foreign policy makers, personality attributes, and interviews: a note on reliability problems

Foreign Policy Makers, Personality Attributes, and Interviews: A Note on ReliabilityProblemsAuthor(s): Karen A. Rasler, William R. Thompson and Kathleen M. ChesterSource: International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1980), pp. 47-66Published by: Wiley on behalf of The International Studies AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2600127 .

Accessed: 18/06/2014 10:55

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Wiley and The International Studies Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to International Studies Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.40 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 10:55:34 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=isa

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2600127?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Foreign Policy Makers, Personality Attributes,

and Interviews A Note on Reliabilit y Problems

KAREN A. RASLER WILLIAM R. THOMPSON

Departtment of Government Flotridla State Universit l

KATHLEEN M. CHESTER

Content analytic procedures for operationalizing 6 personality attributes (Hermann, 1974, 1980) are applied to 92 (1950-1978) interviews with 10 heads of state and government. Focusing on data reliability, a test of temporal consistency is examined. The outcome suggests that the trait scores are not sufficiently consistent across time to be considered highly reliable. Two possible sources of trait score variance (data source and situation) are considered, and data for one source are investigated through an analysis of variance. In general, the findings cast some doubt on the utility of analyzing interviews to obtain measures of foreign policy makers' personality attributes. Further attention must be devoted to the multiple problems of source bias, situational circumstances, and temporal inconsistency.

For a number of comparative foreign policy analysts, the personality attributes of decision makers constitute an important source for explanatory variables. The basic assumptions are that decision makers can influence their environment, that their behavior in international affairs is due partly to factors internal to the decision makers, and that consequently these personality variables

AUTHORS' NOTE: We are indebted to the constructive criticism of several anony- mous reviewers.

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Vol. 24 No. 80 47-66 ? 1980 I.S.A.

47



48 INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY

are important to study because they represent important links between elites and their behavior. To date, a number of research strategies have been employed to investigate the role of personality on foreign policy. Until recently, anecdotal and limited case studies (e.g., Holsti, 1962; Rogow, 1963; George and George, 1964; Wolfenstein, 1967; De Rivera, 1968; Tucker, 1973) have tended to predominate. Some empirical inroads, however, have been made by simulation (e.g., Hermann and Hermann, 1969; Hermann et al., 1974), but such experimentation still falls short of what we would like to possess-namely a data bank containing quantified information on the personality characteristics of many real leaders, which could be analyzed in conjunction with the observed foreign policy behavior of the governments they head. Yet research (e.g., Hermann, 1974, 1977; Friedlander and Cohen, 1975; Suedfeld and Tetlock, 1977; Walker, 1977; Falkow- ski, 1978) has begun to appear which suggests that we may be developing the capability of moving beyond the limitations of case studies and simulated experimentation. Without doubt, the most ambitious development in this area has been put for- ward by M. G. Hermann (1974, this issue, 1980). In her 1980 study, data pertaining to six personality attributes of national leaders nationalism, the need for power, the belief in one's ability to exercise control over events, the need for affiliation, cognitive complexity, and suspiciousness-are linked to form two basic orientations to foreign policy (the "independent" aVd the "participative"), which are then used to predict more aggressive/conciliatory behavior as measured by CREON events- interaction data.

Hermann's personality attribute data were obtained by content analyzing interviews given by heads of state and government. Nevertheless, the validity of such an approach rests in large part on the premise that interviews can and do provide a meaningful medium for tapping personality attributes. Her argument is that interviews evoke relatively spontaneous responses from governmental leaders. On the other hand, it can be argued (for a number of reasons to be discussed more fully in the following pages) that interviews are not likely to provide adequate material for typifying personalities.



Rasler et al. / PERSONALITY AND INTERVIEWS 49

The purpose of this article is to test Hermann's assumption that interviews yield reliable data on personality attributes. One aspect of these data is their temporal consistency. If interviews are to be used to make reliable judgments of personality attributes, the adjudged levels of these attributes rated from interviews at one point in time should resemble the personality attributes rated from interviews at another point in time. This is not to deny that personality attributes may change somewhat over time or that they may vary slightly as the leader interacts with his or her perceived international environment. But it can be assumed that psychological attributes and measures of them should not fluctuate significantly and in an erratic way. There- fore, using the same procedures for coding and scoring personality characteristics as those suggested by Hermann (1980), we propose to examine the interviews of several leaders for temporal consistency.

