Other Political Science Commons^™

The Political Personality Of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, Aubrey Immelman, Adam Beatty

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, from the conceptual perspective of Theodore Millon.

Psychodiagnostically relevant information regarding President Mugabe was extracted from biographical sources and media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the second edition of the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM–IV.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals.

Mugabe’s primary personality …

“Bin Laden’S Brain”: The Abrasively Negativistic Personality Of Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Aubrey Immelman, Kathryn Kuhlmann

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy leader of the al-Qaida terrorist network at the time of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States and allegedly chief strategist for al-Qaida operations and personal physician to Osama bin Laden.

Al-Zawahiri’s primary personality patterns were found to be Contentious/oppositional and Dominant/controlling, with secondary features of the Dauntless/dissenting and Ambitious/self-serving patterns.

The amalgam of Contentious (negativistic, or passive-aggressive) and Dominant (aggressive, or sadistic) patterns in al-Zawahiri’s profile suggests the presence of the “abrasive negativist” syndrome. For these personalities, minor frictions easily …

A Research Agenda For Political Personality And Leadership Studies: An Evolutionary Proposal, Aubrey Immelman, Theodore Millon

Psychology Faculty Publications

Despite major neuroscientific advances in the past two decades and parallel conceptual refinement in evolutionary theory, personality-in-politics inquiry remains adrift, divorced from these broader spheres of scientific knowledge. This paper reviews the neurobiological substrates of three major domains of evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology relevant to political personality assessment and the psychological examination of political leaders; furnishes a context and set of guiding ideas to revitalize the study of the person as biopsychosocial entity in politics; advances a generative theory of personality and political leadership performance; and proposes an agenda for advancing personality-in-politics and leadership inquiry, informed by insights derived …

Personality In Political Psychology, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This chapter outlines the history of personality inquiry in political psychology, examines the current state of personality assessment in politics, and charts a course for the study of personality in politics in the post-cognitive revolution era, informed by contextually adjacent scientific fields such as behavioral neuroscience and evolutionary ecology.

The chapter offers a comprehensive, generative, theoretically coherent framework for studying personality in politics, consonant with established principles in the adjacent sciences and integrative with respect to accommodating a diversity of politically relevant personal characteristics. The proposed framework attempts to bridge conceptual and methodological gaps between current formulations in the source …