[SOLVED] annotated biography, Synthesis Paper help – Writing

Using the annotated bibliography and outline as a reference, write a paper (750-1,000 words) that synthesizes all three of the articles. Do that by including the following:A statement of common themes addressed in each of the three articles.A statement of the conclusions that can be drawn when the articles are taken together as a single entity. What is the overall message of the group of articles?References need to be in APA 6th edition with proper spacing, indentation and in alphabetical order. I have included 3 articles which this paper needs to be based off of and what was used for the annotated bibliography and outline. I have also included the annotated bibliography and outline as a reference and the assignment details as well as a synthesis paper and guideline which should help when constructing the paper.PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Fearless Dominance and the U.S. Presidency: Implications of Psychopathic
Personality Traits for Successful and Unsuccessful Political Leadership
Scott O. Lilienfeld, Irwin D. Waldman, and
Kristin Landfield
Ashley L. Watts
University of Georgia
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Emory University
Steven Rubenzer
Thomas R. Faschingbauer
Houston, Texas
Foundation for the Study of Personality in History, Houston,
Texas
Although psychopathic personality (psychopathy) is marked largely by maladaptive traits (e.g., poor impulse
control, lack of guilt), some authors have conjectured that some features of this condition (e.g., fearlessness,
interpersonal dominance) are adaptive in certain occupations, including leadership positions. We tested this
hypothesis in the 42 U.S. presidents up to and including George W. Bush using (a) psychopathy trait estimates
derived from personality data completed by historical experts on each president, (b) independent historical
surveys of presidential leadership, and (c) largely or entirely objective indicators of presidential performance.
Fearless Dominance, which reflects the boldness associated with psychopathy, was associated with better rated
presidential performance, leadership, persuasiveness, crisis management, Congressional relations, and allied
variables; it was also associated with several largely or entirely objective indicators of presidential performance, such as initiating new projects and being viewed as a world figure. Most of these associations survived
statistical control for covariates, including intellectual brilliance, five factor model personality traits, and need
for power. In contrast, Impulsive Antisociality and related traits of psychopathy were generally unassociated
with rated presidential performance, although they were linked to some largely or entirely objective indicators
of negative job performance, including Congressional impeachment resolutions, tolerating unethical behavior
in subordinates, and negative character. These findings indicate that the boldness associated with psychopathy
is an important but heretofore neglected predictor of presidential performance, and suggest that certain features
of psychopathy are tied to successful interpersonal behavior.
Keywords: psychopathy, antisocial behavior, leadership, politics, personality
control (Cleckley, 1941/1988; Hare, 2003), and, according to
many authors (Fowles & Dindo, 2009; Lykken, 1995; Patrick,
2006), fearlessness, social dominance, and immunity to anxiety. In
contrast to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, text revision (DSM–IV–TR; American Psychiatric
Association, 2000), diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder
(ASPD), which is primarily a behavioral condition that emphasizes a
long-standing history of antisocial and criminal behavior, psychopathy is primarily a dispositional condition that emphasizes personality
traits. Nevertheless, measures of these two conditions tend to be at
least moderately correlated (Lilienfeld, 1994).
Factor analyses of the most extensively validated measure of
psychopathy, the Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R; Hare,
2003), have often revealed two broad and moderately correlated
dimensions. The first dimension (Factor 1) assesses the core interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy (e.g., guiltlessness, narcissism, glibness), whereas the second dimension (Factor
2) assesses an impulsive and antisocial lifestyle that is closely
associated with ASPD (Harpur, Hare, & Hakstian, 1989; but see
Cooke & Michie, 2001, and Hare, 2003, for alternative factor
Psychopathic personality (psychopathy) is a constellation of
personality traits encompassing superficial charm, egocentricity,
dishonesty, guiltlessness, callousness, risk taking, poor impulse
This article was published Online First July 23, 2012.
Scott O. Lilienfeld, Irwin D. Waldman, and Kristin Landfield, Department of Psychology, Emory University; Ashley L. Watts, Department of
Psychology, University of Georgia; Steven Rubenzer, Houston, Texas;
Thomas R. Faschingbauer, Foundation for the Study of Personality in
History, Houston, Texas.
We thank Joanna Berg, Rachel Ammirati, David Molho, Gabriella Rich,
Zack Babin, Marie King, and Barbara Greenspan for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this manuscript; Joshua Miller for his statistical
assistance; Alan Abramowitz for his helpful advice; and Caroline Hennigar
and Alyssa Redmon for their valuable assistance with data entry and library
research.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Scott O.
Lilienfeld, Room 473, Psychology and Interdisciplinary Sciences Building,
Emory University, 36 Eagle Row, Atlanta, GA 30322. E-mail:
slilien@emory.edu
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012, Vol. 103, No. 3, 489 –505
© 2012 American Psychological Association 0022-3514/12/$12.00
DOI: 10.1037/a0029392
489
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490
LILIENFELD ET AL.
solutions). Although the PCL-R is a semistructured interview that
incorporates file information, its two major dimensions can be
closely approximated by scores on normal range personality dimensions, such as those derived from the five-factor model (FFM)
of personality. PCL-R Factor 1 is associated primarily with low
scores on FFM Agreeableness, whereas PCL-R Factor 2 is associated primarily with low scores on both FFM Agreeableness and
Conscientiousness (Miller, Lynam, Widiger, & Leukefeld, 2001).
Most research demonstrates that psychopathy and its constituent
traits are underpinned by dimensions rather than taxa (natural
categories; see Edens, Marcus, Lilienfeld, & Poythress, 2006),
offering empirical support for recent efforts to conceptualize and
assess this condition within a general dimensional model of personality structure.
Most research on the behavioral manifestations of psychopathy
has focused on its relations with antisocial, criminal, and otherwise
unsuccessful actions. Studies demonstrate that psychopathy is a
risk factor for criminality and violent recidivism among prison
inmates (Porter & Woodworth, 2006; Salekin, Rogers, & Sewell,
1996) as well as cheating among college students (Williams,
Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2010). In addition, some authors have
argued that psychopathy is associated with malignant workplace
behavior. Babiak and Hare (2006) referred to psychopaths in
business settings as “snakes in suits” and suggested that their
propensity toward dishonesty and manipulativeness makes them
destructive coworkers and bosses (see also Boddy, 2006; Heinze,
Allen, Magai, & Ritzler, 2010).
Despite the lengthy research tradition linking psychopathy to
unsuccessful behavior, a consistent strand of clinical lore has tied
psychopathy, or at least certain features of it, to socially successful
behavior across a variety of domains, including the business world,
politics, and everyday life (Lilienfeld, 1998). In his classic writings, Cleckley (1941/1988) referred to individuals with marked
psychopathic traits whose “outward appearance may include business or professional careers that continue in a sense successful, and
which are truly successful when measured by financial reward or
even by the casual observer’s opinion of real accomplishment” (p.
191). Extending these observations, Lykken (1982) referred to
psychopaths and heroes as “twigs from the same branch” (p. 22)
and conjectured that the fearlessness associated with psychopathy
can predispose to heroic behaviors. Other authors have raised the
possibility of “subclinical” (Widom, 1977) or “successful” (Hall &
Benning, 2006; Mullins-Sweatt, Glover, Miller, Derefinko, & Widiger, 2010) psychopaths, individuals with pronounced psychopathic traits who function effectively in circumscribed “adaptive
niches” of society, such as politics, business, law enforcement, and
high-risk sports. In one of the few studies to address this issue
empirically, Babiak, Neumann, and Hare (2010) examined a sample of 203 corporate professionals and found that scores on the
PCL-R and its component factors were associated not only with a
more problematic management style and with being a poor team
player but also with superior communication skills, creativity, and
strategic thinking. These important results raise the possibility that
psychopathy, or at least some features of it, are associated with
certain aspects of adaptive functioning in workplace settings, although they may also be associated with certain aspects of maladaptive functioning. Nevertheless, because the PCL-R ratings in
this study were conducted by a single individual who was not blind
to other information about participants, including information po-
tentially relevant to criterion ratings, these results should be
viewed as preliminary.
Still others have speculated that some psychopathic traits, such
as interpersonal dominance, persuasiveness, and venturesomeness,
may be conducive to acquiring positions of political power and to
successful leadership (Hogan, Raskin, & Fazzini, 1990; Lobacweski, 2007). Indeed, Lykken (1995) speculated that British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. president Lyndon Baines
Johnson possessed certain personality features of psychopathy:
They started off life as “daring, adventurous, and unconventional
youngsters who began playing by their own rules” (p. 116) but
later managed to parlay these traits into political success.
Nevertheless, the successful manifestations of psychopathy remain largely in the realm of clinical conjecture. Moreover, with the
exception of the study by Babiak et al. (2010), the scattered
research in this domain (e.g., Ishakawa, Raine, Lencz, Bihrle, &
LaCasse, 2001; Widom, 1977) has focused almost exclusively on
psychopathic individuals who have engaged in minimal antisocial
behavior or managed to escape detection by the legal system,
rather than those who are clearly successful from an interpersonal
or societal standpoint (Hall & Benning, 2006).
Recent work on a widely used and well-validated self-report
psychopathy measure, the Psychopathic Personality Inventory
(PPI; Lilienfeld & Andrews, 1996), may shed light on this issue.
Exploratory factor analyses of the PPI (Benning, Patrick, Hicks,
Blonigen, & Krueger, 2003) in community samples have identified
two largely uncorrelated higher order dimensions, Fearless Dominance (FD) and Impulsive Antisociality1 (IA; but see Neumann,
Malterer, & Newman, 2008, for an alternative factor structure of
the PPI). FD, which assesses what Patrick, Fowles, and Krueger
(2009) term “boldness,” comprises such traits as social dominance,
charm, physical fearlessness, and immunity to anxiety; IA comprises such traits as egocentricity, manipulativeness, poor impulse
control, rebelliousness, and tendency to externalize blame. Although these two factors bear some similarities to the two major
PCL-R factors, they are not isomorphic with them empirically or
conceptually. In particular, although IA and PCL-R Factor 2 are
moderately to highly correlated, FD and PCL-R Factor 1 are only
weakly correlated (Malterer, Lilienfeld, Newman, & Neumann,
2010), largely because FD assesses a more psychologically adaptive set of traits than does PCL-R Factor 1 (Patrick, 2006).