A Brief Description of the Hermann Approach

Hermann content analyzed press interviews of 45 heads of state and government during 1959-1968 to acquire data on the 6 personality characteristics (listed in Table 1). She found that they were linked to form distinguishable "independent" and "participative" orientations to foreign policy. By knowing a leader's orientation, according to Hermann, one may predict his or her predispositions when faced with a foreign policy-making task-how he or she will define the situation and the style of behavior made in response. For instance, "aggressive" leaders are considered to be high in need for power, suspiciousness, nationalism, and internal control and low in conceptual complexity. Their foreign policy behavior is in turn characteristically "independent" in style and content. Such leaders will seek to maintain their nation's "individuality" and keep their nations apart from other nations in the international system as much as possible. They will urge their government to be suspicious of the motives of leaders in other nations; and if interaction is necessary, they expect it to be on their nation's terms.




TABLE 1 Hermann's Six Personality Attributes

Attributes Definition

1. Nationalism The extent to which an individual possesses strong emotional attachments to the nation-state, perceives his or her own nation as superior to other nations, and emphasizes the importance of maintaining national honor and sovereignty.

2. Need for Power The extent to which an individual is concerned with establishing, maintaining, or restoring his or her impact, control, or influence over other actors.

3. Belief in Own The extent to which an individual perceives that Ability to Control what happens to an individual is contingent on his Events or her own behavior and characteristics.

4. Need for Affiliation The extent to which an individual is concerned with establishing, maintaining, or restoring warm and friendly relationships with other actors.

5. Conceptual The extent to which an individual demonstrates Complexity a degree of differentiation when observing or

contemplating his or her environment.

6. Suspiciousness The extent to which an individual is inclined to doubt the motives and actions of others.

Source: Based on the discussion in Hermann (1980).

In contrast, "conciliatory" leaders are said to be high in need for affiliation and conceptual complexity, low in suspiciousness, nationalism, and internal control. These characteristics are indi- cative of a "participative" foreign policy. Conciliatory leaders are likely to promote interaction with other nations, to learn what other nations value most about their nation, and to seek a wide range of alternative solutions to problems jointly plaguing their nation and other nations. These leaders will attempt to facilitate their nation's participation in the international system.

Hermann then related both the foreign policy orientations and the individual characteristics to six foreign policy related behavioral propensities: (1) to propose changes; (2) to take independent action; (3) to make commitments; (4) to make positive expressions toward other nations; (5) to receive negative feed-



Raster et al. / PERSONALtTY AND INTERVIEWS 51

back; and (6) to create policies which have an impact on other governments.

After operationalizing these six behavioral propensities, Hermann's subsequent analysis indicated that the "independent" and "participative" orientations were indeed related to the foreign policy behavior as hypothesized, particularly for those heads of state and government who had had little previous training in foreign affairs. This finding led Hermann to suggest that the two composites or general orientations to foreign affairs appear to represent important dimensions in explaining foreign policy decisions and should be included in any integrative effort at under- standing foreign policy behavior.

The Role of Content Analysis and the Problem with Interviews

As pointed out earlier, Hermann's (1980) study rests on the fundamental premise that content analyzing interviews is an appropriate method for obtaining information about personality attributes. Content analysis indeed has become a major tool for analyzing the association between messages and the characteristics of their senders. Its use, particularly in studies dealing with personality and perceptual factors, is based on two fundamental assumptions (North et al., 1963; Holsti, 1969). First, content analysis makes the assumption that information of a verbal or written nature-ranging in form from a diary or intimate letters to memoranda, autobiographies, and speeches-can have importance. Such information is a source of political content that can be analyzed in a systematic and rigorous manner. Second, the symbolic behavior of the individual can provide important psychological data about the personality, beliefs, perceptions, and other personal characteristics.

