Higher Office
Scott Lilienfeld et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although psychopathic personality (psychopathy) is marked largely by maladaptive traits (e.g., poor impulse control, lack of guilt), some authors have conjectured that some features of this condition (e.g., fearlessness, interpersonal dominance) are adaptive in certain occupations, including leadership positions. We tested this hypothesis in the 42 U.S. presidents up to and including George W. Bush using (a) psychopathy trait estimates derived from personality data completed by historical experts on each president, (b) independent historical surveys of presidential leadership, and (c) largely or entirely objective indicators of presidential performance. Fearless Dominance, which reflects the boldness associated with psychopathy, was associated with better rated presidential performance, leadership, persuasiveness, crisis management, Congressional relations, and allied variables; it was also associated with several largely or entirely objective indicators of presidential performance, such as initiating new projects and being viewed as a world figure. Most of these associations survived statistical control for covariates, including intellectual brilliance, five factor model personality traits, and need for power. In contrast, Impulsive Antisociality and related traits of psychopathy were generally unassociated with rated presidential performance, although they were linked to some largely or entirely objective indicators of negative job performance, including Congressional impeachment resolutions, tolerating unethical behavior in subordinates, and negative character. These findings indicate that the boldness associated with psychopathy is an important but heretofore neglected predictor of presidential performance, and suggest that certain features of psychopathy are tied to successful interpersonal behavior.
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Ifat Maoz
Political Communication, Summer 2012, Pages 243-256
Abstract:
Research in political communication devotes growing attention to the role of visual information relayed through different mediums, including the news media, in forming political impressions, attitudes, and opinions. An increasing body of research indicates that exposure to visual information on the facial appearance of politicians from one's own state or country affects the favorability of attitudes towards these politicians as well as affecting voting intentions. However, the impact of visual information regarding politicians from the opponent side in a conflict has not been systematically examined. The current study addresses this gap by examining the effect of visual news coverage - regarding the facial features of political leaders from the opponent side in a conflict - on support for peace. In an experiment conducted in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jewish-Israeli respondents received a news item containing a proposal for peace agreement accompanied by a photograph described as portraying the Palestinian political leader offering the proposal. The photograph included a digitized facial image that was manipulated to appear as baby-faced or mature by altering the size of the eyes and lips. In line with my expectations, the baby-faced Palestinian politician was judged as more trustworthy than the mature-faced version of the same photograph and the press-reported peace proposal received higher support when offered by the baby-faced Palestinian politician. Also in line with my expectations, the Palestinian politician's perceived trustworthiness was a significant mediator of the effect of the politician's facial features on support for peace.
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Yes, Ronald Reagan's Rhetoric Was Unique - But Statistically, How Unique?
Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey, Edward Yager & Saadi Lahlou
Presidential Studies Quarterly, September 2012, Pages 482-513
Abstract:
We use automated textual analysis to compare Ronald Reagan's rhetoric with that of presidents Woodrow Wilson through Barack Obama, using their State of the Union speeches. We are able to assign statistical significance to the thematic content, and to depict spatially the shifting dimensionality in themes used by presidents. We find strong evidence for Reagan's usage of the civil religion rhetoric: over half (59%) of the discourse in his seminal and 48% in his State of the Union speeches focus on civil religion. We also find an apparent shift in modern presidential rhetoric, from themes concerned with (1) institutions, to ones focused more on (2) individuals, families, and children.
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Who Watches Presidential Debates? Measurement Problems in Campaign Effects Research
Markus Prior
Public Opinion Quarterly, Summer 2012, Pages 350-363
Abstract:
To examine whether a campaign event affected candidate preferences or candidate knowledge, survey researchers need to know who was exposed to the event. Using the example of presidential debates, this study shows that survey respondents do not accurately report their exposure to even the most salient campaign events. Two independent methods are used to assess the validity of self-reported debate exposure. First, survey estimates are compared to Nielsen estimates, which track exposure automatically. Second, the temporal stability of self-reports across independent daily estimates in the National Annenberg Election Survey is analyzed. Both approaches indicate low validity of self-reports. Self-reported debate audiences are approximately twice as big as comparable Nielsen estimates. Independent random samples generate widely divergent audience estimates for the same debate depending on when the survey was conducted. The second finding demonstrates low validity of self-reports without assuming validity of Nielsen estimates (or any other benchmark). The low validity of self-reported debate exposure poses a major obstacle for campaign effects research. Without valid measures of who was exposed to a campaign event, research cannot establish the causal impact of the event.
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Skeletons in White House Closets: A Discussion of Modern Presidential Scandals
Scott Basinger & Brandon Rottinghaus
Political Science Quarterly, Summer 2012, Pages 213-239
Abstract:
Scott Basinger and Brandon Rottinghaus list and classify presidential scandals occurring since 1972. They examine the different types of scandals and analyze news coverage of these scandals and their durations. They conclude that a small, unrepresentative set of scandals accounts for most news coverage, generating the misperception of scandals as drawn-out affairs involving large numbers of officials.