Several studies have demonstrated that the boldness assessed by
FD is associated with healthy psychological adjustment—and may
reflect many of the traits commonly attributed to successful psychopathy—whereas IA is associated with psychological maladjustment. Offering provisional corroboration for Lykken’s (1982) conjecture regarding fearlessness and heroism, Patrick, Edens,
Poythress, Lilienfeld, and Benning (2006) found that in a sample
of 96 prisoners, FD scores derived from the PPI were significantly
and positively associated with self-reported heroic behaviors (e.g.,
breaking up fights in public, helping stranded motorists), whereas
IA scores were significantly and negatively associated with these
behaviors. In addition, PPI-derived FD is negatively correlated
1
In the revised version of the PPI (Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005), this
dimension is termed Self-Centered Impulsivity. Nevertheless, we use the
term Impulsive Antisociality here to retain continuity with most of the
extant literature (e.g., Benning et al., 2003).
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PSYCHOPATHY AND U.S. PRESIDENTS
with measures of Axis I psychopathology, such as anxiety, depressive, and somatoform symptoms, as well as suicide attempts,
whereas IA is positively associated with these indices (Benning et
al., 2003; Douglas, Lilienfeld, Skeem, Edens, Poythress, & Patrick, 2008; Patrick et al., 2006).
These findings are consistent with a “dual-process model”
(Fowles & Dindo, 2009; see also Patrick et al., 2009, for an
extended “triarchic model”) that conceptualizes psychopathy as
the joint outcome of two separable etiological processes: (a) a bold
temperament marked by largely adaptive functioning, assessed by
FD and, to a substantially lesser extent, PCL-R Factor 1 and (2) a
disposition toward disinhibition and externalizing behavior
marked by largely maladaptive functioning, assessed by IA and
PCL-R Factor 2. Nevertheless, the differential associations of
these two components of psychopathy with both successful and
unsuccessful interpersonal functioning, including job performance
and leadership, have yet to be examined empirically. Patrick et al.
(2009) conjectured that the boldness assessed by FD may be
especially helpful in “the identification of individuals with psychopathic tendencies who ascend to positions of leadership and
influence in society” (p. 925), but this intriguing hypothesis has yet
to be put to an empirical test.
In this study, we examined the implications of psychopathic
personality traits for job performance and leadership in a remarkable sample of individuals whose successful and unsuccessful
behaviors are a matter of well-documented public record: the 42
U.S. presidents up to and including George W. Bush. Inspired by
the pioneering research of Simonton (1986, 1987) on presidential
personality, Rubenzer, Faschingbauer, and Ones (2000) found that
some personality traits, most notably high levels of openness to
experience (see also Simonton, 2006), extraversion, conscientiousness, and perhaps low levels of agreeableness, are modestly correlated with independently rated job performance among the U.S.
presidents. Nevertheless, no study has examined the relation of
psychopathic personality traits to leadership and job performance
among the U.S. presidents.
We hypothesized that certain features of psychopathy, especially those assessed by FD, would be associated with successful
functioning, including overall presidential leadership effectiveness, but that other features of psychopathy, especially those
assessed by IA and proxies of PCL-R Factor 2, would be associated with unsuccessful functioning, including poor presidential job
performance, negative personal character and integrity, and ethical
misbehavior. To test these hypotheses, we drew on an existing data
set of personality items obtained from biographers and experts on
each president (Rubenzer & Faschingbauer, 2004) and extracted
estimates of psychopathy factors based on empirically established
equations from the published literature. We then correlated these
psychopathy scores with (a) indices from several recent (2008 –
2011) and largely and in some cases entirely independent panels of
eminent historians who had rated each president on dimensions
relevant to work performance and leadership, including overall job
effectiveness, leadership ability, public persuasiveness, crisis management, vision, and domestic and foreign policy accomplishments; (b) an empirically derived composite developed by Simonton (1987) of six largely or entirely objective indices of
presidential greatness, including war heroism, number of years
served, and assassination; and (c) several other largely or entirely
objective indicators of both presidential success and failure, in-
491
cluding reelection, introduction of legislation and programs, Congressional impeachment resolutions, and rated negative presidential character (as assessed by largely objective behaviors indicative
of dishonesty and unreliability). By examining largely or entirely
objective indicators, we addressed the criticism that any associations between psychopathy traits and rated presidential performance are merely a function of shared subjective impressions of
the presidents by different raters.
We also evaluated the specificity of these findings to psychopathic personality traits, especially FD, per se. In particular, we
examined the incremental validity of a number of theoretically
relevant variables above and beyond FD in an effort to rule out
rival hypotheses concerning the potential linkages between FD and
presidential performance. In this respect, we adopted a “destructive testing” approach (see C. A. Anderson & Anderson, 1996) in
an effort to ascertain how well the relations between FD and
presidential performance survive covariance adjustments from
“competitor” variables that provide alternative explanations.
Specifically, because it is unclear whether personality traits
contribute to the prediction of presidential performance above and
beyond intelligence, which is an established predictor of such
performance (Simonton, 2006), we examined the incremental validity of psychopathic personality traits beyond established estimates of each president’s intelligence. In addition, we examined
the incremental validity of psychopathic personality traits above
and beyond FFM traits, especially extraversion and openness to
experience, which are positively associated with FD (Lilienfeld &
Widows, 2005) as well as traits of ASPD, which as noted earlier
overlap with those of psychopathy. We also examined the incremental validity of FD above and beyond rated need for power,
which has clear-cut conceptual relations to interpersonal dominance and perhaps the FD dimension of psychopathy. As Winter
(2005) observed, “power-motivated presidents. . .invest a great
deal of energy in the job, and they enjoy it” (p. 561). Need for
power has been demonstrated to be a robust predictor of presidential success (Winter, 2005). Finally, we examined the incremental
validity of FD for presidential performance above and beyond
Simonton’s (1987) six-element equation of largely or entirely
objective historical indicators. As Simonton (2008) observed, multiple empirical efforts have failed to unearth any consistent indicators that predict presidential greatness above and beyond this
equation. This lattermost incremental validity analysis provides an
especially stringent test of the unique contribution of psychopathic
personality traits to presidential performance.
Method
Raters
Raters of presidents’ personality traits in this study were 121
experts recruited by Rubenzer and Fashingbauer (2004) to evaluate
the personality of the 42 U.S. presidents up to and including
George W. Bush; Barack Obama was not included because of the
unavailability of FFM data on him from presidential experts (although there were 43 presidencies up to and including George W.
Bush, there were only 42 presidents, as Grover Cleveland was
elected president twice in nonconsecutive terms). Importantly,
these experts were asked to rate their target president’s preoffice
(see the Procedure section) personality traits using well-validated
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LILIENFELD ET AL.
personality measures (see the Measures of Personality, Psychopathy, and Covariates section). Because some raters completed
ratings on more than one president, the total number of ratings was
177. These experts were American biographers, journalists, and
scholars who are established authorities on one or a few of U.S.
presidents. They had authored published biographies on each president or had been nominated by other presidential experts as
particularly well informed regarding a given president. The number of expert raters per president ranged from zero to 13, with a
mean of 4.2 (SD ⫽ 2.9; Rubenzer et al., 2000).
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Measures of Personality, Psychopathy, and Covariates
Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) Form R.
The NEO PI-R is a 240-item questionnaire that assesses the five
major dimensions of personality (Neuroticism, Extraversion,
Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness)
from the FFM (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Nested within each of the
five domains are six facet scales, each containing eight items cast in
nontechnical language and endorsed on a 5-point Likert-type scale.
Support for the NEO PI-R’s construct validity is extensive at both the
domain and facet levels (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Lynam & Widiger,
2001). As discussed in the section below, scores on all four psychopathy indices were derived from ratings on the NEO PI-R.
In this study, raters (121 presidential experts; see the Raters
section) completed Form R, an observer report version of the NEO
PI-R “designed to be completed by family member, friend, acquaintance— or anyone who knows the person well” (Rubenzer &
Faschingbauer, 2004, p. 5). In this sample, the internal consistencies (Cronbach’s alphas) of the five NEO PI-R domain scales
ranged from .91 to .94.
FFM-derived prototypes of psychopathy factors and ASPD.
Using a rational/theoretical approach, Derefinko and Lynam
(2006; see also Widiger & Lynam, 1998) mapped the 30 facets of
the FFM onto the two major factors of the PCL-R. As noted
earlier, PCL-R Factor 1 assesses the core interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy, whereas PCL-R Factor 2 assesses an
antisocial and impulsive lifestyle.
The scores on FFM Factors 1 and 2 (which parallel the corresponding two factors of the PCL-R) are weighted composites of
several of the FFM facets, namely, those deemed relevant to
psychopathy. For example, FFM Factor 1 is a weighted composite
of FFM facets from the domains of neuroticism, extraversion,
agreeableness, and conscientiousness, all reversed in scoring (see
Derefinko & Lynam, 2006, Table 1, p. 265). These FFM factor
scores display good validity; for example, both correlate highly (rs
between .5 and .6) with total scores on the PPI and the Self-Report
Psychopathy Scale (SRP; Hare, Harpur, & Hemphill, 1989) and
exhibit significant positive correlations with their respective Factor 1
and Factor 2 scores on the PPI and SRP (Derefinko & Lynam, 2006).
To assess ASPD, scores on the prototype developed by Miller et
al. (2001) were used. These authors constructed an expertgenerated FFM prototype of psychopathy and the 10 DSM–IV–TR
personality disorders by asking experts to rate the prototypical
expression of each personality disorder on a 1–5 scale using the 30
facets of the NEO PI-R. Any FFM facet with a mean lower than 2
or higher than 4 was included in each disorder’s prototype. Scores
that most closely match the expert-generated psychopathy prototype correlate significantly and positively with several laboratory
tasks theoretically relevant to psychopathy (e.g., measures of temporal discounting and proactive aggression) and self-reported aggression (Derefinko & Lynam, 2006; Miller & Lynam, 2003). In
this study, expert-generated psychopathy FFM prototypes of Factors 1 and 2 were used, which parallel the two broad factors of the
PCL-R, as well as the FFM prototype for ASPD (see Lynam &
Widiger, 2001).
Factor estimates of FD and IA. To extract measures of FD
and IA, we relied on regression-based formulas developed by Ross,
Benning, Patrick, Thompson, and Thurston (2009, p. 80), which use
the 30 NEO PI-R facets of the FFM to estimate scores on these two
dimensions, heretofore referred to as FFM-FD and FFM-IA.2 Ross et
al. found that these regression formulas, after double cross-validation
within their sample, accounted for between 68% and 79% of the
variance in FD and IA scores derived from the PPI.