It has been maintained that interviews are an appropriate source for measuring personality traits, because the link between personality characteristics and spontaneous material is stronger than that between personality characteristics and planned mater-




ial (Osgood and Anderson, 1957: 411-420; Hermann, 1980). Studies have found that the more carefully and deliberately planned a communication is, the more remote the relationship is between the subject's attitudes and the content of the communication (Osgood and Anderson, 1957; Levine, 1966). Therefore, spontaneous communication is obviously more desirable because it minimizes the effects of "ghost writing" and deliberate signals. By content analyzing planned materials, researchers may learn what the ghost writer is like or something about the image which the leader would like to reflect. But this is rarely what researchers are looking for. However, since leaders are expected to provide relatively quick responses in an interview, they are forced to provide spontaneous information in their own words. Consequently, this information is alleged to be a valuable source for tapping personality factors.

Nevertheless, others contend that interviews do not provide an adequate source for obtaining personality data, because the con- tents are more likely to reflect the verbal strategies in which leaders involve one another (Jervis, 1969). Interviews can be a form of diplomatic communication capable of conveying messages and intentions to both allies and enemies. Consequently, leaders' words do not necessarily "speak for themselves" but may represent policy positions arrived at through the collective assessment and/or governmental politics of their government's decision-making elite. Moreover, interviews can be used as a means to convey preconstructed signals about vital issues. In this sense, they may provide platforms for sending signals, projecting images, and exposing and espousing policy positions and prefer- ences, rather than acting as simple mirrors of personality. Within this perspective, it is quite conceivable that the nature of the messages sent will change in accordance with changes in perceptions of the relative hostility or benevolence of the political environment.

In a broader context, the dilemma posed here is a reflection of the debates among content analysts between proponents of the "representational" and "instrumental" models of communication (Hoisti, 1969: 33). The representational school takes the position




that the important aspects of communication are "what is re- vealed by the lexical items present in it" (Poole, 1959: 3; Osgood, 1959). Words are assumed to "represent" accurately the author's inner feelings; thus, there are constant relationships between the content of communication and the underlying motives of the authors. The instrumental school argues that it is not the face meaning of a message, but "what it conveys, given its content and circumstances" that is important (Poole, 1959: 3). From this point of view, communication is seen as an instrument of influence; and hence the content of messages may be shaped by the communica- tor's intent to manipulate his audience in certain directions, depending upon the circumstances in which communicators find themselves.

One compromise position taken by Holsti (1969) has been that inferences as to the intentions or feelings of authors drawn from content data need corroboration through independent evidence. Because regularities between content data and the intentions and feelings of the authors may be of a limited type (e.g., for certain classes of communicators, in specified situations, using certain media of communication), evidence is needed beyond that provided by content analysis of messages. For instance, links between communication and personality may be found in certain cases depending upon the kinds of leaders involved, the situation in which they are located, and the type of data source used for content analyzing communication. But this "compromise" position does not really address the problem we are facing in this examination. Troop mobilizations in prewar crises may be able to corroborate content-derived perceptions of threat, but they do not serve as well in the case of personality attributes.' Nationalis- tic acts-for example, the expropriation of foreign-owned oil industries-do not necessarily confirm a leader's innate nationalism or high nationalism scores. Such acts may simply be politically expedient. Similarly, troop mobilizations need not support a high "suspiciousness" score. The verbal expressions of

1. For an example of the use of troop mobilizations in prewar crisis as corroborating evidence, see Holsti (1972).




"suspiciousness" and the mobilization may be communicating a sense of threat (real or otherwise) or an intention to take action in the near future. If external validators are not readily available, then we are forced to focus on checks which are internal to the personality data. Thus, we intend to examine the temporal consistency of selected leaders' personality attribute scores.

