Two Reagans? Genre Imperatives,Ghostwriters, and Presidential Personality Profiling

Attempts to gauge presidential personality on the basis of speeches and other public statements are subject to several potential validity threats. This paper presents a test of the genre imperative of the tendency to make the president sound "presidential," in combination with the fact that most presidential addresses are drafted by ghostwriters. The test involves comparing the "activity" and "positivity" levels of 235 syndicated radio commentaries that Ronald Reagan wrote and delivered during the years immediately before he became president and 299 weekly radio addresses that he delivered while he was president. The two Reagans were by no means fundamentally different, but the differences between them nonetheless sound a note of caution about basing personality assessments on presidents' public statements.     

Book Reviews

Books Reviewed:
Judith Torney-Purta, John Schwille, and Jo-Ann Amadeo (eds.), CivicEducation Across Countries: Twenty-Four National Case Studies from the IEA Civil Education Project
Marc Howard Ross and Jay Rothman (eds.), Theory and Practice in Ethic Conflict Management: Theorizing Success and Failure
Jane Flax, The American Dream in Black andWhite: The Clarence Thomas Hearings
Diana C. Mutz, Impersonal Influence: How Perceptions of mass Collectives Affect Political Attitudes     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Christopher Mabey, Denise Skinner and Timothy Clark Experiencing Human Resource Management Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter The Truth about Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It K.W. De Dreu and Evert Van De Vliert Using Conflict in Organizations Richard Jeanneret and Rob Silzer Individual Psychological Assessment: Predicting Behavior in Organizational Settings     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Robert Shaw Trust in the Balance; Building Successful Organizations on Results, Integrity and Concern Louis H. Janda Psychological Testing: Theory and Applications David Ulrich, Michael R. Losey and Geraldine Lake, (eds) Tomorrow's HR Management: 48 Thought Leaders Call For Change     

Ronald Reagan's Presidency: The Impact of an Alcoholic Parent

Ronald Reagan enjoyed a successful political career. Nevertheless, his political life was affected dramatically by the fact that he was the son of an alcoholic parent. Alcoholic parents leave deep marks on their children's lives, even after those children become adults. As president of the United States, Reagan clearly demonstrated these marks. He was aloof and distant, was often a disengaged leader, showed inordinate loyalty to associates even when such loyalty became problematic, was prone to live in a world of make‐believe, married compulsive women, and craved approval and applause. Each of these behavioral characteristics was part of the psychological legacy left to this president by his long‐dead alcoholic father. Some of them damaged his presidency greatly; others, however, may well have assisted it.     

Book Reviews

Schabracq, Marc J., Winnibst, Jacques A.M. and Cooper, Cary L., Handbook of Work and Health Psychology Bandura, Albert, Self-efficacy: the exercise of control Wiggins, Jerry S. The Five-Factor Model of Personality. Theoretical Perspectives Arredondo, Patricia, Successful diversity management initiatives: a blueprint for planning and implementation     

Explaining Rigidity and Pragmatism in Political Leaders: A General Theory and a Plausibility Test from the Reagan Presidency

Classic studies of a few extreme, almost pathological cases of rigidity in political leaders (e.g., Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations debacle) have tended to obscure the fact that virtually all leaders alternate between periods of pragmatic flexibility and rigid intransigence in the face of political opposition or unpleasant facts. This study develops a general theoretical framework for explaining rigidity and flexibility in political leaders by extending insights from classic studies of extreme cases to everyday policymaking and by integrating these findings with more recent theoretical and empirical work in political psychology. The plausibility of hypotheses derived from this framework is investigated by examining the conditions associated with pragmatism and rigidity in 15 cases from the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The results are generally consistent with the proposed model, which stresses person-situation interaction and traces rigidity to the arousal of leaders' sources of self-validation in a particular policy context. I conclude by evaluating the implications of this new framework for other areas of theory and research.     

