The Psychological Assessment of Political Leadersrelated o.io for the 87 heads of state in my sample of leaders and
0.33 for the broader set of 122 political leaders. Both correlations
suggest that we will find all combinations of the trait scores among
world leaders. These two traits are assessed in the following way.
Self-ConfidenceSelf-confidence indicates one's sense of self-importance, an individ-
ual's image of his or her ability to cope adequately with objects and
persons in the environment. Indeed, self-confidence "is that compo-
nent of the self system which is involved in regulating the extent to
which the self system is maintained under conditions of strain such
as occur during the processing of new information relative to the
self (Ziller et al. 1977, 177; see also Ziller 1973). Stimuli from the
environment are mediated by a person's sense of self. Since people
tend to develop their self-confidence as a result of evaluating them-
selves in comparison with others and their experiences, this trait
often becomes the frame of reference for positioning one's self in a
particular context.
In coding for self-confidence, the focus is on the pronouns my,
myself, I, me, and mine. When speakers interject these pronouns into
their speech, how important do they see themselves compared to
what is happening? Does the use of the pronoun reflect that the
leader is instigating an activity (e.g., "I am going to ..." or "That is
my plan of action"), should be viewed as an authority figure on this
issue (e.g., "If it were up to me.. ." or "Let me explain what we
mean"), or is the recipient of a positive response from another person
or group (e.g., "You flatter me with your praise" or "My position was
accepted")? In each of these instances, there is an enhanced sense of
TABLE 8.3. RULES FOR DETERMINING OPENNESS TO INFORMATION
Openness to
Contextual
Scores on Conceptual Complexity and Self-Confidence Information
Conceptual Complexity > Self-Confidence Open
Self-Confidence > Conceptual Complexity Closed
Conceptual Complexity and Self-Confidence Both High Open
Conceptual Complexity and Self-Confidence Both Low Closed