Five standard objections challenge personality-based explanations of political behavior

Evidence

In Reading 5, Fred Greenstein directly confronts the most common major objections to studying personality in seeking to understand the dynamics of political events. These objections usually take one or more of the following forms: (a) Insofar as individual personality types are randomly distributed across different social roles, personality variables will “cancel out” and become irrelevant in comparison with the enactment of social roles; (b) Political behavior is determined much more by the specific political context than by the personality characteristics of individuals; (c) The psychodynamic aspects of personality that most political psychologists concern themselves with (e.g., ego-defense mechanisms) are not directly relevant to most political outcomes; (d) Social structural and demographic characteristics of political actors (e.g., race, social class, religion) have much greater political importance than do aspects of their “personalities;” and (e) Large-scale social forces, rather than individuals, are the real determinants of political events. Greenstein discusses the validity of each objection and suggests ways of overcoming them. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 402

Categorization

• DEFINE: Enumerates the five standard objections to personality-based political analysis — a useful framework.