Intellectual brilliance.
Intellectual brilliance estimates for
each president were drawn from the work of Simonton (1986,
2006), who derived a measure of Intellectual Brilliance from an
exploratory factor analysis of adjectives from the Gough Adjective
Checklist (Gough & Heilbrun, 1965) completed by multiple independent judges who rated the presidents. Using scores on FFM
openness to experience (which tends to be moderately correlated
with measured intelligence), Simonton (2004) later used missingdata iterative methods to extrapolate Intellectual Brilliance scores
for the presidents from Ronald Reagan onward. The Intellectual
Brilliance measure consists of such adjectives as intelligent, wise,
complicated, and insightful, and correlates highly with other estimates of the U.S presidents’ intelligence derived from biographical
information (Simonton, 2006).
Need for power. Ratings of power needs were derived from
Winter (1987; see also Winter, 1973, 1983), who examined inaugural addresses from American presidents (available before 1981).
These speeches were coded by two raters, who demonstrated
category agreement over .85 on power imagery. Disagreements
between raters were deliberated upon until resolved. Raw scores,
used in the analyses here, were defined in terms of power images
per 1,000 words.
Outcome Measures of Presidential Performance
Presidential performance surveys. To assess outcome variables relevant to presidential performance, we relied primarily on
data from two recent, large, and widely publicized American
surveys of presidential historians. First, data were used from a
2009 C-SPAN poll of 62 identified presidential historians who
rated the presidents on 10 continuous dimensions of job
performance (see http://legacy.c-span.org/Content/PDF/CSPANpresidentialsurveyPR021509.pdf). Fifty-four of these 62
historians were independent of those who rated the presidents on
2
The PPI also contains a subscale, Coldheartedness, that does not load
highly on either FD or IA and hence is excluded from computation of these
two factors. Analyses of FFM-estimated Coldheartedness did not yield
significant associations with any of the primary presidential poll variables
examined here with one exception: PPI Coldheartedness was significantly
and negatively associated with C-SPAN Poll Pursuit of Equal Justice (␹2 ⫽
5.42, p ⫽ .020). In addition, Coldheartedness was significantly and negatively associated with Siena College Poll Ability to Compromise (see
Footnote 3) (␹2 ⫽ 4.93, p ⫽ .026).
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PSYCHOPATHY AND U.S. PRESIDENTS
the NEO-PI-R and other personality items. The 10 dimensions of
job performance were overall job performance, public persuasiveness, handling of crises, moral authority, economic management,
international relations, administrative skill, Congressional relations, setting of an agenda, and pursuit of equal justice (pairwise rs
across these dimensions ranged from .46 to .96, all ps ⬍ .001).
Second, data were used from a 2010 Siena College survey of 238
anonymous presidential historians who ranked the presidents on 21
dimensions of job performance (see http://www.siena.edu/
uploadedfiles/home/parents_and_community/community_page/
sri/independent_research/Presidents%20Release_2010_final.pdf).
For the analyses reported here, we focused on 13 Siena College
survey variables for which we had clear-cut predictions: overall
ranking, overall ability, leadership ability, party leadership, integrity, executive ability, communication ability, domestic accomplishments, foreign policy accomplishments, handling of the economy, relationship with Congress, willingness to take risks, and
avoiding crucial mistakes (pairwise Spearman rs across these
rankings ranged from .18 to .97, all ps ⬍ .05). To facilitate
comparisons between the two surveys, the Siena College rankings
were reversed in scoring for the analyses reported here so that
higher ranks correspond to superior-rated job performance.
As a third indicator, psychopathy scores with a composite measure of presidential greatness derived from the work of Simonton
(2006, p. 515) were correlated. This greatness measure is a sum of
standardized (z-scored) results from 12 independent surveys of
overall presidential performance. Research demonstrates that independent surveys of presidential performance taken across the
decades yield similar results, with correlations of overall rankings
typically in the r ⫽ .9 range or above (Simonton, 2006).
As a final check on the findings from the C-SPAN and Siena
College surveys of presidential performance and Simonton composite
measure of presidential greatness, data from two additional recent
smaller surveys of U.S. presidential performance from the United
Kingdom were examined (see http://americas.sas.ac.uk/research/
survey/index.html). These two surveys have two major advantages:
(a) The individuals who completed these polls are entirely independent of those who completed the NEO-PI-R and other personality
measures on the presidents, and (b) they do not derive from U.S.
historians, and hence offer a largely independent international test of
the association between psychopathic personality traits and presidential performance. As a consequence, they should be relatively free of
biases shared exclusively by U.S. historians. The first U.K. poll was
a 2008 survey conducted by the Times of London that asked eight
premier political and international reporters to rank the U.S. presidents
in terms of overall quality (The Times of London, 2008). The second
U.K. poll was the United States Presidency Centre (USPC) Survey
conducted by the Institute for the Study of the Americas (2011) at the
University of London. The raters in this survey were 47 U.K. scholars
who were established experts in U.S. presidential and political history.
They were asked to rate the U.S. presidents on five dimensions:
vision/setting of an agenda (heretofore referred to as vision),
domestic leadership, foreign policy leadership, moral authority,
and long-term positive legacy. In addition, the poll yielded an
overall ranking of the presidents in terms of quality. Two
presidents (William Henry Harrison and James Garfield) were
excluded from this survey because of their brief presidencies.
Again, the ranked scores on these two surveys were reversed in
493
scoring so that higher scores corresponded to more successful
presidencies.
Historical measures of presidents’ job performance and behavior. In addition to the aforementioned surveys of presidential performance, scores on an empirically established (regressionderived) formula developed by Simonton (1987) was examined to
predict presidential greatness. This Simonton historical composite
consists of a weighted sum of six largely or entirely objective
variables of behavior: number of years served, number of war
years as president, war heroism prior to becoming president,
estimated intellectual brilliance (see below), scandals while in
office (coded negatively), and victim of an assassination. Being the
victim of an assassination is a well-established indicator of presidential greatness. Indeed, this dichotomous variable correlates
positively with a variety of independent indicators of presidential
greatness. As Simonton (1994) noted,
Systematic analyses of all U.S. presidents reveal that successful assassination is one of the best things that can happen to a chief executive’s
(necessarily posthumous) reputation. Getting assassinated adds about as
much to a former president’s greatness rating as serving five years in
office or leading the nation through four years in war (p. 76).
Although at least some of the association between assassination
and rated presidential performance is probably reputational (being
the victim of an assassination probably leads historians to view a
president as great in hindsight), it is probably also partly a function
of the fact that presidents who were the targets of assassination
were willing to make enemies by initiating bold and controversial
changes (see also Simonton, 1994). Indeed, in this data set, the
dichotomous variable of being assassinated was associated with
rated willingness to take risks in the Siena College survey (point
biserial r ⫽ .18, p ⫽ .019) and with ratings (on a 1–9 scale) by
presidential historians on the variable of “shows moral courage”
(point biserial r ⫽ .20, p ⫽ .008).
In addition, six other largely or entirely objective indicators of
presidential performance were examined: (a) reelection (Kenney &
Rice, 1988), (b) winning an election by a landslide (i.e., by 55% or
more of the popular vote; Kenney & Rice, 1988), (c) subject of one
or more Congressional impeachment resolutions (Perkins, 2003),
(d) initiation of new legislation and programs, (e) viewed by others
as a world figure, and (f) tolerates unethical behavior in subordinates. Variables 1–3 were coded dichotomously, and were derived
from the historical record. Variables 4 – 6 were rated on a 1–9 scale
and estimated by the same 121 experts who evaluated each president on the NEO PI-R. As a consequence, these latter three
variables are not strictly independent of the NEO-PI-R ratings
from which psychopathy score estimates were derived.
It was predicted that given its association with the successful
features of psychopathy, FFM-FD and perhaps FFM Factor 1
would be positively associated with the Simonton composite sixitem index of greatness and Variables 1, 2, 4, and 5. In contrast, it
was predicted that given their theoretical ties to adaptive behavior,
FFM-FD and perhaps FFM Factor 1 would be uncorrelated or
negatively correlated with Variables 3 and 6 but that given their
ties to unsuccessful behavior, FFM-IA and FFM Factor 2 would be
positively correlated with these variables.
Presidential character. To supplement the largely or entirely
objective historical indicators, a composite measure of negative
presidential character consisting of various indicators of antisocial
LILIENFELD ET AL.
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494
and otherwise problematic behavior was analyzed. From the personality items administered to presidential historians, Rubenzer
and Faschingbauer (2004) used a rational/theoretical approach to
construct several measures of presidential character and integrity
(with items scored on a 1–9 scale), one of which was deemed
relevant to the analyses here. Character Scale 1 (Negative Character) comprises 20 items administered to the presidential historians that assess largely objective behavioral indicators, in particular
“the types of behaviors that make the news as indicators of
character or the lack of it” (p. 332). These items include bullying
others; abusing positions of power held; stealing; frequent cursing;
extramarital affairs; cheating on sports, taxes, or business; gambling;
and frequent absenteeism. It was predicted that FFM-FD and FFM
Factor 1 would be largely uncorrelated with this measure, but that
FFM-IA and FFM Factor 2 would be positively correlated with this
measure. The internal consistency of the Negative Character scale in
this sample, as measured by Cronbach’s alpha, was .90.
Procedure
The 121 expert raters completed a 596-item questionnaire evaluating the personality and behavior of their respective president(s) of
focus; this measure contained the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae,
1992), a set of items designed to assess presidential character (Rubenzer & Faschingbauer, 2004), and other items that were not analyzed
here because they were not directly pertinent to psychopathy. These
experts rated their target president’s personality for the 5 years prior
to his assuming office to minimize criterion contamination in analyses
of the associations between personality and presidential performance.
Results
Interrater Reliabilities of Measures of Psychopathy
and ASPD
In this sample, the average pairwise interrater reliability correlations, estimated using generalized estimating equations (GEEs;
see the Associations between psychopathy factors and surveyrated dimensions of presidential performance section) across presidential raters for FFM Factor 1 (which assesses the core interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy) and FFM Factor 2
(which assesses an antisocial and impulsive lifestyle) were .31 and
.42, respectively; for the FFM prototype for ASPD, the average
pairwise correlation was .62. These correlations are well within the
range of correlations typically reported for interobserver agreement in personality. For example, Kenrick and Funder (1988,
Table 2, p. 26) found that mean correlations for personality traits
(e.g., dominance, sociability) across raters were mostly in the
.30 –.50 range. The average pairwise interrater reliability correlations for FFM-FD and FFM-IA across presidential raters, again
obtained using GEE, were .56 and .34, respectively.
