Assessing Leaders' Personalitiesintegrative complexity). After the attack, however, integrative com-
plexity in the attacked nation quickly declines to war levels.
An alternative theory of cognitive complexity, involving the four
processes of shaping, reflective articulation, extrapolation, and sys-
tem transformation, has been developed by Jaques (1986; Jaques and
Cason 1994). However, to date this conception has not been
employed in the at-a-distance assessment of political leaders.
Cognitive MappingThe technique of cognitive mapping (Axelrod 1976) is a way of rep-
resenting the structure of causal beliefs or assertions of individual
political leaders, particularly as they involve relationships between
policies, goals, and outcomes or effects. Maps of different leaders can
be evaluated and compared in terms of characteristics such as density
(the number of causal links), balance, links between peripheral and
policy variables, and so forth. Hart (1977) used this technique to
study Latin American leaders, and Hart and Greenstein (1977) ana-
lyzed the cognitive maps of U.S. presidents Wilson and Eisenhower.
Bonham (1993) cites applications of cognitive mapping to the analy-
sis of diplomatic events such as the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference
and the 19705 arms reduction negotiations. Walker and Watson
(1992) discussed the relationship between cognitive mapping and
various measures of cognitive complexity in a study of British lead-
ers during the crises of 1938—39.
Explanatory Style
The concept of explanatory style grows out of decades of research on
variables such as internal versus external locus of control and patterns
of causal attribution. An optimistic explanatory style involves
explaining "bad" events by external, specific, and temporary factors.
It is related to feelings of zest, persistence, and good performance. (In
contrast, the pessimistic style, where bad events are seen as the result
of internal, global, and enduring factors, leads to depression, avoid-
ance, and failure.)
Zullow et al. (1988) found that Lyndon Johnson showed a highly
optimistic explanatory style during the Gulf of Tonkin incident and
subsequent American military Vietnam War buildup. During the