Course Description
Leaders of governments are often required to make decisions under conditions that are time-constrained, stressful, and where the stakes are very high. Think of the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which decisions needed to be made quickly in a context that risked nuclear war, the United States after 9/11, Ukraine and Russia, or Israel after October 7, 2023.
Psychological research tells us that rather than behaving as rational actors, individual and collective history and memory influence leaders’ decisions in such circumstances. First, personal and collective history and memory contribute to leaders’ personalities and traits. Second, history and memory have a direct influence through their use in analogical reasoning—the inference that the current crisis is similar to a previous crisis. They help leaders to diagnose the seriousness of what is at stake and seem to offer clues as to the effective (and ineffective) courses of action. Third, prospect theory says that history and memory affect how leaders frame situations in terms of gains and losses, leading them to be risk averse or risk acceptant.
But cognitive psychology also tells us that these memories and “lessons of history” are often used poorly by leaders because they are swayed by the superficial similarities between one situation and another, or take risks to get back to a historical status quo that is unreachable. Indeed, the poor use of history often results in leaders making suboptimal decisions.
This course will begin by looking at the psychology of elite decision-making in terms of the influence of history and memory on the development of leaders’ personalities and traits, in analogical reasoning, and according to prospect theory. The course will then consider other psychological perspectives on elite decision-making that regard history and memory as less influential, including groupthink, in which the emphasis is on the structural flaws of groups and the perils of concurrence-seeking, and poliheuristic theory, in which political considerations are said to eliminate consideration of some options entirely, with leaders then deciding rationally between the options that remain. Finally, we will ask whether (and how) these different perspectives on elite decision-making can be combined, and how we might ensure that leaders use history and memory more productively in decision-making.
The course will draw on several different leaders, cases and historical examples from the 20th and 21st centuries around the world.

Learning outcomes of the course
Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:
(1) discuss the major theories of elite thinking and decision-making in the field of political psychology in oral and written work, and the role of history and memory in them
(2) apply and evaluate psychological theories of elite thinking and decision-making in presentations and written work.
(3) synthesize and critique major theories and arguments in the field.
(4) critically evaluate the implications of new research and evidence for a given theory.

Syllabus

Psychological theories involving history and memory
• Psychobiography
• Leadership Trait Analysis and Operational Codes
• The Big 5
• Analogical reasoning and the past
• Prospect theory and elites’ reference points
Alternative psychological theories
• Groupthink
• Prospect theory
Combining psychological theories
• Personality and groupthink
• Cognitive complexity and analogical reasoning

Detailed Syllabus
Please note that each week’s learning is divided into a lecture and discussion class (LDC) for 1.5 hours. The second class is a group-work class (GWC) running for 1.5 hours in which a further text, document or problem will be set for study groups to work/present on. This may introduce new material in the class itself for further work/analysis or you may be asked to bring your own material/experience to this class. Different groups may be assigned different readings. Before the LDC you must prepare by reading and making written notes (no more than 500 words, or one side of A4 paper) on the set or [required] text indicated.

Part 1: Psychological theories involving history and memory

Week 1. Introduction
Block, Jack, and Jeanne H. Block. 2006. “Nursery School Personality and Political Orientation Two Decades Later.” Journal of Research in Personality 40: 734-749. [required]

Caprara, Gian Vittorio, and Jo Silvester. 2018. “The Personality Attributes of Political Elites.” In Heinrich Best and John Higley (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Political Elites [further reading]

Week 2. Psychobiography
Barber, James David. 1992. The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Chapter 1. I will assign you a second chapter [required]

Lilienfeld, Scott, Irwin Waldman, Kristin Landfield, Ashley Watts, Steven Rubenzer, and Thomas Faschingbauer. 2012. “Fearless Dominance and the U.S. Presidency: Implications of Psychopathic Personality Traits for Successful and Unsuccessful Political Leadership.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 103(3): 489-505 [further reading]

Questions:
What is the importance of childhood in Barber’s theory of “presidential character”?
What kinds of evidence does Barber draw upon to test his theory? How persuasive do you find this evidence? Think through the reasons for your answer.

If you were asked to provide a profile of Donald Trump’s presidential character how would you begin, i.e., what would you look for? Where do you think Trump belongs in Barber’s typology and why?