Correlations Among Psychopathy Measures
The correlation between FFM Factor 1 and FFM Factor 2 was
r ⫽ .63 (p ⬍ .001). Consistent with previous literature on the PPI
factors (e.g., Benning et al., 2003; Miller & Lynam, in press),
FFM-FD and FFM-IA were not significantly correlated (r ⫽ .09,
ns). The correlations between FFM-FD and FFM Factors 1 and 2
were r ⫽ .16 (p ⬍ .05) and .18 (p ⬍ .05), respectively; the
correlations between FFM-IA and FFM Factors 1 and 2 were r ⫽
.59 (p ⬍ .001) and .92 (p ⬍ .001), respectively.
Mean Psychopathy Scores of the Presidents
We next compared presidents’ scores on the four major psychopathy variables with those of the normative sample on which NEOPI-R Form R had been completed. To do so, we computed scores on
these four variables from the Form R facet-level normative data
reported in the NEO-PI-R manual (see Costa & McCrae, 2000) and
compared them with the scores on the 42 presidents from the present
sample, in both cases using the formulas described earlier (see the
Measures of Personality, Psychopathy, and Covariates section). Presidents scored higher on FFM-FD (M ⫽ ⫺0.32, SD ⫽ 1.48) compared
with the normative sample ( M ⫽ ⫺0.94). In contrast, their mean
scores on FFM-IA (M ⫽ ⫺11.55, SD ⫽ 2.45) were virtually identical
to those of the normative sample (M ⫽ ⫺11.69). In addition, presidents scored higher on FFM Factor 1 (M ⫽ 111.32, SD ⫽ 18.27)
compared with the normative sample (M ⫽ 97.71). In contrast, their
mean scores on FFM Factor 2 (M ⫽ 100.23, SD ⫽ 27.07) were only
slightly higher than those of the normative sample (M ⫽ 96.72).
These findings tell a reasonably clear story: Compared with the
general population, presidents receive higher scores on those aspects
of psychopathy ostensibly tied to more adaptive or at least less
maladaptive functioning, namely FFM-FD (Cohen’s d ⫽ .42) and
FFM Factor 1 (Cohen’s d ⫽ .74), with this difference in the medium
to large range. In contrast, presidents’ scores on those aspects of
psychopathy tied more explicitly to maladaptive functioning, namely
FFM-IA (Cohen’s d ⫽ .06) and FFM Factor 2 (Cohen’s d ⫽ .13),
were comparable to those of the general population, with differences
in the negligible or small range.
Associations Between Psychopathy Factors and
Survey-Rated Dimensions of Presidential Performance
To account for the nesting of expert presidential raters within
presidents and for the differential number of raters per president, we
analyzed the associations between psychopathic personality traits and
dimensions of presidential performance using general linear modeling
with GEE treating the data as nested, with president as a subject
variable and rater as a within-subject variable. Generalized linear
models allow the outcome variables to be treated as nonnormally
distributed and use appropriate distributional and link functions in
these cases (e.g., a binomial distribution and logit link in the case of
a binary dependent variable, a normal distribution and an identity link
in the case of a continuous dependent variable). For outcome variables
that departed markedly from normality, we conducted reanalyses
using a normal distribution and a log link function; because the results
were similar to those assuming a normal distribution, we present only
the latter analyses here. In the analyses reported here, we entered each
psychopathy variable (FFM-FD, FFM-IA, FFM Factor 1, FFM Factor
2) entered separately (one at a time) as a predictor in the analyses
rather than in conjunction with the other psychopathy variables. Nevertheless, in incremental validity analyses designed to ascertain the contribution of a psychopathy variable over and above other covariates, we
entered the psychopathy variable of interest (e.g., FFM-FD) in conjunction with the covariate of interest, and its incremental contribution was
ascertained using the GEE Type III sum of squares.
PSYCHOPATHY AND U.S. PRESIDENTS
495
Table 1
Associations Between Psychopathy Dimensions and C-SPAN Poll Presidential Variables
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FFM-FD
FFM-IA
FFM-F1
FFM-F2
Predictor
␹
p
R
␹
p
R
␹
p
R
␹
p
R2
Dependent measure
Overall performance
Public persuasiveness
Crisis management
Moral authority
Economic management
International relations
Agenda setting
Administrative skill
Pursuit of equal justice
Congressional relations
6.41 (⫹)
11.29 (⫹)
7.72 (⫹)
2.56
3.39 (⫹)
1.42
9.62 (⫹)
1.51
3.45 (⫹)
7.05 (⫹)
.011
.001
.005
.109
.065
.234
.002
.220
.063
.008
3.6%
6.4%
4.4%
1.4%
2.0%
1.0%
5.4%
1.0%
2.0%
4.0%
0.045
0.686
0.297
1.22
0.498
0.014
0.143
0.054
0.178
0.063
.831
.408
.586
.270
.480
.916
.232
.817
.183
.801
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0.805
0.026
0.483
2.00
1.04
0.080
0.002
0.407
0.971
0.660
.370
.871
.487
.158
.307
.777
.962
.524
.325
.417
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
1.0%
0%
1.0%
0%
0.00
1.05
0.249
1.88
0.015
0.009
1.12
0.976
0.929
0.065
.987
.306
.681
.170
.901
.923
.290
.323
.335
.798
0%
0%
0%
1.1%
0%
0%
1.0%
1.0%
1.0%
0%
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
Note. N of presidents ⫽ 42; N of ratings ⫽ 177. FFM-FD ⫽ Five-Factor Model-Fearless Dominance; FFM-IA ⫽ Five-Factor Model-Impulsive
Antisociality; FFM-F1 ⫽ Five-Factor Model Factor 1 (core interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy) Prototype; FFM-F2 ⫽ Five-Factor Model
Factor 2 (antisocial and impulsive lifestyle) Prototype. Pluses (⫹) following the chi-square values indicate the direction of the effect, and are indicated for
all statistically significant or marginally significant results.
Table 1 shows the associations (along with R-square ratios as
effect sizes, computed by Wald’s ␹2 divided by the total number of
raters; see Rosenthal, 1991) between psychopathy variables and
C-SPAN historian ratings of presidential performance. For statistically significant and marginally significant (p ⬎ .05 ⬍ .10)
findings in this and other tables, the direction of the association
(⫹ for positive, ⫺ for negative) is indicated in parentheses following the corresponding chi-square values.
As can be seen in Table 1, FFM-IA and FFM Factors 1 and
2 were not significantly associated with any of the C-SPAN
ratings. In contrast, as predicted, FFM-FD was significantly and
positively associated with a number of domains of C-SPANrated presidential performance: overall performance, public
persuasiveness, crisis management, agenda setting, and Congressional relations.
The findings for the Siena College Poll rankings, displayed in
Table 2, broadly corroborated those of the C-SPAN poll.
FFM-IA and FFM Factors 1 and 2 were not significantly
associated with presidential performance with a few noteworthy
exceptions: FFM Factor 2 was significantly and negatively
related to rated presidential integrity, and FFM-IA and FFM
Factor 2 were significantly and positively related to rated willingness to take risks. Again, in contrast, FFM-FD was significantly and positively associated with numerous Siena College
poll indicators of presidential performance: overall ranking,
leadership ability, party leadership, communication ability,
Congressional relations, and willingness to take risks.3 Analyses of Simonton’s (1987) z-scored greatness composite of 12
presidential polls yielded similar results: Of the four psychopathy indicators, only FFM-FD was significantly associated with
superior overall performance (␹2 ⫽ 7.68, p ⫽ .006; R2 ⫽ 4.3%).
Excluding the Impact of Rater Overlap
We next wished to rule out the possibility that the associations between FFM-FD and presidential performance were due
to overlap between the historians who completed the personality ratings and those who completed the surveys of presidential
greatness. This possibility could not be examined for the Siena
College poll, as the raters were anonymous. Nevertheless, as
noted earlier, eight of the 62 C-SPAN presidential raters were
among the same expert historians who rated the presidents on
the personality variables, including the NEO-PI-R. Subsidiary
analyses excluding these eight raters yielded no substantial
changes in the associations between psychopathy variables and
C-SPAN variables. For example, even after excluding these
raters, FFM-FD continued to predict C-SPAN overall performance (␹2 ⫽ 6.24, p ⫽ .013, R2 ⫽ 3.8%), public persuasiveness
(␹2 ⫽ 11.00, p ⫽ .001, R2 ⫽ 6.6%), crisis management (␹2 ⫽ 7.58,
p ⫽ .006, R2 ⫽ 4.6%), agenda setting (␹2 ⫽ 9.57, p ⫽ .002, R2 ⫽
5.8%), and Congressional relations (␹2 ⫽ 6.87, p ⫽ .009, R2 ⫽
4.1%). These analyses demonstrate that the association between
FFM-FD and presidential performance in the C-SPAN cannot be
explained by rater overlap.
As a second test of the predictive power of FFM-FD, we
examined the results from two additional recent polls of presidential performance from the United Kingdom (see the Method
section). As noted earlier, none of the raters in these polls was
among those who completed personality measures on the presidents, therefore lending this survey the advantage of being free
of rater overlap. For the Times of London survey, FFM-FD
significantly predicted overall presidential ranking (␹2 ⫽ 4.48,
p ⫽ .034, R2 ⫽ 2.5%). For the USPC survey, FFM-FD was not
3
Complete analyses on the other eight Siena College survey variables
(luck, background, imagination, intelligence, court appointments, executive appointments, ability to compromise, historians’ current overall view
of each president) are available from the first author on request. To
summarize, FFM-FD was significantly and positively associated with
Siena College Luck (␹2 ⫽ 7.28, p ⫽ .007), Imagination (␹2 ⫽ 6.10, p ⫽
.014), and Ability to Compromise (␹2 ⫽ 6.82, p ⫽ .009). In contrast, FFM
Factor 1 was significantly and negatively associated with Ability to Compromise (␹2 ⫽ 5.71, p ⫽ .017). None of the other associations between the
four psychopathy indicators and Siena College survey variables was statistically significant.
