Cognitive-Affective States Predict Military and Political Aggression and Risk Taking
A Content Analysis of Churchill, Hitler, Roosevelt, and Stalin
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6285069 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jason M Satterfield (0000-0002-2765-3701, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 667-690 |
| Publication date | 1998-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Conflict Resolution (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0027 • E-ISSN: 1552-8766 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022002798042006001 |
| OpenAlex | W1989341566 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 16 |
| References cited | 95 |
The explanatory styles, integrative complexity, and pessimistic rumination scores of Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Franklin D. Roosevelt were derived from verbatim materials for time periods preceding military and political events. The events were rated on scales of aggression/passivity and risk/caution. Results suggest that increases in optimism and decreases in integrative complexity before military and political events predict heightened aggression and risk taking and that increases in low-complexity optimism are strongly predictive. Pessimistic rumination was not a significant predictor. The author hypothesizes that explanatory style and integrative complexity act as cognitive “filters” mediating between situations and behaviors via decision-making and motivational shifts. However, shifts in explanatory style and/or integrative complexity prior to military and political actions could only reflect impression management strategies. Further research comparing private to public verbatim materials is needed
Aggression · Biology and political orientation · Cognition · Cognitive style · Epistemology · Hostility · Optimism · Pessimism · Political science · Politics · Rumination · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Law · Optimism, Hope, and Well-being · Personality Traits and Psychology · Psychology · Social Psychology
Assessing Wartime Leaders' Motives
Two ways to be complex and why they matter
Leaders' Cognitive Complexity, Distrust, and the Diversionary Use of Force
Group-level integrative complexity
Decision-Making in U.S. Foreign Policy Crises
Rallies and the “First Image”
Do Socio-Political Factors Impact Terrorism? Insights from Jammu and Kashmir in India
The Benefits and Liabilities of Risk-Taking Propensity and Confidence at the U.S. Military Academy
Executive Heads and the Role of Intergovernmental Organizations
Conceptualizing television news interpretation by its viewers
Risky but Rational
Integrative Complexity Coding Raises Integratively Complex Issues
The Mind of the Terrorist
Interactive Leader Psychology and the Ebb and Flow of Interstate Rivalry
Cognitive-Affective Styles Associated With Position on War
Changes in Alan Greenspan's Language Use Across the Economic Cycle
Human inference
Advances In Experimental Social Psychology
A Critical Analysis of Current Trait Theory
Social competence and depression
Depressive attributional style.
Conceptual/integrative complexity
Subjective probability
Judgment of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students
Behavioral Decision Theory
The Influence of Positive Affect on Decision-Making Strategy
Behavioral Decision Theory
Toward a cognitive social learning reconceptualization of personality.
Cognitive self-statements in depression
Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression
The Optimal Margin of Illusion
An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion.
A cognitive-affective system theory of personality
Judgment under Uncertainty
Prospect Theory
On the psychology of prediction.
Learned helplessness in humans
Personality Structure
Social learning theory
Motivation and Personality
The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Impression management versus intrapsychic explanations in social psychology
The Costs and Benefits of Optimistic Explanations and Dispositional Optimism
Depression and evaluative schemata
Using Motive Scores in the Psychobiographical Study of an Individual
Choices, values, and frames
Pessimistic explanatory style in the historical record
Attributional style in depression
Attributional style in depression
Changes in Integrative Complexity Among Middle East Leaders During the Persian Gulf Crisis
Problems of International Crisis Management in the Nuclear Age
Churchill and Roosevelt
Hitler and Stalin
Role theory and foreign policy analysis
A World at Arms
Attribution bias
Responses to depression and their effects on the duration of depressive episodes
Cognitive Managers and Their Critics
Cognitive and Rhetorical Styles of Traditionalist and Reformist Soviet Politicians
Motivation and Personality
Political Implications of Loss Aversion
Prospect Theory and Political Analysis
Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis
The Evolution of Operational Code Analysis
The Personalities of Bush and Gorbachev Measured at a Distance
Prospect Theory and International Relations
Decision Making during International Crises
Integrative Complexity Theory and Forecasting International Crises
Integrative Complexity of Communications in International Crises
War, Peace, and Integrative Complexity
Political Rhetoric of Leaders under Stress in the Gulf Crisis
Cognitive Heuristics and American Security Policy
Positive affect facilitates creative problem solving
The influence of affect on categorization
Self-complexity as a cognitive buffer against stress-related illness and depression
Cognitive style and political ideology
The influence of positive affect on the unusualness of word associations
Ruminative coping with depressed mood following loss
Integrative complexity of American and Soviet foreign policy rhetoric
Reassertion and giving up
Changes in integrative complexity accompanying significant life events
APA presidential addresses
Pessimistic explanatory style is a risk factor for physical illness
Motivational and functional helplessness
Pre- to postelection shifts in presidential rhetoric
Revolutionary leaders
Availability
Stalin and His Times
The role of cognition in depression
| Unique citing works | 16 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,7 |
| Citation span | 2003 - 2025 (23) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 16 |