Week 3. Personality Traits, Beliefs and Values
Oktay, Sibel. Forthcoming. “Crisis Leadership in the Time of Covid: Effects of Personality Traits on Response Speed.” International Studies Perspectives [required]

Brown, Lauren, Laszlo Horvath, and Daniel Stevens. 2021. “Moonshots or a Cautious Take-off? How the Big 5 Leadership Traits Predict Covid-19 Policy Response.” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties S1: 335-347
[further reading]
Brummer, Klaus. 2016. “’Fiasco Prime Ministers’: Leaders’ Beliefs and Personality Traits as Possible Causes for Policy Fiascos.” Journal of European Public Policy 23: 702-717 [further reading]

Questions:
What are the key differences you see between Barber’s theory of personality and the theories you have read about this week (note them all)?
What do you think of the kind of evidence used to construct leader profiles in these theories? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What would be better evidence?
What are the main differences between leadership trait analysis and the notion of leaders’ operational codes?

Week 4. Analogical Reasoning and the Vietnam War
Khong, Yuen Foong. 1992. Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965. Chapter 2 [required]

Khong, Yuen Foong. 2022. “How not to Learn from History.” International Affairs
98(5): 1737-1762 [further reading]
Mumford, Andrew. 2015. “Parallels, Prescience and the Past: Analogical Reasoning and Contemporary International Politics.” International Politics 52: 1-19
[further reading]
Questions:
Why are individuals, and elites, prone to reason by analogy? What are the heuristics that often lead to the misapplication of analogies?
Why do members of elites often use different analogies? Why does it then become difficult to understand each other?
What is process tracing and how is it helpful?

Week 5. Analogical Reasoning beyond the Vietnam War
Houghton, David Patrick. 1996. “The Role of Analogical Reasoning in Novel Foreign Policy Situations.” British Journal of Political Science 25: 523-552 [required]

Miller, Paul. 2016. “Graveyard of Analogies: The Use and Abuse of History for the War in Afghanistan.” Journal of Strategic Studies 39: 446-476 [further reading]
Siniver, Asaf, and Jeffrey Collins. 2013. “ .” Foreign Policy Analysis 11: 215-231 [further reading]

Questions:
How can we know about the analogies that elites use in private?
What does Houghton contribute to our understanding of analogical reasoning?
What is the evidence that decision-makers reason by analogy more than other types of reasoning?

Week 6. Prospect Theory
Kahneman, Daniel, and Amos Tversky. 1984. “Choices, Values, and Frames.”
American Psychologist 39: 341–350 [required]

Wolaver, Amy, and John Doces. 2021. “The Impact of COVID-19 and Political Identification on Framing Bias in an Infectious Disease Experiment: The Frame Reigns Supreme.” Social Science Quarterly 102(6): 2459-2471 [further reading]

Questions:
Prospect theory has been used in many different fields. How might it be applicable to elite decision-making?
Where do you think history and memory could enter decision-making in a prospect theory account?

MIDTERM BREAK

Week 7. Prospect Theory: Applications
Haas, Mark. 2001. “Prospect Theory and the Cuban Missile Crisis.” International Studies Quarterly 45: 241-270 [required]

Mercer, Jonathan. 2005. “Prospect Theory and Political Science.” Annual Review of Political Science 8:1-21 [further reading]
Schenoni, Luis, Sean Braniff, and Jorge Battaglino. 2020. “Was the Malvinas/Falklands a Diversionary War? A Prospect-Theory Reinterpretation of Argentina’s Decline.” Security Studies 29: 34-63 [further reading]

Questions:
We see some applications of prospect theory to cases this week: what methods are used?
Why is it important to establish decision-makers’ reference points? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches we have read in establishing decision-makers’ reference points?
Political psychologist Rose McDermott writes about some of the weaknesses of prospect theory: the lack of consideration of group decision-making, the absence of a theory of the reference point, and the need to incorporate emotion as well as cognition. To what extent are these problems present in the article by Haas?

Part 2: Alternative psychological theories

Week 8. Groupthink
Janis, Irving. 1982. Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Chapter 2 [required]

t’Hart, Paul. 1994. Groupthink in Government: A Study of Small Groups and Policy Failure [further reading].

Questions:
Think of the ways in which groupthink is a different theory of the key influences on decision-making to those we have encountered so far. For Janis, is there a role for history and memory in groupthink? If so, note where.
What kinds of evidence does Janis use to construct his case, i.e., how do we ‘prove’ that groupthink occurred? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach?
What do you think of the methods of testing groupthink? Can you think of alternative or better ways to test Janis’ theory?