LILIENFELD ET AL.
496
Table 2
Associations Between Psychopathy Dimensions and Siena College Poll Presidential Variables
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FFM-FD
FFM-IA
Predictor
␹
p
R
Dependent measure
Overall ranking
Overall ability
Leadership ability
Party leadership
Integrity
Executive ability
Communication ability
Domestic accomplishments
Foreign policy accomplishments
Handling of economy
Relationship with Congress
Willingness to take risks
Avoiding crucial mistakes
4.09 (⫹)
2.52
9.28 (⫹)
6.73 (⫹)
0.825
3.71 (⫹)
6.60 (⫹)
2.85 (⫹)
1.02
2.45
6.42 (⫹)
9.55 (⫹)
2.72 (⫹)
.043
.113
.002
.009
.364
.054
.010
.091
.313
.117
.011
.002
.099
2.3%
1.4%
5.2%
3.8%
0%
2.1%
3.7%
1.6%
0%
1.4%
3.6%
5.4%
1.5%
2
2
FFM-F1
␹
p
R
0.299
0.143
0.595
1.19
2.47
0.770
1.19
1.33
0.012
1.35
0.037
5.11 (⫹)
2.16
.584
.231
.441
.275
.116
.380
.276
.248
.913
.246
.847
.024
.142
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
1.0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
2.9%
1.2%
2
2
FFM-F2
␹
p
R
␹
p
R2
0.462
0.005
0.033
0.251
2.24
0.00
0.101
0.105
0.380
0.203
0.331
0.713
2.90 (⫺)
.497
.947
.856
.616
.134
.987
.751
.745
.538
.653
.565
.399
.090
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0.034
0.363
0.576
1.34
5.21 (⫺)
0.169
0.857
0.456
0.145
0.505
0.005
4.59 (⫹)
2.34
.855
.547
.448
.248
.022
.681
.354
.500
.703
.477
.945
.032
.126
0%
0%
0%
1.0%
2.9%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
2.6%
1.3%
2
2
2
Note. N of presidents ⫽ 42; N of ratings ⫽ 177. FFM-FD ⫽ Five-Factor Model-Fearless Dominance; FFM-IA ⫽ Five-Factor Model-Impulsive
Antisociality; FFM-F1 ⫽ Five-Factor Model Factor 1 (core interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy) Prototype; FFM-F2 ⫽ Five-actor Model
Factor 2 (antisocial and impulsive lifestyle) Prototype. Pluses (⫹) and minuses (⫺) following the chi-square values indicate the direction of the effect, and
are indicated for all statistically significant or marginally significant results.
significantly associated with overall ranking, although this association approached significance (␹2 ⫽ 3.54, p ⫽ .06, R2 ⫽
2.0%). With respect to the five specific USPC dimensions,
FFM-FD was significantly associated with vision (␹2 ⫽ 6.26,
p ⫽ .012, R2 ⫽ 3.6%) and domestic leadership (␹2 ⫽ 7.30, p ⫽
.007, R2 ⫽ 4.2%), and associated with long-term positive legacy at the level of a statistical trend (␹2 ⫽ 3.60, p ⫽ .058, R2 ⫽
2.0%). The relations between FFM-FD and moral authority
(␹2 ⫽ .93, p ⫽ .335, R2 ⫽ 1.0%) and foreign policy leadership
(␹2 ⫽ 1.73, p ⫽ .189, R2 ⫽ 1.0%) were nonsignificant
(FFM-FD was also not significantly associated with an additive
composite of these five dimensions).
Associations Between Psychopathy Factors and
Largely or Entirely Objective Indicators
Although the previous analyses provided evidence that
FFM-FD is significantly associated with numerous independent
expert ratings of presidential performance and leadership, we
sought additional corroboration using largely or entirely objective indicators of presidential behavior. Table 3 shows that, as
predicted, FFM-FD was significantly and positively associated
with the Simonton six-item composite,4 with rated initiation of
new legislation and programs, and with being viewed as a world
figure. Contrary to prediction, FFM-FD was not significantly
associated with reelection or winning elections by a landslide,
although the latter relation was marginally significant. FFM
Factor 1, however, was positively associated with winning
elections by landslides. As predicted, both FFM-IA and FFM
Factor 2 were significantly and positively associated with Congressional impeachment resolutions,5 tolerating unethical behavior in subordinates, and negative character. Unexpectedly,
FFM Factor 1 was positively associated with impeachment
resolutions and negative character.
Incremental Validity Analyses
We next addressed the question of how much FFM-FD contributed to presidential performance in the two major polls
(C-SPAN and Siena) and the Simonton greatness survey of 12
composite polls beyond each of eight theoretically and empirically relevant predictors: Intellectual Brilliance, the “Big Five”
personality dimensions of the FFM, ASPD, and rated need for
power. These analyses help to rule out a host of rival hypotheses regarding the association between FFM-FD and presidential performance. In these analyses, we entered FFM-FD and
each covariate (taken singly) simultaneously in the GEE analysis, testing the incremental contribution of FFM-FD over and
above each covariate.
Controlling statistically for Intellectual Brilliance reduced
the associations between FFM-FD and Siena College poll overall ranking (␹2 ⫽ 2.37, p ⫽ .13) and party leadership (␹2 ⫽
3.80, p ⫽ .051) to nonsignificance.6 FFM-FD remained a significant predictor of all of the significant associations previously reported after controlling statistically for FFM Agreeableness. In contrast, controlling for the other FFM dimensions
4
The Simonton six-element composite includes assassinations, but not
assassination attempts. Expanding the analysis to presidents who were the
victims of assassination attempts yielded a marginally significant association between FFM-FD and the presence versus absence of such attempts
(␹2 ⫽ 3.18, p ⫽ .074).
5
Analyses that limited this variable to only the three presidents who
were either impeached or faced imminent impeachment (Jackson, Nixon,
and Clinton) yielded similar results; for FFM-IA, ␹2 ⫽ 21.89 (p ⬍ .001);
for FFM Factor 1, ␹2 ⫽ 4.19 (p ⫽ .041); and for FFM Factor 2, ␹2 ⫽ 27.78
(p ⬍ .001).
6
Analyses on the estimated intelligence of each president (see Simonton, 1986) yielded similar results to those for Intellectual Brilliance, and
are available from the first author on request.
PSYCHOPATHY AND U.S. PRESIDENTS
497
Table 3
Associations Between Psychopathy Dimensions and Largely or Entirely Objective Indicators of Presidential Behavior
FFM-FD
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Predictor
Dependent measure
Simonton 6-item composite
Reelection
Election landslide
Impeachment resolutions
Initiates new legislation and programs
Viewed by others as a world figure
Tolerates unethical behavior in
subordinates
Negative character
FFM-IA
FFM-F1
␹
p
R
␹
p
5.48 (⫹)
1.188
2.99 (⫹)
0.089
12.23 (⫹)
8.23 (⫹)
.019
.276
.084
.765
.001
.004
3.1%
1.0%
1.7%
0%
6.9%
4.6%
0.953
0.016
1.512
15.16 (⫹)
0.679
1.74
.329
.990
.219
.001
.410
.187
1.0%
0%
1.0%
8.8%
0%
1.0%
.958
.745
0%
0%
30.42 (⫹)
119.99 (⫹)
.001
.001
17.2%
71.2%
2
0.003
0.106
2
2
2
R
␹
FFM-F2
p
R
␹
p
R2
0.037
0.108
7.67 (⫹)
0.110
5.59ⴱ (⫺)
0.649
.847
.743
.006
.740
.018
.421
0%
0%
4.3%
0%
3.2%
0%
0.185
0.079
2.580
11.64 (⫹)
1.06
1.43
.667
.778
.108
.001
.304
.232
0%
0%
1.5%
6.6%
1.0%
1.0%
6.54 (⫹)
3.46 (⫹)
.011
.001
3.7% 39.81 (⫹)
2.1% 138.25 (⫹)
.001
.001
22.5%
21.2%
2
2
2
Note. N of presidents ⫽ 42; N of ratings ⫽ 177. FFM-FD ⫽ Five-Factor Model-Fearless Dominance; FFM-IA ⫽ Five-Factor Model-Impulsive
Antisociality; FFM-F1 ⫽ Five-Factor Model Factor 1 (core interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy) Prototype; FFM-F2 ⫽ Five-Factor Model
Factor 2 (antisocial and impulsive lifestyle) Prototype. Pluses (⫹) and minuses (⫺) following the chi-square values indicate the direction of the effect, and
are indicated for all statistically significant or marginally significant results.
reduced some of the FFM-FD associations with presidential
performance to nonsignificance, in most cases to the level of
statistical trends. Controlling for FFM Extraversion reduced the
association between FFM-FD and C-SPAN overall performance
(␹2 ⫽ 3.52, p ⫽ .061) and crisis management (␹2 ⫽ 2.62, p ⫽
.106) to nonsignificance; it also rendered the association between FFM-FD and Siena College overall rank to nonsignificance (␹2 ⫽ 3.35, p ⫽ .067). Controlling for FFM Openness to
Experience reduced the association between FFM-FD and
C-SPAN overall performance (␹2 ⫽ 3.27, p ⫽ .07), Siena
overall ranking (␹2 ⫽ 1.30, p ⫽ .25) and communication ability
(␹2 ⫽ 2.32, p ⫽ .13) to nonsignificance. Controlling for FFM
Neuroticism reduced the association between FFM-FD and
Siena College poll Congressional relations (␹2 ⫽ 3.37, p ⫽
.066) to nonsignificance. Controlling for FFM Conscientiousness reduced the association between FFM-FD and Siena College overall rank to nonsignificance. Finally, controlling for
FFM Openness to Experience reduced the association between
FFM-FD and C-SPAN overall performance (␹2 ⫽ 3.27, p ⫽
.07), Siena overall ranking (␹2 ⫽ 1.30, p ⫽ .25), and communication ability (␹2 ⫽ 2.32, p ⫽ .13) to nonsignificance. All of
the other associations between FFM-FD C-SPAN and Siena
College variables remained significant after controlling for
FFM variables. Notably, the association between FFM-FD and
the Simonton 12 survey greatness composite remained statistically significant after statistical control for each FFM personality dimension.
