The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders1961; Schroder, Driver, and Streufert 1967). Measurement relies
upon responses to general questions within fundamental contexts
such as relationship with authority and reactions to uncertainty, and
these predetermined questions are administered in a classroom or
laboratory setting devoid of emotional significance or conflict
(Schroder, Driver, and Streufert 1967). Early attempts to find associ-
ations between trait complexity and other personality variables have
found modest relationships with content-laden cognitive styles such
as authoritarianism (Adorno et al. 1950), dogmatism (Rokeach
1960), and field independence (Witkin et al. 1962). Intelligence and
complexity are correlated at a moderate level, which varies with the
sample and the IQ test used (Schroder, Driver, and Streufert: 1967).
Conceptual complexity has been found to have only a modest corre-
lation with mental abilities, including verbal ability, crystallized
intelligence, fluid intelligence, and divergent thinking, at least in
restricted-range university student populations (Schroder, Driver,
and Streufert 1967; Suedfeld and Coren 1992).
Moderate correlations have also been found between trait (concep-
tual) complexity and a long list of general personality characteristics:
openness and creativity, low social compliance and conscientious-
ness, narcissism and antagonism, high initiative, power motivation
and self-objectivity (Schroder, Driver, and Streufert 1967; Tetlock,
Peterson, and Berry 1993; Tetlock, Skitka, and Boettger 1989),
social adeptness, gregariousness, extroversion, warmth and nurtu-
rance, and nonconformity (Coren and Suedfeld 1995). Conceptual
complexity may in fact be associated with some unattractive person-
ality traits, which lead others to perceive one as being easily bored,
self-centered, and narcissistic (Tetlock, Peterson, and Berry 1993);
but those judgments may have reflected the reactance of more com-
plex participants against the grueling weekend of intense assessment
during which the measures were taken.
Trait complexity may be a factor in leadership success. For exam-
ple, leaders notable for their length of tenure in high office (such as
Andrei A. Gromyko in the twentieth century and the Duke of
Wellington in the nineteenth century) maintained relatively high
levels of complexity even during crises where their colleagues and
counterparts showed disruptive stress leading to reduced complexity
(Wallace and Suedfeld 1988). General Lee consistently functioned at