Do you believe that language analysis can help in monitoring personality traits
ID: 470067 • Letter: D
Question
Do you believe that language analysis can help in monitoring personality traits in political, business, and economic leaders?
Think of a time when you used predicted outcomes values theory in an initial interaction with someone?
Did you decide to pursue a relationship of any kind with that person, If you knew them longer than that initial interaction, did your perception of them change?
Standpoint theory suggests that people may have power and not always be aware that they have it. To increase your awareness of the power and influence you have on others, describe the sources of power you possess and ways that you influence others at school, in your family, or within your circle of friends?
Explanation / Answer
Two majo
r types of st
atements a
re readily av
ailable for
most polit
ical leaders i
n the latter
part of the Twentieth Century – speeches and interviews with the media. Some caution must be
exercised in
examinin
g speeches t
o assess what
a leader is lik
e since such
materials a
re generally
written for him or her by speech writers or staff members. Moreover, care and thought have
generally go
ne into what
is said and h
ow it is said.
Interviews w
ith the med
ia, howeve
r, are a
more spontaneous type of material. During the give and take of a question and answer period,
leaders mu
st respond q
uickly with
out props or
aid. What
they are like
can influen
ce the nature
of the respo
nse and how
it is worded
. Although
there is oft
en some pr
eparation of
a political
leader prior to an interview with the press (for example, considerat
ion of what questions might
be asked and
, if asked,
how they sh
ould be answ
ered), durin
g the intervi
ew leaders a
re on their
own; their responses are relatively spontaneous.
Because of
the interest h
ere in assess
ing the perso
nality chara
cteristics of
the politica
l
leader and, in turn, his or her leadership style, int
erviews are the material of preference. In the
interview,
political lea
ders are less
in control of
what they sa
y and, even
though still
in a public
setting, m
ore likely to
evidence wh
at they, them
selves, are l
ike than is of
ten possible
when
giving a speech. (For research exploring the differences between speeche
s and interviews in the
assessment of personality at a distance, see, e.g., Hermann, 1977, 1980a, 1986b; Winter et al.,
1991; Schafer, forthcoming). The trait analysis described in what follows uses as its unit
of
analysis the interview response. Interviews are decomposed into indi
vidual responses and the
3
question that elicited the response.
Leaders’ interviews with the media are available in a wide variet
y of sources. Interviews
with political figures located in governments outside the United State
s are collected in the
Foreign Br
oadcast Inf
ormation S
ervice Daily
Report
which is distributed through World News
Connection
and are reported by other governments’ information agencies on their websites.
Interviews w
ith political
elites who re
side within
the U.S. ar
e often fo
und in such n
ewspapers a
s
the
New York T
imes
and
Washington
Post
as well as in w
eekly news m
agazines an
d as recorded
from wee
kly televisi
on news pro
grams. Pr
esidential p
ress confer
ences and ot
her intervie
ws with
the presiden
ts can be fo
und in each o
ne’s
Presidentia
l Papers
.
It is particul
arly impor
tant in colle
cting interv
iew materi
als that one l
ocate verbat
im
responses –
that, indeed
, the full te
xt as spoken
by the leade
r is available
. At times
newspapers
and magazines will overview or edit interviews with leaders making it difficult to know how
representative the material reported is of what was said. We are not interes
ted in what the
particular m
edia outlet b
elieves will
sell newspa
pers or mag
azines but in
how the lead
ers
presented themselves in that setting.
In the course
of compl
eting profi
les of the le
adership sty
les of som
e 122 politic
al leaders,
it has becom
e evident tha
t the analyst
can develop
an adequate
assessmen
t of leaders
hip style
based on 50
interview re
sponses of
one hundred
words or m
ore in length
. Confide
nce in one’s
profile, of
course, inc
reases the m
ore intervie
w responses
the analyst c
an assess bu
t any profil
e
will suffer if it is determined on less than 50 responses. To insure that the descr
iption of
leadership s
tyle is not co
ntext-speci
fic, the 50
interview re
sponses tha
t are analyze
d should spa
n
the leader’s tenure in office as well as have occurred in different type
s of interview settings and
4
focus on a v
ariety of to
pics. Colle
cting and ca
tegorizing i
nterview res
ponses by ti
me, audie
nce,
and topic provides a means for assessing how stable the traits composing leadership st
yle are.
Such data indicate how relatively sensitive or insensi
tive to the context a particular leader is.
It is also possible to classify interviews on their de
gree of spontaneity, facilitating the
analyst gaining some insight into the differences between a leader’s public
and private selves.
The least sp
ontaneous i
nterviews a
re those whe
re the politic
al figure ca
lls interview
ers into his
or her office to present a plan or report on what is happening or when the polit
ical leader asks
reporters to submit questions ahead of time and preselects those to answer, planning t
he
responses.
The most s
pontaneous
interviews a
re those whe
re the leader
is caught by
the press in
an unplanned encounter, e.g., leaving a meeting, getting on or off a plane, in the corridors of a
building, or where there is a recording of a meeting between the leader and advis
ers. By
different
iating the in
terview resp
onses on deg
ree of spon
taneity as w
ell as contex
t, one can ga
in
informat
ion not only
about the sta
bility of a l
eader’s prof
ile but also a
bout what h
e or she is
particularly sensitive to if there is a lack of stabi
lity.
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