The Psychological Assessment of Political Leadersbeliefs indicate the following choice and shift propensities. Rusk
believes in a definitely friendly strategy in his approach to political
goals and believes in somewhat cooperative tactics to pursue them. He
has an approach to the calculation and control of risk characterized
overall by a very low score. This risk-averse orientation is marked by a
propensity at a medium level to shift flexibly both between conflict and
cooperation and between words and deeds. When this leader's score for
I-1 is plotted against the score for Self s control over historical devel-
opment (P~4a), the coordinates indicate that Rusk locates Self in the
type C quadrant of the template in figure 9.4.
The secretary of state's scores for philosophical beliefs show a
leader with the following diagnostic propensities: the political uni-
verse is somewhat hostile, and he is somewhat pessimistic about the
prospects for realizing fundamental political values. He views the
political future as very low in predictability, believes that he has a
medium level of control over historical development, and attributes
a very high role to chance. When this leader's scores for the nature of
the political universe (P-i) is plotted against the score for Other's
locus of control (P-4b), the coordinates indicate that Rusk's view of
Other falls close to the center of the template in the type DEF quad-
rant of figure 9.4.
Depending on the amount of information available from public
statements, it is possible to refine these predictions and raise further
the confidence level for a particular leader in two ways.
First, it is desirable to use the additional information about risk
orientation and shift propensities from Rusk's profile to qualify or
strengthen the confidence level of the predictions. In the example
from table 9.1, the predictions for a leader in the type C quadrant are
choice propensities to use Reward and Deter tactics as part of a gen-
eral cooperative strategy. However, the leader's medium (.53) level of
control over historical development, very low (.03) orientation toward
taking risks, and medium (.57 and .53) propensities to shift tactics
make it relatively likely that he or she will use other tactics, too.
Second, if there is sufficient available information, these
refinements are subject to further qualifications. It is possible to par-
tition the observations by time, domain, issue area, and target and
then recalculate the VICS indices. The effects of disaggregating
beliefs are (a) to narrow the scope of their steering effects to apply