Testing for Temporal Consistency

The specific procedures we have devised to test for temporal consistency differ from those employed by Hermann in two fundamental respects. First, it appears that Hermann pooled each leader's responses for the decade, content analyzed them to obtain an aggregate score for each personality characteristic, and then correlated the scores with the various foreign policy be- haviors. By pooling the responses to obtain an aggregate score, Hermann assumes that personality remains unchanged and that the response scores are consistent throughout the decade. She did calculate a trait reliability index for each personality characteristic to check for stability over time and issues. The index was calculated by dividing the interview responses of each leader on each characteristic into two groups (odd and even numbered responses). The bifurcated scores were then intercorrelated across heads of state for each characteristic. This results in a trait reliability index for each personality attribute. Hermann's six correlations (or indexes) are high, ranging from .71 to .90.

However, the odd versus even approach can be arbitrary because there are a number of ways of splitting the scores into two groups, and each procedure can be expected to yield somewhat different estimates of true reliability (e.g., Magnusson, 1967; Nunnally, 1967; Bohrnstedt, 1970). Nevertheless, we have opted to use a trait reliability index that is calculated by dividing the interview responses of each leader on each characteristic in half and then correlating the first half of the responses with the second half. The purpose of this particular split-half method is to obtain some indication of the relative consistency of the scores over time.




If we start with the assumption that a leader's personality remains relatively constant over time, then we would expect that the interview responses for a leader in the first half of his or her administration would be correlated fairly high with the interview response in the second half of his or her administration. We assume that personality is not static, that people may undergo psychological development throughout their lifetimes (e.g., Erikson, 1950), and that some amount of instrument error is tolerable and to be expected. However, we are not willing to assume that personality changes frequently and drastically. Consequently, unusually large fluctuations in the scores of the interview responses would make a low trait reliability index more likely and imply that we are not tapping personality attributes but something else-perhaps the various signals that leaders send to other leaders about their positions on certain issues and/ or perhaps the intervening effect of varying circumstances.

Second, unlike Hermann, we have avoided any random selec- tion by verbatim responses and sought complete question-answer type interviews. By undertaking a sampling procedure of verbatim responses for leaders, Hermann is assuming that every fifth interview question will elicit the kind of response from a leader that will accurately reflect his or her personality. She also analyzed excerpts selected for publication from longer interviews. Interviews tend to cover a variety of issues; some of these issues will be more salient to leaders than others. Consequently, questions ranging from one issue area to another may evoke different kinds of responses from leaders. If the content of an interview is not particularly homogeneous, valuable information for tapping personality attributes may be lost in a sampling procedure. There- fore, in an effort to gain as much information as possible about leaders, we preferred complete question-answer and ostensibly unedited interviews for content analyzing.

Sources such as The Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Report (FBIS) and New York Times, relied upon by Her- mann, offered only a limited supply of these interviews. There- fore, news magazines such as Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, The Nation, and The New Republic were also ex-




amined. Even with the support of these additional sources, the small number of complete interviews placed constraints on the number and choice of possible candidates for examination. Con- sequently, we have chosen to concentrate on the following ten individuals: Adenauer, Asad, Bourguiba, Hussein, Meir, Nasser, Pahlavi, Sadat, Smith, and Vorster. Obviously, we are not in a position to argue that the ten are representative of all heads of state and government. They probably are not, but then we really do not know what group of individuals would constitute a representative sample. Suffice to say that they and their interview records satisfied our need for multiple and fairly complete interviews to an extent matched by few other current or previous heads of state and government.

The Results of the Test for Temporal Consistency

Other than the two fundamental differences previously noted, the procedure for deriving scores for the 6 personal characteristics is the same as Hermann's. The results are based on a principle of proportions.2 Coding manuals were generously provided by Her- mann, and two coders content analyzed the 92 interviews employed in this study.3 For the purpose of gaining some indication of the scores' temporal consistency, a Spearman Rho rank-order correlation test for reliability was employed. The test requires that we calculate each person's 6 trait scores for each of our 92 interviews.

The rank-order correlation test then involves splitting each leader's array of trait scores into two halves and then using the aggregate score of each half to rank order the ten leaders on each personality trait. For example, we have eight Adenauer interviews for the 1950-1959 period. As shown in Table 3, the aggre-

2. An abridged version of the coding criteria and attribute scoring procedures is pre- sented in the appendix. For the purpose of this analysis, we are assuming that these procedures are valid.