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America in Black and White: Locating Race in the Modern Presidency, 1933-2011
Kevin Coe & Anthony Schmidt
Journal of Communication, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on race in public discourse tends to fall into 1 of 2 categories: Either it focuses broadly on how media communicate about racial groups and frame political issues in racial terms or it focuses specifically on how politicians, in 1 or 2 key speeches, discuss race. This study bridges these approaches. It borrows an analytical strategy from research on race in media but applies this strategy to presidential discourse. Drawing on a content analysis of every mention of race in presidential addresses over 8 decades, we find that presidents have avoided talking about race and especially specific racial groups. We also find that race discourse varies across speech types and that Southern Democrats discuss race differently than do others.
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Veteran Electability to the Presidency: A Critique of the Somit Thesis
Peter Karsten
Armed Forces & Society, July 2012, Pages 486-499
Abstract:
Academics and other commentators have posited a voter preference for veterans in American Presidential elections. Indeed, Albert Somit, in an oft cited article in Public Opinion Quarterly (Vol. 12, 1948, 192-200), went so far as to maintain that on the basis of the historical record, "a party nominating a military hero [for president] would be enhancing its chances of winning the election," and called for such nominations to provide "a real test of this thesis." (p. 200) This research note raises questions about Somit's research methodology, offers one of its own, and finds Somit's and other commentators' claims to be unfounded. It concludes with some considerations as to why these claims were faulty.
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The Political Risks (if any) of Breaking the Law
Frederick Schauer
Journal of Legal Analysis, Spring 2012, Pages 83-101
Abstract:
Is breaking the law a politically risky act for politicians and other public officials? The question is especially important in the context of legislators and high executive officials who, for reasons of immunity or otherwise, are not subject to formal legal sanctions when they break the law. In such contexts, we might think that various other repercussions would serve in the place of formal legal sanctions, such that violating the Constitution or the law would entail tangible political, reputational, and social risks. Yet a raft of examples suggests, albeit not definitively, that violating the law qua law is not ordinarily subject to nonlegal sanctions. The electorate, the media, and most other potential sources of social and political sanctions reward good policy choices and sanction bad ones, but the very fact of illegality, except possibly by increasing the sanctions for bad policy choices that are also illegal, appears to play at most a small role in constraining the choices of a large group of the most influential and visible American public officials.
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Prior Experience Predicts Presidential Performance
Arthur Simon & Joseph Uscinski
Presidential Studies Quarterly, September 2012, Pages 514-548
Abstract:
While many assume that "experienced" presidents perform better, citizens do not know which prior experiences help presidents perform successfully, or in what ways. Drawing upon the organizational sciences literature, we argue that prior experiences similar to the presidency will positively predict performance in general; prior experiences similar to an aspect of the presidency will positively predict performance in that particular aspect; and experiences dissimilar to the presidency will either not predict, or negatively predict performance. Contrasting with previous literature, our findings support this intuitive rationale for understanding the effect of prior experience. These findings contribute not only to the long-standing president-centered vs. presidency-centered debate, but also to a growing body of literature explaining how leaders' backgrounds affect how they govern.
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A Status-Enhancement Account of Overconfidence
Cameron Anderson et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In explaining the prevalence of the overconfident belief that one is better than others, prior work has focused on the motive to maintain high self-esteem, abetted by biases in attention, memory, and cognition. An additional possibility is that overconfidence enhances the person's social status. We tested this status-enhancing account of overconfidence in 6 studies. Studies 1-3 found that overconfidence leads to higher social status in both short- and longer-term groups, using naturalistic and experimental designs. Study 4 applied a Brunswikian lens analysis (Brunswik, 1956) and found that overconfidence leads to a behavioral signature that makes the individual appear competent to others. Studies 5 and 6 measured and experimentally manipulated the desire for status and found that the status motive promotes overconfidence. Together, these studies suggest that people might so often believe they are better than others because it helps them achieve higher social status.
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Steeped in International Affairs?: The Foreign Policy Views of the Tea Party
Brian Rathbun
Foreign Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Tea Party is a powerful new force in American domestic politics, but little is known about its supporters' views on foreign affairs. New survey data indicates that supporters of the Tea Party exhibit attitudes on international relations consistent with the Jacksonian tradition in American political thought but not, as some have maintained, isolationist opinions of the Jeffersonian variety. Jacksonians are supporters of a strong defense and a large military presence abroad and are opposed to Wilsonian global idealism. The article operationalizes support for these three different foreign policy traditions by connecting them to previous findings on the structure of American foreign policy. The effect of Tea Party affiliation on foreign policy attitudes is severely weakened, however, once we control for political ideology, particularly economic conservatism. As is the case in domestic politics, Tea Party sympathizers seem to be somewhat ordinary conservatives, not a completely new breed. There is a direct parallel between their domestic attitudes and their foreign policy attitudes. Their lack of support for idealistic policies abroad, their most prominent set of attitudes, is part and parcel of a lack of social solidarity indicated in their more economically libertarian position at home.
