The Psychological Assessment of Political Leadersfilters of interest, learning, and situation, reflects some of the most
sophisticated and advanced trends of modern personality theory and
research applied to the interpretation and understanding of foreign
policy behavior. The striking confirmation of this model in the Rea-
gan, Bush, and Gorbachev cases should encourage its further devel-
opment and application.
The at-a-Distance AssessmentWe must recognize that even with the best psychobiographical por-
traits or at-a-distance measures, predictions of leaders' behavior must
always be phrased in contingent or conditional "if/then" terms
(Wright and Mischel 1987a, 1987b). That is, the effects of leaders'
personalities will always depend on the situations in which they find
themselves—and personality profiling can never predict those exact
situations. On the other hand, by developing complex ways to repre-
sent the interaction of personality elements with each other, and
with the situation and environment, we should be able to make both
academic progress and useful contributions to the formation of pol-
icy. In their follow-up to an earlier analysis of Bush and Gorbachev,
Winter et al. (1991b) illustrated the way in which predictions made
on the basis of a profile of the leader's personality must be "condi-
tionally hedged" in the presence of unpredictable changes in the sit-
uation. That is, although their original profile of George H. W. Bush
had described him as a "peacemaker, concerned with development
and not prone to seek political ends through violence and war"
(Winter et al. 1991a, 237), they also noted his impulsivity and ten-
dency to react defensively, with anger, when threatened by someone
perceived as dissimilar, as happened when Saddam Hussein's armed
forces invaded Kuwait in 1990. Bush went on to fight the Gulf War
in ways that were consistent with his overall profile. Even in the face
of situational uncertainties and surprises, Winter et al. concluded,
personality profiles can still provide useful "if/then" guides to under-
standing the behavior of leaders.
The last few decades have seen great progress in academic research
and practice for profiling and assessing political leaders, both by
means of psychobiographical portraits and by systematic and objec-
tive at-a-distance measures. Later chapters of this book provide more
detailed descriptions of these methods, and examples of applications