3. Overall inter-coding reliability was .94 as calculated by a ratio of coding agreements to the total number of coding decisions (Holsti, 1969).




TABLE 2 Heads of State and Government Selected for Analysis

Number of Temporal Range Individual State Interviews of Interviews

1. Adenauer West Germany 8 1950-1959 2. Asad Syria 8 1974-1978 3. Bourguiba Tunisia 8 1956-1968 4. Hussein Jordan 12 1957-1974 5. Meir Israel 8 1971-1974 6. Nasser Egypt 8 1955-1970 7. Pahlavi Iran 8 1959-1974 8. Sadat Egypt 14 1972-1978 9. Smith Rhodesia 10 1965-1977

10. Vorster Union of South 8 1966-1977 Africa

gate nationalism score of his first four interviews ranks him as the seventh highest. The aggregate nationalism score of his fifth through eighth interviews, however, places Adenauer as the fifth highest of the ten leaders. This same procedure is followed for each of the other nine leaders for each personality trait, per- mitting us to examine the level of agreement between the two rank orders for each trait.

The rationale behind this test is that any leader's trait score does not have a great deal of meaning if considered in isolation from the relevant trait scores of other leaders. A nationalism score of .185 for Bourguiba is not very revealing unless we are able to contrast it with the respective .137 and .409 nationalism scores of Adenauer and Vorster. Given a hypothetical range between . 137 and .409, we can then say that Adenauer and Bourguiba score relatively low on the nationalism trait, while Vorster scores relatively high. Thus, vis-a-vis our concern for reliability, we would expect that the individuals being examined would assume similar positions across time and that the levels of rank order agreement per trait should be reasonably high. An examination of Table 3, however, indicates that this expectation is not realized in our ten leader data set. The only rank order agreements which are fairly high are the ones for internal control (.782) and nationalism



