Explaining groupthink: Do the psychological characteristics of the leader matter?

Mark Schafer

International Interactions, 1998, vol. 25, issue 2, 181-212

Abstract: Do psychological characteristics of leaders affect groupthink? This paper investigates the extent to which presidents’ Conceptual Complexity, Belief in Ability to Control Events, and Need for Affiliation affect foreign policy decision making structures and processes in 19 Cold War crises. Independent variables are derived from personality‐at‐a‐distance techniques using presidential press conferences. Comparative data on the presidential characteristics produce several findings including Truman's low conceptual complexity, Johnson's high belief in his ability to control events, and Nixon's low trait stability. Only Conceptual Complexity is strongly linked to groupthink phenomena using OLS regression equations, though there is directional support for the link for Affiliation and Control. Using one‐way ANOVA tests to further investigate these latter two variables we find that those with the highest Affiliation and Control scores average more indicators of groupthink in their decision‐making processes than those with the lowest scores.

Date: 1998
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03050629908434948 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ginixx:v:25:y:1998:i:2:p:181-212

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/GINI20

DOI: 10.1080/03050629908434948

Access Statistics for this article

International Interactions is currently edited by Michael Colaresi and Gerald Schneider

More articles in International Interactions from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().