Controlling for the FFM ASPD prototype reduced the association between FFM-FD and Siena College poll party leadership (␹2 ⫽ 3.82, p ⫽ .051) to nonsignificance. In addition,
controlling for rated need for power reduced the association
between FFM-FD and Siena College poll overall ranking to
marginal significance (␹2 ⫽ 3.55, p ⫽ .059). All other associations controlling for each of these two variables remained
statistically significant.
Notably, the association between FFM-FD and the Simonton
six-element composite of historical indicators also remained statistically significant after controlling for most covariates. The
exceptions were Openness to Experience (␹2 ⫽ 2.11, p ⫽ .15) and
Intellectual Brilliance (␹2 ⫽ 1.70, p ⫽ .19); the latter finding must
be interpreted in light of the fact that the Simonton six-element
composite itself includes Intellectual Brilliance.
In the last major incremental validity analysis, we examined
whether FFM-FD displayed incremental validity above and
beyond Simonton’s six-element equation of largely or entirely
objective historical indicators. As noted earlier, there is no
consistent evidence that any other indicators predict global
presidential performance above and beyond this equation (Simonton, 2008). GEE analyses revealed that after controlling
statistically for scores on this equation, FFM-FD was not significantly related to overall performance in any of the four
surveys examined here, although its association with C-SPAN
overall performance approached significance (␹2 ⫽ 3.51, p ⫽
.061). Nor was FFM-FD significantly related to the Simonton
12 survey greatness composite above and beyond the sixelement equation. Nevertheless, even after controlling for
scores on this equation, FFM-FD remained significantly associated with a number of specific dimensions of presidential
performance: C-SPAN Public Persuasiveness (␹2 ⫽ 9.81, p ⫽
.002), C-SPAN Crisis-Management (␹2 ⫽ 6.12, p ⫽ .013),
C-SPAN Agenda-Setting (␹2 ⫽ 6.86, p ⫽ .009), Siena College
Leadership Ability (␹2 ⫽ 8.24, p ⫽ .004), Siena College Communication Ability (␹2 ⫽ 4.29, p ⫽ .038), and Siena College
Willingness to Take Risks (␹2 ⫽ 7.11, p ⫽ .008).7
Presidents’ Scores on FFM-FD
Finally, given that our principal positive findings centered on
FFM-FD, Table 4 displays the scores of the 42 presidents (in
7
In contrast, scores on the Simonton equation consistently predicted
ratings of presidential performance above and beyond scores on FFMFD. For example, this equation predicted C-SPAN Overall Performance
(␹2 ⫽ 40.11, p ⬍ .001), Siena College Overall Rank (␹2 ⫽ 71.2, p ⬍
.001), and Simonton Presidential Greatness (␹2 ⫽ 83.89, p ⬍ .001) even
after controlling for scores on FFM-FD. These analyses demonstrate
that Simonton’s equation possesses considerable variance relevant to
presidential effectiveness that is not shared with fearless dominance.
LILIENFELD ET AL.
498
Table 4
Presidents’ Scores on FFM-FD
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President
Theodore Roosevelt
John F. Kennedy
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Ronald Reagan
Rutherford B. Hayes
Zachary Taylor
William Jefferson Clinton
Martin Van Buren
Andrew Jackson
George W. Bush
George Washington
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John Tyler
Chester Arthur
Lyndon B. Johnson
Gerald Ford
Benjamin Harrison
James Earl Carter
Woodrow Wilson
Warren G. Harding
Thomas Jefferson
Ulysses S. Grant
William H. Harrison
Abraham Lincoln
James Madison
Millard Fillmore
James K. Polk
Richard Nixon
Franklin Pierce
George H. Bush
Grover Cleveland
James Monroe
James Garfield
Harry S. Truman
Andrew Johnson
Herbert Hoover
John Adams
James Buchanan
William McKinley
Calvin Coolidge
John Q. Adams
William H. Taft
Discussion
Score
(1.462)
(1.408)
(1.079)
(.912)
(.824)
(.671)
(.569)
(.554)
(.516)
(.391)
(.302)
(.297)
(.283)
(.267)
(.173)
(.157)
(.032)
(.007)
(⫺.032)
(⫺.036)
(⫺.056)
(⫺.084)
(⫺.158)
(⫺.321)
(⫺.355)
(⫺.388)
(⫺.388)
(⫺.544)
(⫺.553)
(⫺.619)
(⫺.624)
(⫺.636)
(⫺.664)
(⫺.668)
(⫺.728)
(⫺.866)
(⫺.927)
(⫺.942)
(⫺.996)
(⫺1.175)
(⫺1.234)
(⫺1.579)
Note. FFM-FD ⫽ Five-Factor Model-Fearless Dominance. Scores in
parentheses are mean z scores (averaged across raters) for each president
on each dimension, standardized within the 42 presidents examined in the
study.
z-score units standardized within the 42 presidents, to facilitate
comparisons across presidents) on FFM-FD, ranked from highest to lowest. Mean comparisons across presidents should be
made with the caveat that they are not based on a fully nested
design, as each presidential expert only rated his or her president(s) of focus, rather than all presidents.
With that limitation in mind, the presidents scoring highest on
FFM-FD were (in order) Theodore Roosevelt (who towered more
than 3 SDs over the lowest scoring president, William Howard
Taft), John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan,
Rutherford B. Hayes, Zachary Taylor, and Bill Clinton. The lowest
scorers on FFM-FD were (again, in order) William Howard Taft,
John Quincy Adams, Calvin Coolidge, William McKinley, James
Buchanan, John Adams, and Herbert Hoover.8
In his seminal work, “The Mask of Sanity,” Cleckley (1941/
1988) described psychopaths as hybrid creatures who are
deeply deficient affectively, yet who present with a superficially persuasive façade of normal or even supernormal functioning: “Everything about him (sic) is likely to suggest desirable and superior human qualities, a robust mental health” (p.
339). The recently formulated dual-process model of psychopathy (Fowles & Dindo, 2009; Patrick, 2006; see also Lilienfeld
& Fowler, 2006) similarly conceptualizes psychopathy as a
distinctive composite of two underlying processes that are
dimensionally distributed in the population, one reflecting boldness and largely adaptive functioning, and the other reflecting
disinhibition and largely maladaptive functioning. Following in
the lines of the classic work of Simonton (1987, 1994) and
others (see Barber, 1977; Murray & Blessing, 1983; Rubenzer
& Faschingbauer, 2004; Winter, 2005), we tested this model as
applied to the U.S. presidents using a combination of personality and job performance ratings from historical experts.
Key Findings for FD
We found that a measure of the boldness associated with
certain features of psychopathy, namely an index of FD derived
from FFM data (FFM-FD), predicted overall presidential performance in two large independent surveys of U.S. historians as
well as a z-scored sum of 12 polls of overall presidential
performance. In two additional recent surveys from the United
Kingdom, these results were broadly corroborated. In one (the
USPC poll), FFM-FD was not significantly associated with a
ranking of overall presidential performance (although this association approached significance), but it was significantly associated with vision and domestic leadership. In another survey
(the Times of London Poll), FFM-FD was significantly associated with overall presidential ranking. These latter two polls,
along with subsidiary analyses of the C-SPAN poll, exclude the
possibility that the associations between FD and presidential
performance are attributable to rater overlap.
Equally noteworthy are findings that FFM-FD—as measured
by expert raters on each president—was significantly associated
not only with historians’ ratings of superior overall presidential
performance but also with several dimensions theoretically
relevant to FD: leadership, communication, persuasiveness, crisis management, Congressional relations, agenda setting, as
well as a willingness to take risks. Moreover, FFM-FD was
associated with an empirically established composite of six
largely or entirely objective indicators linked previously to
presidential greatness (Simonton, 1987), including war heroism, years served, and assassination; it was also related to the
launching of new legislation and programs and to be being
viewed as a world figure. In contrast, FFM-FD was not predictive of presidential dimensions relevant to ethical behavior
(Moral Authority in the C-SPAN poll, Integrity in the Siena
College Poll, Moral Authority in the USPC Poll) in any survey
8
Mean scores of the 42 presidents on the three other dimensions of
psychopathy examined here (FFM-IA, FFM Factor 1, and FFM Factor 2)
are available from the first author on request.
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PSYCHOPATHY AND U.S. PRESIDENTS
or to rated unethical actions (e.g., tolerating unethical behavior
in subordinates, negative character), suggesting that boldness is
not necessarily associated with immoral behavior, at least
among residents of the White House. These analyses offer
preliminary support for the discriminant validity of FFM-FD
from dimensions of presidential performance that are linked to
antisocial and otherwise questionable behavior.
These data are the first to our knowledge to demonstrate that
at least one feature of psychopathy is tied to superior political
leadership (see also Babiak et al., 2010, for data in business
settings). In addition, our findings are consistent with Lykken’s
(1995) fearlessness model of psychopathy, as well as dualprocess models of psychopathy (Fowles & Dindo, 2009) and
elaborations of this model (Patrick et al., 2009) positing that
boldness is a key component of psychopathy that is linked to
adaptive functioning in at least some life domains. They also
dovetail with conjectures (e.g., Lykken, 1982, 1995) that the
fearlessness associated with psychopathy can predispose to
success in politics and perhaps other worldly domains. In addition, our results may be broadly consistent with “neocharismatic” leadership paradigms derived from the industrial/
organizational literature, which link charisma and interpersonal
self-confidence to effective leadership (House & Aditya, 1997).
Although the FD dimension is considerably broader than charisma given that it also comprises physical fearlessness and
immunity to anxiety in addition to social persuasiveness, further
research should investigate the extent to which the relation
between FD and presidential leadership is attributable to this
dimension’s inclusion of interpersonal potency.
One potential criticism of our analyses is that presidential
experts’ ratings of FD might have been inadvertently contaminated on a post hoc basis by their knowledge of presidential
performance, or by what political scientists call “endogeneity”
(Jackson, 2008). For example, the knowledge that a given
president was successful might have led presidential experts to
rate him as bolder on personality measures. Nevertheless, for
three reasons, this explanation is unlikely to account fully for
our findings. First, because estimates of FFM-FD were extracted from measures of normal personality, such as extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, expert raters were
unaware that they were evaluating FD, let alone traits pertinent
to psychopathy. Second, FFM-FD was associated with presidential measures with which it is not closely linked intuitively,
such as better Congressional relations in both polls and better
communication ability in the one poll in which it was measured,
rendering it implausible that the association between FFM-FD
and presidential indicators was due solely to criterion contamination. Third, in most analyses, FFM-FD displayed incremental validity above and beyond several predictors linked intuitively to superior presidential performance, such as intellectual
brilliance, extraversion, conscientiousness, and need for power.