ThePrepared and Spontaneous Remarks of Presidents Reagan and Bush: A Validity Comparison for At-a-Distance Measurements

This paper examines the spontaneous and prepared remarks of Presidents Reagan and Bush in the domain of U.S.-Soviet relations at the end of the Cold War. The findings suggest thatm researchers should be cautious when drawing their sample frames, because scores gleaned from prepared remarks may contain systematic differences large enough to affect the workings of models using at-a-distance measurements. However, if the leader is involved in the preparation of speeches he or she delivers, then these prepared speeches typically are as valid an indicator of the leader's psychological variables as are spontaneous remarks from interviews. Context effects may be present for both cognitive and personal variables in remarks from spontaneous and prepared statements. Impression management, therefore, may be a bigger problem than authorship in assessing leaders at a distance.     

Book Reviews

John T. Haworth Work, Leisure and Well-being Owen Hargie The Handbook of Communication Skills Richard Lepsinger and Anntoinette D. Lucia The Art and Science of 360° Feedback Kevin Murphy Individual differences and behavior in organizations     

Book Reviews

Using a latent variable modelling strategy we study individual differences in patterns of answers to the selection task and to the truth table task. Specifically we investigate the prediction of mental model theory according to which the individual tendency to select the false consequent card (in the selection task) is negatively correlated with the tendency to judge the false antecedent cases as irrelevant (in the truth table task). We fit a psychometric model to two large samples (N = 486, twice), and find no evidence for this negative correlation. We examine which of the assumptions of the model theory must be amended to accommodate our findings.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
George E. Marcus, W. Russell Newman, and Michael MacKuen, Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment
Micha Popper, Hypnotic Leadership:Leaders, Followers, and the Loss of Self
James W. Davis, Jr., Threats and Promises: The Pursuit of International Influence
Mark R. Warren, Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy
Tali Mendelberg, The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Raymond D. Boisvert, John Dewey: Rethinking Our Time
Larry A. Hickman, ed., Reading Dewey: Interpretations for a Postmodern Generation
Jennifer Welchman, Dewey's Ethical Thought
Richard Shusterman, Practicing Philosophy: Pragmatism and the Philosophical Life
Richard E. Hart and Douglas R. Anderson, eds., Philosophy in Experience: American Philosophy in Transition
Richard Kearney, Poetics of Modernity: Toward a Hermeneutic Imagination     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Lester L. Grabbe (ed), Can a History of Israel be Written? Michael Prior (ed), Western Scholarship and the History of Palestine Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg, The Bible and the Ancient Near East Tilde Binger, Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament Ben Witherington The Paul Quest: The Renewed Search for the Jew of Tarsus Robert Valantasis, The Gospel of Thomas (New Testament Readings) Moshe Halbertal, People of the Book: Canon, Meaning and Authority William J. Abraham, Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology: From the Fathers to Feminism Roger Haight, Jesus: Symbol of God Raymund Schwager, translated by James G. Williams and Paul Haddon, Jesus in the Drama of Salvation: Towards a Biblical Doctrine of Redemption Raymund Schwager, translated by James G. Williams, Jesus of Nazareth: How He Understood His Life A. E. McGrath, Historical Theology. An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought C. Markschies, Between Two Worlds: Structures of Earliest Christianity Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of his Thought Leonard P. Hindsley, The Mystics of Engelthal: Writings from a Medieval Monastery Kent Emery, Jr., and Joseph Wawrykow (eds), Christ among the Medieval Dominicans: Representations of Christ in the Texts and Images of the Order of Preachers Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt, Julian of Norwich and the Mystical Body Politic of Christ (Studies in Spirituality and Theology 5) Pat Collins, Spirituality for the 21st Century: Christian Living in a Secular Age Timothy O'Connell, Making Disciples Gordon Lathrop, Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology Stratford Caldecott (ed), Beyond the Prosaic: Renewing the Liturgical Movement Michael Hurley, Christian Unity: An Ecumenical Second Spring? John M. Riddle, Eve's Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West J. Davies, Death, Burial and Rebirth in the Religions of Antiquity Simon Price, Religions of the Ancient Greeks Karsten Friis Johansen, A History of Ancient Philosophy from the Beginnings to Augustine A. A. Long (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy C. C. W. Taylor, The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus: Fragments Gail Fine (ed), Oxford Readings in Philosophy: Plato. Vol. 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology, Vol. 2: Ethics, Politics, Religion and the Soul Noburu Notomi, The Unity of Plato's ‘Sophist’: Between the ‘Sophist’ and the ‘Philosopher’ Helen S. Lang, The Order of Nature in Aristotle's The Order of Nature in Aristotle's ‘Physics’ M. S. Kempshall, The Common Good in Late Medieval Political Thought Giordano Bruno. Edited and translated by Richard J. Blackwell and Robert de Lucca, Cause, Principle and Unity – And Essays on Magic     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Ronald Hayman, A Life of Jung Mario Jacoby, Jungian Psychotherapy and Contemporary Infant Research: Basic Patterns of Emotional Exchange P. Pietikainen, C. G. Jung and the Psychology of Symbolic Forms Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams A New Translation by Joyce Crick. Ana-Maria Rizzuto, Why Did Freud Reject God? A Psychodynamic Interpretation T. Ogden, Reverie and Interpretation: Sensing Something Human Christopher Bollas, The Mystery of Things Douglas Kirsner, Unfree Associations: Inside Psychoanalytic Institutions      