' mt C, r- on "o a,, oo m

Cot~ ~ ~' r-C4" c).ta ceS oo cn (7- X tn C4 ^c

0) al ) kn r- ,C (N C, 1 o ?o

cx:l~~~ O,0 t10 n "C ON q C) r0

F~~~~~~k ON> oo C, t, m

H

0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0

1CD

o~~~~~~, t) 0c m o" ,C c) b N

~~~~~~i ~ ~ ~ ~ 0

0~~~~~~~~~~~~~0

O --C--_ o t 4 oo U) oN

1--C-- 00~~~~~1- C--

-r C-m 1 k o o ON 00 csO i

0) ~~~~~~~00 o 00~~~~~~~~0

S ; t & O O Y = O E 4 s8 0 If

58~~




(.770). The power and cognitive complexity rank orders are moderately high, but they are not high enough to suggest an adequate degree of reliability. More importantly, the low rank order correlations encountered for suspiciousness (.297) and affiliation (.345) suggest a serious reliability problem.4

Some Rival Hypotheses

If seems fairly clear that we have uncovered what appears to be a reliability problem from the ten leaders interview data. Never- theless, trait unreliability is only one possible conclusion, for there are several alternative or rival explanations for the observed fluctuation in the personality attribute scores.

Suedfeld and Tetlock's (1977) recent finding that the complexity of communications exchanged by governmental leaders was significantly lower in crises that ended in war (as opposed to crises that did not end in war) reaffirms the possible significance of situational influences. However, it is one thing to differentiate between crises that ended in war and those that did not end in war (e.g., the 1914 crisis versus the Cuban missile crisis) and still another to determine systematically the perceived nature of the situations in which our ten leaders found themselves between 1950 to 1978. Occasionally, dramatic environmental changes will take place from which it is reasonable to infer that a perceived situational change has occurred. Two conceivable examples which are pertinent to the ten leader set are the 1973 October War and the 1977 visit of Sadat to Israel.

Table 4 reports the outcome of twelve differences of means tests conducted on Sadat's mean personality attribute scores

4. Given the small sample size, one might suggest that a drastic change in the rank ordering for one leader may be a cause for low correlations. However, the evidence seems to indicate that it is not a major concern here. For instance, Table 3 reflects a signficant change in Sadat's rank order scores for nationalism, yet the overall correlation agreement is .77. In addition, since a good percentage of the original data is located at the tails rather than the center of the original frequency distribution, the Spearman rho correlation test is considered ideal since it minimizes the importance of the distance between numbers and produces a conservative estimate of association. Thus, it tends to be less sensitive to out- liers than other tests (Blalock, 1972).




TABLE 4 Sadat's Mean Personality Attribute Scores

Before and After the October War and the Visit to Israel

The October War

NAT POW INC AFF COG SUS

3/72-4/73 .348 .442 .633 .162 .366 .420 3/74-2/75 .131 .114 .444 .304 .694 .308

Significant Difference at .05 level S S S NS NS S

The Visit to Israel

NAT POW INC AFF COG SUS

11/76-4/77 .072 .069 .458 .418 .774 .237 12/77-2/78 .145 .097 .543 .239 .393 .197

Significant Difference at .05 level NS NS NS NS NS NS

NAT = nationalism AFF = affiliation POW = power COG = cognitive complexity INC = internal control SUS = suspiciousness

immediately before and after the 1973 October War and the 1977 visit to Israel. Of the 12 changes in mean scores, 4 are statistically significant, and all of these are associated with the October War. Table 4 then offers some limited evidence for the possibility of situational influences. Unfortunately, dramatic events such as the two associated with Sadat are more difficult to locate for the other nine leaders within the time spans for which we have interview data. Consequently, the Sadat tests are certainly less than con- clusive and should be regarded more as illustrations of the point than as full-fledged tests of the influence of situation on interview scores.

Accordingly, we have elected to focus instead on a second and more manipulable source of heterogeneous scores-the possible influence of multiple sources. It is quite conceivable that different news sources are subject to variable biases in relation to the types of questions asked, as well as the nature of the ques-




tions/ responses actually published. Given the fact that 8 different sources (FBIS, New York Times, Newsweek, Time, U.S. News and World Report, New Republic, Business Week, and The Nation) were utilized to obtain our 92 interviews, we need to examine the interview data for possible source influences-a test that can be most efficiently accomplished through an analysis of variance. However, since 4 of our sources (FBIS, Time, News- week, and U.S. News and World Report) yielded 86 of the 92 interviews, the ANOVA examination must be restricted to a source N of 4 and an interview N of 86.

Table 5 reports the outcomes of ANOVA examination of the six dependent variables. Source makes a statistically significant difference in three (internal control, cognitive complexity, and suspiciousness) of the six cases. However, the evident source bias is not entirely consistent. Time and Newsweek produce similar means for internal control, while FBIS and Newsweek produce similar means for cognitive complexity. Overall, it can only be said that Time appears to provide somewhat higher scores than do the other three sources. Nevertheless, the point to be stressed is that the utilization of multiple sources can constitute a significant source of trait score variance. In this study, multiple sources ac- count for approximately 10% to 14% of the variance in three of the six personality attributes. Thus, we may conclude that it is possible that some limited portion of the temporal consistency problem discussed earlier may be traceable to the use of different sources. But it is equally possible that the influence of multiple sources and situations is an independent problem to be faced in improving the reliability of interview-based personality attribute data.

Conclusion

With Hermann's (1980) procedures for coding and measuring personality characteristics as the basis, the purpose of this study has been to assess the reliability of the interview as a source for operationalizing personality attributes. Toward this end, 92



C1 Oo'CO0 o0r- m CN ol I- (Or m

2~~~~~~- VI C on

~~~~

r n 0 C1 c

.

C) cl cl 0 00 'I 004

;~~ ~~~ C, C, M -o -z _I y)m

CD . . . . . .

