History — and hundreds of millions of people around the world — will mark today as the day that the first African-American takes office as President of the United States of America. It is not only a historic event because Barack Obama is of a different race than all prior Presidents, but because his race was enslaved by the very same country (albeit not the same people) which he now leads.
Obama has a lot to do, and I fear that expectations are so high and the work so expansive, he may not be as successful as we all would like.
History will likely judge George W. Bush’s presidency as decidedly mixed. His litany of failures are well-known — a failure to stave off the largest recession since the Great Depression, a failure to devise and implement a realistic strategy in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and a failure to have a vision for the future that didn’t include government spying on every one of its citizens (eerily similar to George Orwell’s predictions in the book, 1984) in the name of “terrorism.” While acting decisively in Afghanistan, he then went on to get us involved in a Vietnam-like quagmire of an occupation in neighboring Iraq. He has been a disconnected President that seems genuinely surprised that he got the job — not just once, but twice.
People will turn to Obama and expect that his Presidency will be able to not only fix all of these mistakes, but do so in a timely manner. Nothing can be further from the truth. While he may indeed be successful in closing down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, extracting the U.S. troops from Iraq is likely a multi-year process. Repairing the international goodwill and reputation of the U.S. will take even longer (although, arguably, Bush and Rice have been working to do that in the past year or two).
The President has little direct influence on the economy, but given that so many of the financial sectors are driven by psychology and not actual financial data, a new regime may be just what the Wall Street doctors ordered to restore lenders’ and investors’ confidence. Obama’s own economic stimulus plan — $800 billion worth — will likely pass, as everyone believes it necessary. But what actual effect it’ll have is anyone’s guess, as employers continue to lay off more workers than at any time in our history since the Great Depression.
So turning back to psychology, what attributes might best predict Presidential greatness? A researcher named Simonton did a study in 1981 that found the single most attribute correlated with presidential greatness was years in office. Other attributes that increase a president’s perceived greatness are an assassination or assassination attempt and the number of books he published before becoming president. The number of war years that the president presides over also predicts a president’s greatness. Being a professional soldier before becoming president and any scandals while in the White House decrease a president’s greatness.
What is especially interesting are the factors that do not predict Presidential greatness:
Family background, personal characteristics, education, occupation, and political experiences provided few if any predictors of presidential performance, although succession to office through the vice presidency had a generally negative effect.
That last bit might explain why Al Gore couldn’t get elected, as the U.S. public seems to have a hard time taking vice presidents very seriously when they take a run at the higher office. Simonton summarized their greatness predictors:
The greatest presidents have longer administrations, lead the nation through more years of war, offer targets for unsuccessful assassination attempts, avoid major scandals, and publish many books before entering office.
These variables explain 75% of the variance of presidential greatness according to the researcher. How does this bode for Obama?
Obama has written three books and will likely lead the nation through at least another 4 years of war as he removes our troops from Iraq and continues work in Afghanistan. Hopefully he will not be the target of any assassination attempts and can avoid any major scandals, such as those that plagued his Democratic predecessor. He also has not been a professional soldier, which actually works to his favor in history’s eyes.
All of which initially bodes well for Obama, at least from the perspective of predictive psychological research.
We join the rest of the nation — and, in fact, the world — in watching today’s inauguration and wishing Barack Obama the best of luck with leading the country through one of its most difficult times in the past century.
Reference:
Simonton, D.K. (1981). Presidential greatness and performance: Can we predict leadership in the White House? Journal of Personality, 49(3), 306-323.
14 comments
“Greatness” apparently decided (by whom) after the fact, and not necessarily related to actual accomplishments in office, but perceptions or feelings only… !
“The greatest presidents have longer administrations” — is that a correlation, or a cause?
“Family background, personal characteristics, education, occupation, and political experiences provided few if any predictors of Presidential performance”
I find that hard to believe. Take Lincoln, for example. Personal characteristics had little to do with his “greatness”? That is not how I perceive it.
It might help to give you the two hypotheses this study posed:
This researcher then went on to conduct a number of followup studies since this study, which honed in on some of the factors. But most of the key factors mentioned above were all shown in followup studies to be relevant to history’s (admittedly subjective) judgment of the “greatness” of a President.
“A researcher named Simonton did a study in 1981 that found the single most attribute correlated with presidential greatness was years in office.”
Wow. He must be really annoyed at Dubya for single-handedly invalidating his work.
“His litany of failures are well-known — a failure to stave off the largest recession since the Great Depression” and then you write, “The President has little direct influence on the economy.” There’s a logic problem here.
Logically or not, people expect the President to “do something” when the American people are suffering due to an economic downturn. History looks more favorably upon FDR than it does Hoover (even though there are economists who claim that FDR’s interventions actually extended the Great Depression).
I joined the session CNN and Facebook made together and was excited to be able to communicate as the inauguration happened with people all around the globe.
Made some screen shots. One result you can find here:
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-193172
It was: Yes, we can!
It is: YOU DID
I’m not sure Simonton’s work shows the psychological attributes that predict greatness–merely the various experiences that predict others’ perceptions of a president’s “greatness.”
However, I am reminded of a MetLife study that attempted to identify the attribute most predictive of an insurance agent’s success. It was not mathematical ability or problem solving ability or extroversion.
It was optimism.
It makes sense–a salesperson must pick him/herself up and dust him/herself off after each rejection, believing that he/she is just one call away from a sale.
I think it’s a good predictor for presidents (and all of us) as well.
Our Presedent is an interesting man. He is someone who through no choice of his own has stood outside of virtually everthing. He is not black enough to be accepted as black, not white enough to be accepted as white. He was thrust into the Muslem religion at a very young age, but was not allowed to become a Muslem. He was An American boy, not allowed to live in America as a very young child. He had no father to help clarify and set his identity. His only rock solid grounding to the world, his mother, seperated herself (seemingly rejected him) from him when he was y young. He found himself living with Grand Parents who were not of any of the things that he might aspire to belong to. He was in every way the ultimate outsider. He was as alone as it is possible to be alone. It can truley be said that there was no one int this world that he could feel was just like him.
How did that affect him? How did he manage to deal with it? What must he really be like inside?
The young Obama was forced to drive so much of his hurt, and lonelyness, and desperation down deep inside. He trowled over it with layer after layer until he did not have to deal with these thing daily. He compensated for his lack of identity, and self-confidence by surrounding himself with the armor of apparent self-assuridness. He must never allow the world to see the weekness within, lest he be forced to confront those things himself. He must keep it all down to avoid dredging up all of the pain and rage that infested his being as a small child.
Mr. Obama is very intelligent. He is so smart that he is even able to fool himself into believeing that he’s really ok. He looks into the mirror each morning, and sees the attractive, smart, eriodite facode that he has created, and even he can believe the he is the immage of himself that he has crafted.
His only saving grace is his wife and kids. Their acceptance grounds him in ways that help him to endure. As part of them, he has become attached to part of a culture, the Black American culture. They form the bedrock that keeps him from confronting his deepest hurt.
Why does someone like Mr. Obama seek high public office? Perhaps it has much to do with his constaint deep seated need to pretend that he is normal, and OK. Public acceptance, fortifies his defenses, and the armor he has built around himself. With out that constaint
emtional support, the pain and rage would be less weighted down, and would rise closer to the surface, and he would have to feel it all again.
Perhaps there is a very real danger in how Mr. Obama would respont to anyone, or anything that threatens to crack his facade. The fear of having to once again confront all of his rage, and pain, and lonelyness could drive him to act out with rage against such a percieved threat.
What a timely article!