Week 9. Revisions to Groupthink
Tetlock, Philip E., Randall S. Peterson, Charles McGuire, Shi-jie Chang, and Peter Feld. 1992. “Assessing Political Group Dynamics: A Test of the GroupThink Model.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63: 403-425 [required].

Lee, Tony. 2020. “ .” Small Group Research 51: 435-463 [further reading].
Mintz, Alex, and Carly Wayne. 2016. “The Polythink Syndrome and Elite Group
Decision-Making.” Political Psychology 37(S1): 3-21 [further reading].

Questions:
How, if at all, could leaders avoid groupthink?
What evidence would it take to ‘falsify’ groupthink?

Week 10: Poliheuristic Theory
Brulé, David J. 2005. “Explaining and Forecasting Leaders’ Decisions: A Poliheuristic Analysis of the Iran Hostage Rescue Decision.” International Studies Perspectives 6: 99–113 [required].

Mintz, Alex, and J. Tyson Chatagnier. 2020. “Poliheuristic Theory: A Middle Ground Between Rational and Cognitive Decision Theories.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics [further reading].
Westcott, Stephen. 2019. “Mao, Nehru and the Sino-Indian Border Dispute: A Poliheuristic Analysis.” India Quarterly 75: 155-171 [further reading].
Questions:
Is a noncompensatory decision-making a more realistic account of how leaders make decisions than others we have looked at? Why/why not?
Is there are role for history and memory in poliheuristic theory? If so, what role do they play?

Part 3: Combining psychological theories

Week 11: Personality combined with other theories
Dyson, Stephen, and Thomas Preston. 2006. “Individual Characteristics of Political Leaders and the Use of Analogy in Foreign Policy Decision Making.” Political Psychology 27: 265-288 [required].

Schafer, Mark. 1999. “Explaining Groupthink: Do the Psychological Characteristics of the Leader Matter?” International Interactions 25: 181-212 [further reading].

Questions:
How might we combine different psychological theories that we have studied in this class into a coherent whole?
Do history and memory have a role in any credible combined theory of decision-making, or can they be discounted?

Week 12: Presentations
Redd, Steven, and Alex Mintz. 2013. “Policy Perspectives on National Security and Foreign Policy Decision Making.” Policy Studies Journal 41(S1): S11-S37 [required].

Teaching Assessment
This course will be assessed by a combination of:
Class participation (20%): asking questions (in-class or by email before class), answering questions in class, discussing readings.
Presentations (12 minutes + Q&A) (40%): Students will be given the opportunity to choose a leader and a decision that interests them. They will prepare a presentation that evaluates the leader and decision in terms of the theories we examine.
Final exam of 1.5 hours (40%): consisting of multiple-choice questions and two essay questions requiring knowledge of the material in the course.

Bibliography/Recommended Reading
Brown, Lauren, Laszlo Horvath, and Daniel Stevens. 2021. “Moonshots or a Cautious Take-off? How the Big 5 Leadership Traits Predict Covid-19 Policy Response.” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties S1: 335-347.
Houghton, David Patrick. 1996. “The Role of Analogical Reasoning in Novel Foreign Policy Situations.” British Journal of Political Science 25: 523-552.
Kertzer, Joshua, and Dustin Tingley. 2018. “Political Psychology in International Relations: Beyond the Paradigms.” Annual Review of Political Science 21: 1-23.
Khong, Yuen Foong. 1992. Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Langenbacher, Eric, and Ruth Witllinger. 2018. “The End of Memory? German-American Relations under Donald Trump.” German Politics 27: 174-192.
Lee, Tony. 2020. “Groupthink, Qualitative Comparative Analysis, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square Disaster.” Small Group Research 51: 435-463.
McDermott, Rose. 2004. Political Psychology in International Relations. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Pursiainen, Christer, and Tuomas Forsberg. 2021. The Psychology of Foreign Policy. London: Palgrave.
Miller, Paul. 2016. “Graveyard of Analogies: The Use and Abuse of History for the War in Afghanistan.” Journal of Strategic Studies 39: 446-476.
Oktay, Sibel. Forthcoming. “Crisis Leadership in the Time of Covid: Effects of Personality Traits on Response Speed.” International Studies Perspectives
Satterfield, Jason. 1998. “Cognitive-Affective States Predict Military and Political Aggression and Risk Taking: A Content Analysis of Churchill, Hitler, Roosevelt, and Stalin.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 42: 667-690.

Last updated: June 19, 2026