In addition, for a number of variables relevant to presidential
job performance (e.g., public persuasiveness, crisis management, agenda setting, overall leadership, communication ability, willingness to take risks), FFM-FD even displayed
incremental validity above and beyond Simonton’s (1987) sixelement equation. Nevertheless, FFM-FD did not exhibit statistically significant incremental validity above and beyond this
equation for global presidential performance for any survey,
499
suggesting that Simonton’s (2008) verdict that there are no
identified predictors of overall presidential performance above
and beyond this equation still stands. Nevertheless, our analyses
demonstrate that FFM-FD contains psychologically important
variance relevant to leadership that is not shared with Simonton’s equation, especially variance associated with traits allied
conceptually with FD/boldness, such as persuasiveness, communication ability, and leadership under pressure.
Indeed, with several exceptions, the associations between
FFM-FD and presidential performance survived statistical control for a number of covariates, including intellectual brilliance,
FFM Big Five personality variables, ASPD, and rated need for
power. This “destructive testing” methodological approach
(C. A. Anderson & Anderson, 1996), although statistically
conservative, highlights the unique contribution of FD above
and beyond competing constructs. The primary exceptions to
these significant incremental associations were FFM Extraversion and Openness to Experience, statistical control of which
reduced several of the relations between FFM-FD and presidential performance to nonsignificance. Nevertheless, even
here, FFM-FD continued to predict several dimensions of presidential performance, including public persuasiveness, leadership, agenda setting, and, most impressively, a z-scored sum of
12 independent presidential polls of overall performance, after
statistical control for FFM Extraversion and for Openness to
Experience. Moreover, because the “surgent” or “agentic” component of extraversion is a key component of the boldness
associated with psychopathy (Lilienfeld & Andrews, 1996),
statistical control for FFM Extraversion probably constitutes
“overcontrol,” resulting in the elimination of some of the variance relevant to the FD construct itself (see Meehl, 1971).
Key Findings for Other Psychopathy Variables
Contrary to our predictions, the aspect of psychopathy tied
closely to disinhibition and externalizing propensities, as operationalized by FFM-IA and FFM Factor 2, was largely unassociated with poor presidential performance in independent
presidential polls of historians. The interpretation of these negative findings for FFM-IA is unclear, although they must be
viewed in light of limited statistical power owing to the necessarily small sample size of presidents. It is worth noting that the
more plentiful positive findings for FFM-FD than FFM-IA
cannot be attributed to differential restriction of range, as the
standard deviation of FFM-FD scores in our sample was lower
than that of FFM-IA (see the Results section). The absence of
significant positive associations suggests that, at least within
the range of scores exhibited by U.S. presidents, such traits as
poor impulse control, externalization of blame, and interpersonal antagonism may not necessarily bear marked negative
prognostic implications for political job performance.
Still, there were notable exceptions, indicating that such traits
are not invariably benign. FFM-IA was positively associated
with impeachment resolutions introduced before Congress and
tolerating unethical behavior in subordinates, the finding for the
former variable is especially noteworthy given that it is objective and free of potential rater biases. In addition, FFM-IA was
associated with more negative presidential character (a composite variable including extramarital affairs, absenteeism, and
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500
LILIENFELD ET AL.
abusing positions of power held), although this correlation may
be inflated by shared rater biases, because the ratings of character derived from the same historians who rated the presidents
on personality variables. Still, because the negative presidential
character variable consisted of largely or objective historical
indicators, such biases are unlikely to account entirely for our
findings. FFM Factor 2 was also associated with all these
variables, as well as with lower rated presidential integrity in
the Siena College poll. In aggregate, these findings complement
those for FFM-FD in suggesting that psychopathy may be a
confluence of markedly different personality traits (Patrick,
2006), with some (especially those assessed by FFM-FD) predisposing to successful interpersonal behavior and others (especially those assessed by FFM-IA and FFM Factor 2) predisposing to unsuccessful interpersonal behavior.
Caveats
We should be clear about what our results do not mean. They
certainly do not imply that psychopathic individuals make especially effective presidents. For one thing, our effect sizes
were, in general, small in magnitude (typically ranging from
3%– 6% of the variance), suggesting that boldness, at least as
assessed by FFM-FD, accounts for modest amounts of variance
in presidential leadership. As Simonton (2004) observed, the
best predictors of presidential greatness are probably not dispositional but situational, such as being in the right place at the
right time. In addition, we did not find that all features of
psychopathy are associated with superior presidential performance; to the contrary, features of psychopathy tied to disinhibition (e.g., FFM Factor 2) were sometimes predictive of
inferior performance, such as lower integrity, more impeachment resolutions, and negative presidential character (see also
Footnote 2 for largely negative findings on PPI-estimated Coldheartedness). Instead, our results suggest only that one noteworthy facet of psychopathy, namely boldness, bears significant
implications for presidential performance and leadership.
Nor do our results mean that presidents who are high in only
one facet of psychopathy, such as FD, should be regarded as
“psychopathic.” To the contrary, the dual-process model implies that because psychopathy is a configuration or constellation of two largely independent traits, only individuals who are
high on both traits will be perceived as psychopathic. Theodore
Roosevelt, for example, was markedly elevated on FFM-FD
(z score ⫽ 1.462; see Table 4), but only slightly above average
on FFM-IA (z score ⫽ .213), and therefore would be regarded
not as a prototypical psychopath, but rather as an individual
with a high score only on its substantially adaptive component.
Limitations
Our study is marked by a number of limitations, several of
which offer fruitful directions for further research. First, the
four indicators of psychopathy trait domains were not measured
directly, but were only estimated from FFM facets. As a consequence, our findings may underestimate the genuine magnitude of the associations between certain psychopathy dimensions and presidential performance. Future work would benefit
from administering more explicit measures of psychopathic
features to presidential raters (see Lilienfeld, 1998, for a discussion of observer rating measures of psychopathy). In addition, future work should examine indicators of psychopathy
trait domains derived from personality frameworks other than
the FFM to ascertain the generalizability of our findings. In
particular, the FFM has been criticized for its lack of coverage
of several traits potentially relevant to psychopathy, including
morality (Loevinger, 1994; see also Block, 1995) and honesty/
humility (Ashton & Lee, 2007). Moreover, because all four
psychopathy indices were estimated from the FFM, it is possible that the constructs they assess are more independent “in
nature” than implied in our analyses.
Second, because we examined only the U.S. presidents, caution is required in extrapolating our findings to other leadership
positions. In future work, it will be important to extend the
generalizability of our results to individuals occupying other
positions of power, including other politicians, bosses, corporate executives, and military commanders. In addition, it will be
necessary to examine whether our findings extend to leaders in
non-Western countries. For example, in countries (e.g., China)
in which collectivist attitudes are more normative than in
largely individualist countries such as the United States (Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002), boldness—which often
necessitates a willingness to disregard the views of others—
may be associated with negative prognostic implications for
leadership (see also Winter, 2005).
Third, any investigation of the personality correlates of presidential performance is limited by the fact that such performance is inevitably influenced by luck— both good and bad
(Simonton, 2004). Such chance factors almost certainly constrain the magnitudes of the correlations between personality
variables, including psychopathy traits, and job performance.
At the same time, it is worth noting that in subsidiary analyses
not reported here, scores on FFM-FD (but not on the other
psychopathy variables) were significantly and positively associated with ratings of “Luck” by the Siena College Poll presidential historians (see Footnote 3). What may superficially
appear to be good or bad luck may in part reflect presidents’
success or failure in capitalizing on unpredictable occurrences.
For example, a major tragedy, such as a natural disaster or
terrorist attack on home soil, can help to sink a presidency if
handled poorly; alternatively, it can help to make a presidency
if handled well.
Fourth, our comparisons of the mean levels of the presidents
on FFM-FD (see Table 4) should be interpreted with caution, in
part because each expert rater assessed only his or her own
president(s) of interest. Because we did not collect data on
raters’ personality traits, we cannot exclude the possibility that
historians with certain traits might be differentially drawn to
study certain presidents, display undetected biases in the ratings
of these presidents, or both (see Simonton, 2004). In addition,
whereas several presidents, such as George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, were evaluated
by 10 or more raters, other presidents, such as Zachary Taylor,
Andrew Johnson, and Chester Arthur, were evaluated by only
one rater. The mean scores of the latter presidents should
therefore be interpreted with particular caution. Interestingly,
FFM-FD (but not the other three psychopathy indices) correlated significantly with the number of raters per president (r ⫽
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PSYCHOPATHY AND U.S. PRESIDENTS
.26, p ⬍ .001), suggesting that this variable may be an indirect
marker of presidential impact. The GEE analyses, however,
account for the statistical influence of this variable.
These significant caveats aside, it is worth noting that the
mean ratings of FD display substantial face validity when
evaluated against consensual historical descriptions. For example, the highest FFM-FD scorer in the sample, Theodore Roosevelt, was variously nicknamed “The Lion,” “The Dynamo of
Power,” and “The Driving Force” (among others) as president
and was known as the “Cyclone Assemblyman” early in his
career as New York State Assemblyman because of his remarkable interpersonal potency and energy level. Historian Ronald
Steel (2010) described him as a “man who sucked all of the air
out of any room he entered.” In Steel’s words, Roosevelt was a
man of “martial manner and bellicose deeds” who was a “political reformer, a conservationist, a buffalo hunter, a militaristic liberal and yes, a ‘war lover’ if he thought it would achieve
peace and order” (p. 8). In contrast, the lowest FFM-FD scorer
in the sample, William Howard Taft, nicknamed the “Reluctant
President,” was described by historian Donald F. Anderson
(1973) as a man who “lacked temperamental aggressiveness,
rhetorical skill, and moral flexibility” (p. 189) and was “legalistic, consistent, reflective, and passive” (p. 201). Taft confessed that he was intimidated by the presidency and once told
his wife that “politics, when I am in it, makes me sick” (D. F.
Anderson, 1973, p. 27). Ironically, Theodore Roosevelt had
hand-picked Taft as his successor and, upon returning from a
long African safari, was dismayed at Taft’s reluctance to stand
up to the powerful businessmen whom Roosevelt had fearlessly
challenged.
