Political Personality Profiling

Abstract

The Political Personality Profile was developed in order to provide senior policy makers with a comprehensive psychological representation of leaders in context. It describes the life course that shaped key attitudes, and specifies aspects of behavior especially relevant to policy makers dealing with leaders in summit meetings and other high-level negotiations, as well as in crisis situations. The approach asks two general questions: What were the events and experiences that helped shape the leader’s personality (psychogenesis)? And what are the psychological forces within a personality that drive political behavior (psychodynamics)? We never can know for certain what drives an individual, but the more solidly we understand these foundations of the leader’s psychology, the more confidently we can infer influences on – and patterns of – political behavior.