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Philip Habel
Political Communication, Summer 2012, Pages 257-277
Abstract:
Media elites strive to shape the policy preferences of their audience through the publication of their opinions. Scholars, however, have not fully distilled whether the opinions communicated by media elites are successful in moving the public or politicians toward their preferred policy position, or whether media is responsive to these actors. This article offers a means of assessing media influence. I provide measures of the policy preferences of two leading newspaper editorial pages, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and employ these scales in a dynamic time series analysis. I find that the announced positions of the media have minimal influence. Rather, I find evidence of a movable media, where media opinion shifts in response to changes in the policy positions of politicians.
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Politics or Policy? How Rhetoric Matters to Presidential Leadership of Congress
José Villalobos, Justin Vaughn & Julia Azari
Presidential Studies Quarterly, September 2012, Pages 549-576
Abstract:
In this article, we examine the linkage between presidential policy proposal messages and legislative success. Employing a data set on presidential legislative proposals that covers the years 1949-2010, we find that politics matters less than policy. Purely political messages that reference the electoral logic of mandates or appeal to a sense of bipartisanship appear to have no impact on presidential legislative success, nor does policy signaling, though highlighting the role of agency-based policy experts in crafting legislation does. From these results, we conclude that although the way presidents communicate their messages to Congress represents an important component of presidential-legislative relations, it is instead the perceived quality of the legislation that more strongly shapes congressional support of presidential policy efforts.
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Viability of decision-making systems in human and animal groups
Cédric Sueur
Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7 August 2012, Pages 93-103
Abstract:
Shared and unshared consensuses are present in both human and animal societies. To date, few studies have applied an evolutionary perspective to the viability of these systems. This study therefore aimed to assess if decision-making allows group members to satisfy all their needs and to survive, decision after decision, day after day. The novelty of this study is the inclusion of multiple decision-making events with varying conditions and the parameterization of the model based on data in macaques, bringing the model closer to ecologically reality. The activity budgets of group members in the model did not differ significantly from those observed in macaques, making the model robust and providing mechanistic insight. Three different decision-making systems were then tested: (1) One single leader, (2) Leading according to needs and (3) Voting process. Results show that when individuals have equal needs, all decision-making systems are viable. However, one single leader cannot impose its decision when the needs of other group members differ too much from its own needs. The leading according to needs system is always viable whatever the group heterogeneity. However, the individual with the highest body mass decides in the majority of cases. Finally, the voting process also appears to be viable, with a majority threshold that differs according to group size and to different individual needs. This study is the first clear prediction of the different types of consensus in animal groups used in various different conditions.
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Exploring the social aspects of goose bumps and their role in awe and envy
David Schurtz et al.
Motivation and Emotion, June 2012, Pages 205-217
Abstract:
Both awe and envy are emotions that can result from observing a powerful other, but awe should stabilize social hierarchies while envy should undermine them. Three studies explored how the physiological reaction of goose bumps might help in understanding these distinctive reactions to powerful others, as goose bumps should be associated with awe rather than envy. In Study 1, participants kept a four-week journal and made a detailed entry each time they experienced goose bumps. Goose bumps resulting from the emotion of awe were the second most frequently occurring type after reactions to cold. Consistent with understanding awe as an emotional reaction to powerful or superior others (Keltner and Haidt in Cogn Emot 17:297-314, 2003), many of these experiences had social triggers. In Study 2, accounts of goose bumps resulting from exposure to powerful or superior others contained greater awe than envy. Also, the intensity of goose bumps was positively correlated with awe and negatively correlated with envy. In Study 3, accounts of awe contained more goose bumps than accounts of envy, and goose bumps were positively correlated with awe.
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Divine Direction: How Providential Religious Beliefs Shape Foreign Policy Attitudes
Rebecca Glazier
Foreign Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite recent scholarly and popular work regarding the role of religion in US foreign policy, we still know little about how religious factors affect the public's foreign policy views. This paper proposes one potential mechanism for influence - the connection of providential beliefs to foreign policy issues through a compelling religious frame - and tests the explanatory power of this approach through a nationally administered survey experiment. The "providential" orientation of respondents - the extent to which they believe in a divinely authored plan - is measured through questions that tap the nondenomination specific nature of religious beliefs. A multi-methods approach of means comparisons, logit analyses, and exact logistical regression indicates that when a foreign policy is framed in religious terms, providentiality is a significant predictor of support, even in the face of countervailing political beliefs. These findings highlight one mechanism through which religion can influence foreign policy attitudes, thereby demonstrating the value of further investigating the role of religious beliefs in politics.