE Was there peace during the presidency?

Based on whether there was an Arms Limitation Treaty

1 No

2 Yes

NONWAR Did the President actively avoid war when one could have

taken place?

1 No

2 Yes

MILINT Number of military interventions that occurred during the

presidency

ASSASS Was there an attempted assassination?

1 No

2 Yes

RESIG Was the President strict regarding resignations.

Were there any resignations during the presidency?

1 No

2 Yes

SCANDAL Was the presidency scandal-ridden? Based on how many

pages Woodward wrote about the President per year.

DGNP Change in the Gross National Product per year during the

presidency (this could be lagged to account for the time policy takes to affect change)

INFLATE Wholesale Price Index yearly percent change (could also be lagged)

PRDUCTY Productivity yearly percent change (could also be lagged)

DECISION Number of Great decisions cited -- Based on Morris 1967

CONGREAT Consensus greatness: based on Maranell's poll of historians

GREATMB Greatness based on Murray-Blessing

POLSKILL Political Skill:

Based on how well the party does during the mid-term

congressional elections, the percent of vetoes overridden,

and whether the president won re-election

(high = more political skill)

PADVICE Political vs. non-political advisors: based on the number of

lawyers, legislators, and lack of business people

(high = political advisors)

PROPDEPT Proportion of department with experience.

YEARS Number of years in office

CYEARS Comparative years in office: based on the average number of years, and then corrected to have a mean=1

LOST Lost re-election?

1 No

2 Yes

WASGOV President was a state governor

0 No

1 Yes

WASVP President was a vice-president

0 No

1 Yes

CONGRESS President served in Congress

0 No

1 House of Representatives

2 Senate

3 Both houses

MILSERV President served in the military

0 No

1 Yes

HEIGHT President's height in centimeters

YOUNGEST President's birth order

1 Youngest

2 Other

POLITDAD President's father involved in politics?

1 No

2 Yes

WIFEBA President's wife had a B.A.?

1 No

2 Yes

ZODIAC President’s zodiac sign

1 Aries

2 Taurus

3 Gemini

4 Cancer

5 Leo

6 Virgo

7 Libra

8 Scorpio

9 Sagittarius

10 Capricorn

11 Aquarius

12 Pisces

AGEMARP President’s age at marriage

AGEMARW President’s wife’s age at marriage

LONGMAR Length of marriage in years

NUMSONS Number of sons

NUMDAUGH Number of daughters

NUMKIDS Total number of children

AGEDEATH President’s age at death

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