Fifth, as indicated above, our findings are limited in part by
monorater bias given that the personalities of six of the 42
presidents were evaluated by only one historian. Hence, it could
perhaps be argued that our investigation is in part a study of the
vagaries of presidential historians’ personalities as well as of
presidents’ personalities. Nevertheless, for several reasons, this
explanation is unlikely to account for our findings for FFM-FD.
For example, in subsidiary analyses not reported here, we found
that FFM-FD exhibited a pattern of theoretically meaningful
convergent and discriminant validity with independently obtained ratings of presidential personality. For example,
FFM-FD correlated r ⫽ .48 ( p ⬍ .001) and r ⫽ .24 ( p ⬍ .001),
respectively, with the “Forcefulness” and “Poise and Polish”
dimensions derived by Simonton (1986) from factor analyses of
Adjective Check List (Gough & Heilbrun, 1965) ratings on the
presidents; FFM-FD also correlated r ⫽ .54 ( p ⬍ .001) with
the “Charismatic” dimension and r ⫽ ⫺.18 ( p ⬍ .05) with the
“Deliberativeness” dimension derived by Simonton (1988) from
factor analyses of stylistic ratings on the presidents. These
findings, based on correlations with ratings obtained from two
independent data sets, afford compelling support for the validity
of the FFM-FD ratings in our sample, and render it extremely
unlikely that our FFM-FD ratings are exclusively a product of
the idiosyncrasies of historians’ personalities.
In additional subsidiary analyses not reported in full here, we
further examined the possibility that monorater bias accounted
for our findings. Limiting the GEE analyses to the 36 presidents
for whom multiple raters were available did not substantially
alter the overall pattern of results; to the contrary, it actually
501
strengthened somewhat our findings and conclusions. For example, FFM-FD continued to significantly predict C-SPAN
Performance (␹2 ⫽ 9.06, p ⫽ .003), Siena College Overall
Ranking (␹2 ⫽ 6.47, p ⫽ .011), the Simonton 12 survey
greatness composite (␹2 ⫽ 9.81, p ⫽ .002), and the Times of
London survey overall ranking (␹2 ⫽ 6.21, p ⫽ .013). In
addition, the relation between FFM-FD and the UPSC overall
ranking, previously marginally significant, now attained significance (␹2 ⫽ 7.49, p ⫽ .006).
Sixth, several of our quasi-objective indicators, such as initiating legislation and programs, tolerating unethical behavior
in subordinates, and negative presidential character (see Table
3), were rated by the same experts who evaluated each president
on the NEO PI-R items from which we derived psychopathy
scores. As a consequence, scores on these variables, although
substantially objective, may nonetheless have been influenced
by subtle and undetected rater biases. Nevertheless, the fact that
some psychopathy variables were significantly associated with
unambiguously objective indicators, such as Congressional impeachment resolutions, election landslides, and the variables
constituting the Simonton six-item composite (e.g., number of
years served, number of war years served, victim of assassination), effectively alleviates concerns that all of our results are
attributable to the influence of shared rater biases on both
predictors and outcomes.
Seventh, ratings of presidential personality and performance
by historians are necessarily limited by such variables as the
amount of information available about each president and each
president’s historical recency. In particular, it is virtually inevitable that historians will tend to have more intimate knowledge
of presidents who served (a) a longer time in office and (b)
more recently. In GEE analyses not reported here, we found that
neither variable was significantly associated with FFM-FD
scores, although the association between FFM-FD and length in
office was positive and marginally significant ( p ⫽ .094).
Nevertheless, in exploratory analyses, we examined the possibility that either variable or both qualified the association
between FFM-FD and overall presidential performance. For (a),
we created a partialed product term reflecting the multiplication
(statistical interaction) between FFM-FD scores and the total
number of days in office for each president as coded from the
historical record, and entered it following the main effects of
both FFM-FD scores and total days in the office in the GEE
analyses. In no case did this interaction term significantly
moderate the relation between FFM-FD and any measure of
overall presidential performance (C-SPAN, Siena, Simonton 12
survey greatness composite, either U.K. survey). For (b), we
created a partialed product term reflecting the interaction between FFM-FD scores and presidential order entered as an
interval variable from 1 to 42 (with the first president, George
Washington, receiving a 1, and the most recent president in the
analyses, George W. Bush, receiving a 42), and entered it
following the main effects of both FFM-FD scores and presidential order. Again, in no case did this interaction term significantly moderate the relation between FFM-FD and any
measure of overall presidential performance. Thus, we found no
evidence that the relation between FFM-FD and presidential
performance was weaker for either shorter-serving presidents or
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502
LILIENFELD ET AL.
less recent presidents. Nevertheless, this issue merits investigation in further research.9
Eighth, some researchers have raised questions concerning either the factorial coherence of the FD dimension or the centrality
of this dimension to psychopathy. With respect to the former issue,
recent confirmatory factor analyses suggest that factor structure of
FD, which was derived from the PPI using exploratory factor
analysis (Benning et al., 2003), may not always achieve adequate
model fit, at least in offender samples (Neumann et al., 2008).
These findings may point to the need to develop factorially “purer”
measures of boldness than FD as derived from the PPI or FFM
(see, e.g., Hall, 2009; Patrick, 2010). With respect to the latter
issue, a few authors (e.g., Gaughan, Miller, Pryor, & Lynam, 2009;
Miller & Lynam, in press) have argued that FD and closely related
traits are not as central to psychopathy as other authors (e.g.,
Fowles & Dindo, 2009; Lykken, 1995; Patrick, 2006) have contended. Critics of the FD construct have pointed out that this
dimension reflects a more adaptive component of psychopathy
than captured by most measures of this construct, such as the
PCL-R (e.g., Hare, 2003). Nevertheless, data demonstrating that
FD is associated with diminished fear-potentiated startle (Benning,
Patrick, Blonigen, Hicks, & Iacono, 2005a), narcissism (Benning,
Patrick, & Iacono, 2005b), sensation seeking (Benning, Patrick, &
Iacono, 2005b; Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005), substance use disorders (Witt, Donnellan, & Blonigen, 2009), low behavioral inhibition (Uzieblo, Verschuere, & Crombez, 2007), functional (but not
dysfunctional) impulsivity (Claes et al., 2009), a dispositional lack
of premeditation (Ray, Poythress, Weir, & Rickhelm, 2009), interpersonal manipulativeness (Witt et al., 2009), low emotional
empathy (Uzieblo, Verschuere, Van den Bussche, & Crombez,
2010), callous and unemotional traits (Uzieblo et al., 2010), and
amorality (Claes et al., 2009) offer compelling support for its
construct validity as an indicator of the core affective and interpersonal traits of psychopathy (see Lilienfeld et al., in press). Still,
the precise role of FD in psychopathy (e.g., Lykken, 1995) remains
unresolved: It may be a necessary but not sufficient feature, or
merely one important but associated feature.
Concluding Thoughts and Implications
Debates regarding the centrality of FD to psychopathy aside, our
results point to a heretofore largely neglected constellation of
personality traits associated with some domains of psychopathy,
namely, those comprising boldness, which is relevant to presidential leadership. As a consequence, they may inform ongoing debates concerning the controversial construct of successful psychopathy (Lilienfeld, 1994). One possibility is that individuals
with successful psychopathy possess a predisposition toward disinhibition conjoined with interpersonal and affective traits (e.g.,
boldness, immunity to anxiety) that buffer them against externalizing behavior (see also Hall & Benning, 2006). This hypothesis
warrants investigation in other samples.
Our findings do not address the question of whether the association between boldness and political performance is linear; at
extreme levels, boldness may merge into recklessness and become
maladaptive. Although subsidiary analyses (not reported here)
examining the potential curvilinear effects of FFM-FD (by entering a FFM-FD squared term hierarchically following the FFM-FD
linear term) on presidential performance variables yielded consis-
tently negative results, these findings may reflect a curtailment of
FD variance at the high end among U.S. presidents.
Finally, our results raise the intriguing but unresearched possibility that the boldness often associated with psychopathy may
confer advantages across a host of occupations, vocations, and
social roles, such as positions of power and prestige in politics,
business, law enforcement, athletics, and the military. If so, they
may prove relevant for a better understanding not only of the U.S.
presidency but also for occupational performance in fields as
diverse as political psychology, industrial/organizational psychology, police psychology, sports psychology, and military psychology. Further investigation of the implications of boldness for
leadership in general (see also Atwater & Yammarino, 1993;
House & Aditya, 1997), as well as for successful interpersonal
behavior more broadly is clearly warranted.
9
In subsidiary analyses, we examined whether controlling statistically
for either duration in office or recency of presidency eliminated the
statistically significant associations between FFM-FD and presidential
performance. Controlling for duration in office (again, coded as number of
days served) reduced the associations between FFM-FD and overall presidential performance to either nonsignificance (in the case of the Siena
Poll, ␹2 ⫽ 1.07, p ⫽ .30; in the case of the Times of London poll, ␹2 ⫽
1.26, p ⫽ .261) or marginal significance (in the case of the C-SPAN poll,
␹2 ⫽ 3.03, p ⫽ .083; in the case of the Simonton 12 survey greatness
composite, ␹2 ⫽ 2.90, p ⫽ .089). It should be noted, however, that these
analyses are extremely conservative statistically given that duration in
office is itself highly correlated with total scores on all four presidential
polls (rs ranged from .61 to .65, all ps ⬍ .001) and with the Simonton 12
survey greatness composite (r ⫽ .62, p ⬍ .001; see Simonton, 1987, for
similar evidence). Yet even after controlling for duration in office, a
number of associations between FFM-FD and specific dimensions of
presidential performance remained significant, including C-SPAN Public
Persuasiveness (␹2 ⫽ 6.58, p ⫽ .01), C-SPAN Agenda Setting (␹2 ⫽ 4.71,
p ⫽ .03), C-SPAN Congressional Relations (␹2 ⫽ 4.26, p ⫽ .039), Siena
College Leadership Ability (␹2 ⫽ 4.72, p ⫽ .03), Siena College Party
Leadership (␹2 ⫽ 4.19, p ⫽ .041), Siena College Willingness to Take Risks
(␹2 ⫽ 4.23, p ⫽ .04), and USPC Domestic Leadership (␹2 ⫽ 4.87, p ⫽
.027). Controlling for recency of presidency did not eliminate any of
previously reported significant associations between FFM-FD and either
overall or specific presidential performance.
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