Book Reviews

James Campbell, Understanding John Dewey: Nature and Cooperative Intelligence
Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism: Reweaving the Social Fabric     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
John Ryder, Interpreting America: Russian and Soviet Studies of the History of American Thought
Maria Pia Lara, Moral Textures: Feminist Narratives in the Public Sphere     

Book Reviews

Abstract

This paper raises a question about one of the principal assumptions of some neo-Thomist approaches to divine action: that it is always inappropriate to conceive of God as one agent among others. To do so, it is claimed, is to reduce God's position from that of Creator to that of a creature. However, this seems an odd position to take in light of the Incarnation. I suggest that after the divine humility displayed in the Incarnation, conceiving God as one agent among others is not as theologically problematic as it is initially represented by some neo-Thomists.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Rose McDermott, Risk-Taking in International Politics Yaacov Y. I. Vertzberger, Risk Taking and Decisionmaking: Foreign Military Intervention Decisions Meredith W. Watts, Xenophobia in United Germany: Generations, Modernization, and Ideology Tom R. Tyler, Robert J. Boeckman, Heather J. Smith, and Yuen J. Huo, Social Justice in a Diverse Society Fritz Redlich, Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet Alexander L. George and Juliette L. George (eds.), Presidential Personality and Performance Norman N. Nie, Jane Junn, and Kenneth Stehlik-Barry, Education and Democratic Citizenship in America Arthur Lupia and Mathew D. McCubbins, The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need to Know?     

Book Reviews

Kressel, Neil J. (ed.) Political Psychology: Classic and Contemporary Readings
Barber, James David The Book of Democracy
Aron, Adrianne and Corne, Shawn (eds) Writings for a Liberation Psychology: Ignacio Martin-Baró
Ettin, Mark F.; Fidler, Jay W. and Cohen, Bertram D. Group Processes and Political Dynamics     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Barbara Kellerman, Reinventing Leadership: Making the Connection Between Politics and Business
Jon Hurwitz and Mark Peffley (eds.), Perception and Prejudice: Race and Politics in the United States
Neil J. Smelser, The Social Edges of Psychoanalysis
Paul Wachtel, Race in the Mind of America: Breaking the Vicious Circle Between Whites and Blacks
Russell F. Farnen and Jos D. Meloen, Democracy, Authoritarianism and Education: A Cross-National Empirical Survey