= > >~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~ . . . . .U 0

0~~~~~~~~~~~~ l o R N ^>

0 ~~~~ ~ 0

o) V

62~~~~~ s; Z cd w

62 Z 0 3 ,=, g : 0 I )




interviews of 10 heads of state and government in power between 1950 and 1978 were analyzed for 6 personality attributes. A test of temporal consistency-a variant of the split-halves approach which examines the possibility of change over time-suggests that the trait scores are not sufficiently consistent across time to justify the unqualified application of interview-based personality attribute scores to the prediction and explanation of foreign policy behavior. In addition, two additional sources of score variance were examined empirically. Certain types of situations may exert some influence, and an analysis of variance examination suggests that different sources of interviews are statistically significant sources of variance in different personality attribute scores.

Although it is true that we cannot dismiss the possibility that our 10 leaders and their 92 interviews might assume the status of statistical rarities, our findings cast doubt on the utility of tapping interviews for the personality attributes of foreign policy tnakers. At the very least, our findings indicate that some further attention must be devoted to the confounding influences of temporal inconsistency, data source, and the situation of the interviewee. More generally, while it is quite conceivable that interviews do reveal the personality attributes of the interviewees, the nature of our test outcomes do not give us grounds for feeling confident that the present state of the art is capable of accurately measuring these personality attributes using such interview analysis methods.

Finally, the results reported in this article should not be interpreted as an indictment of the general utility of content analysis techniques. Our aims and conclusions have been much more modest. Our findings suggest that a given approach to the content analysis of interviews given by heads of state and government does not seem to generate highly reliable indicators of personality attributes. Content analysis certainly has a number of other useful applications as may interviews, for that matter. What we have attempted is to delineate one area in which the conjunction of specific content analysis procedures and interviews does not yet achieve the desired results.




APPENDIX Personality Attribute Coding Criteria and Scoring Procedures

Nationalism

Criteria References to the speaker's nation: (a) which were preceded by a favorable modifier, (b) which were preceded by a modifier indicating strength, (c) which contained within the content mention of the need to maintain

national honor and sovereignty. References to other nations: (a) which were preceded by an unfavorable modifier, (b) which contained within the content mention of the meddlesomeness

of the referent in the affairs of others.

Score: The ratio of the number of references which meet the specified criteria to the total number of references to own and other nations observed.

Belief in Internal Ability to Control Events

Criteria Verbs indicating that the head of state: (a) was responsible for initiating or planning the action listed, (b) assumed that his or her nation would initiate or plan such activity.

Score: The ratio of the number of verbs which meet the specified criteria to the total number of verbs observed.

Need fbr Power

Criteria Verbs and context which: (a) indicate strong forceful actions which affect others, (b) suggest giving help, advice, or assistance to another when not solicited

by the other, (c) denote an attempt to control other persons or groups by regulating

their behavior or the conditions of their lives or by seeking information which would affect other people's lives or actions,

(d) indicate an attempt to influence, persuade, convince, bribe, make a point, or argue with other persons or groups so long as the concern is not with reaching agreement or avoiding misunderstanding,

(e) suggest an attempt to impress other persons or groups or to create a public display in order to gain fame and/or notoriety,

(f) denote concern for one's reputation or position.

Score: The ratio of the number of verbs which meet the specified criteria to the total number of verbs observed.

Need for Affiliation

Criteria Verb s and context which: (a) indicate a positive feeling for other persons or groups, (b) suggest reaction to a disruption of a relationship, (c) denote companionate activities such as making visits, (d) indicate nurturant acts such as helping other persons or groups or

being concerned about the well-being of other persons or groups.

Score. The ratio of the number of verbs which meet the specified criteria to the total number of verbs observed.




APPENDIX (Continued)

Conceptual Complexity

Criteria Words indicating: (a) low conceptual complexity (e.g., "definitely," "unquestionably"), (b) high conceptual complexity (e.g., "perhaps," "sometimes").

Score: The ratio of the number of high conceptual complexity words to the number of low conceptual complexity words observed.

Suspiciousness

Criteria All nouns and pronouns referring to persons, groups, or nations other than the speaker or the speaker's people, nation, or government if their context indicates doubt, misgiving, uneasiness, or wariness about what those others were doing, saying, or planning.

