Handbook of Psychology, Volume 5, Personality and Social Psychology

A Personality-in-Politics Agenda for the New Century 609

15.For advancing theoretical systematization, the concep-

tual model should be nomothetically oriented, permit

typological inquiry, and posit a taxonomy of political

personality types.

A PERSONALITY-IN-POLITICS AGENDA

FOR THE NEW CENTURY

In the new world order of the twenty-first century, personal-

ity-in-politics inquiry is poised to reclaim personality as the

central organizing principle in the study of political leader-

ship, informed by insights garnered from the cognitive revo-

lution preceding the close of the twentieth century and

energized by the quickening evolutionary reconceptualiza-

tion of personology at the dawn of the new millennium.

From Cognitive Revolution to Evolutionary Psychology

On the crest of major breakthroughs in evolutionary biology

during the preceding quarter-century, the emerging evolution-

ary perspective in psychology since the mid-1980s (see Buss,

1999; Millon, 1990; Millon, this volume) represents the first

major theoretical shift in the discipline since the cognitive rev-

olution of the 1950s and 1960s. Conceptually, the integrative

capacity of Millon’s (1990; Millon, this volume) evolutionary

model renders it sufficiently comprehensive to accommodate

major tenets of psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, inter-

personal, cognitive, biogenic, and trait approaches to person-

ality. Methodologically, Millon’s framework provides an

empirically validated taxonomy of personality patterns com-

patible with the syndromes described inDSM-IV,Axis II

(APA, 1994).

No present conceptual system in the field of political

personality rivals Millon’s model in compatibility with con-

ventional psychodiagnostic methods and standard clinical

practice in personality assessment. Moreover, no current sys-

tem matches the elegance with which Millon’s evolutionary

model synthesizes normality and psychopathology. In short,

Millon offers a theoretically coherent alternative to existing

conceptual frameworks and assessment methodologies for

the psychological examination of political leaders (see Post,

2003, for an up-to-date collection of current conceptualiza-

tions; see Kinder, 1999, for a series of reviews, both critical

and laudatory, of “Millon’s evolving personality theories and

measures”).

The Utility of Millon’s Model as a Generative

Framework for the Study of Personality in Politics

The work of Millon (1990, 1994a, 1996, and his chapter in

this volume; Millon & Davis, 2000; Millon, Davis, & Millon,

1996; Millon & Everly, 1985) provides a sound foundation

for conceptualizing and assessing political personality, clas-

sifying political personality types, and predicting political

behavior.

Epistemologically, it synthesizes the formerly disparate

fields of psychopathology and normatology and formally

connects them to broader spheres of scientific knowledge,

most notably their foundations in the natural sciences

(Millon, this volume). Diagnostically, it offers an empirically

validated taxonomy of personality patterns congruent with

the syndromes described on Axis II of DSM-IV(APA, 1994),

thus rendering it compatible with conventional psychodiag-

nostic procedures and standard clinical practice in personal-

ity assessment.

Millon (1986) uses the concept of the personalityprototype

(paralleling the medical concept of thesyndrome) as a global

formulation for construing and categorizing personality sys-

tems, proposing that “each personality prototype should com-

prise a small and distinct group of primary attributes that

persist over time and exhibit a high degree of consistency”

(p. 681). To Millon, the essence of personality categorization

is the differential identification of these enduring (stable) and

pervasive (consistent) primary attributes. This position is con-

sistent with the conventional view of personality in the study

of politics (see Knutson, 1973, pp. 29–38). In organizing his

attribute schema, Millon (1986) favors “an arrangement that

represents the personality system in a manner similar to that of

the body system, that is, dividing the components intostruc-

turalandfunctionalattributes” (p. 681; see Millon, 1990,

pp. 134–135, for a concise summary of these attribute

domains).

The Core Characteristics of a Comprehensive

Model of Personality in Politics

A comprehensive model for the study of personality in politics

(see Fig. 24.1) should account for structural and functional

personality attributes, at behavioral, phenomenological, in-

trapsychic, and biophysical levels of analysis; permit supple-

mentary developmental causal analysis (i.e., genesis or

etiology); provide an explicit framework for risk analysis (i.e.,

account for normal variability as well as personality

pathology); and provide an assessment methodology. Further-

more, the personality model should be linked with perfor-

mance outcomes, recognize the impact of situational variables

and the cultural context on political performance, and

allow for personological, situational, and contextual filters

that may modulate the impact of personality on political

performance.

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