Score: The ratio of nouns and pronouns which meet the specified criteria to the total number of nouns and pronouns observed.

Source: Based on Hermann (1980). Space does not permit more specific examples which may be found in the original source.

REFERENCES

BLALOCK, H. M. (1972) Social Statistics. New York: McGraw-Hill. BOHRNSTEDT, G. W. (1970) "Reliability and validity assessment in attitude measure-

ment," pp. 80-99 in G. F. Summers (ed.) Attitude Measurement. Chicago: Rand McNally.

DeRIVERA, J. H. (1968) The Psychological Dimension of Foreign Policy. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill.

ERIKSON, E. H. (1950) Childhood and Society. New York: Norton. FALKOWSKI, L. S. (1978) Presidents, Secretaries of State, and Crises in U.S. Foreign

Relations: A Model and Predictive Analysis. Boulder, CO: Westview. FRIEDLANDER, S. and R. COHEN (1975) "The personality and correlates of belliger-

ence in international conflict." Comparative Politics 7 (January). GEORGE, A. L. and J. GEORGE (1964) Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Per-

sonality Study. New York: Dover. HERMANN, C. F. and M. G. HERMANN (1969) "An attempt to simulate the outbreak

of World War 1," pp. 622-639 in J. N. Rosenau (ed.) International Politics and Foreign Policy: A Reader in Research and Theory. New York: Free Press.

---and R. A. CANTOR (1974) "Counterattack or delay: characteristics influencing decision-makers responses to the simulation of an unidentified attack." J. of Conflict Resolution 18 (March).

HERMANN, M. G. (1980) "Explaining foreign policy behavior using the personal characteristics of political leaders." Int. Studies Q. 24 (March).

---(1977) A Psychological Examination of Political Leaders. New York: Free Press.




--- (1974) "Leader personality and foreign policy behavior," pp. 201-234 in J. N. Rosenau (ed.) Comparing Foreign Policies: Theories, Findings, and Methods. New York: John Wiley.

HOLSTI, 0. R. (1972) Crisis, Escalation, War. Montreal: McGill-Queens Univ. Press. --- (1969) Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities. Reading, MA:

Addison-Wesley. --- (1962) "The belief system and national images: a case study," J. of Conflict Reso-

lution 6 (September). JERVIS, R. (1969) "The costs of the quantitative study of international relations," in

K. Knorr and J. N. Rosenau (ed.) Contending Approaches to International Politics. Princeton, NJ; Princeton Univ. Press.

LEVINE, R. A. (1966) Dreams and Deeds: Achievement Motivation in Nigeria. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

MAGNUSSON, D. (1967) Test Theory. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. NORTH, R. C., 0. R. HOLSTI, M. G. ZANINOVICH, and D. ZINNES(1963) Content

Analysis: A Handbook with Applications for the Study of International Crisis. Evan- ston, IL: Northwestern Univ. Press.

NUNNALLY, J. C. (1967) Psychometric Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill. OSGOOD, C. E. (1959) "The representational model and relevant research methods,"

in 1. Poole (ed.) Trends in Content Analysis. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press. ---and L. ANDERSON (1957) "Certain relations among experienced contingencies,

associative structure and contingencies in encoded messages." Amer. J. of Psychology 70.

POOLE, 1. (1959) "Preface" in 1. Poole (ed.) Trends in Content Analysis. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.

ROGOW, A. A. (1963) James Forrestal: A Study of Personality, Politics, and Policy, New York: Macmillan.

SUEDFELD, P. and P. TETLOCK (1977) "Integrative complexity of communications in international crisis," J. of Conflict Resolution 21 (March).

TUCKER, R. C. (1973) Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929: A Study of History and Per- sonality. New York: Norton.

WALKER, S. G. (1977) "The interface between beliefs and behavior: Henry Kissinger's operational code and the Vietnam War." J. of Conflict Resolution 21 (March).

WOLFENSTEIN, E. V. (1967) The Revolutionary Personality: Lenin, Trotsky, Gandhi. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.



foreign policy makers, personality attributes, and interviews: a note on reliability problems

Documents