Assessing Psychological Characteristics at a Distance

Symposium Lessons and Future Research Directions

Bibliographic Data

ID7352013
AuthorsStephen G Walker (0000-0003-4989-8213, Arizona State University, corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume21
Issue3
Pages597-602
Publication date2000-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-895X • E-ISSN: 1467-9221
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/0162-895x.00207
OpenAlexW1993868888
LanguageEN
Citations received12

The symposium papers show that differences in sources and context clearly matter in the ‘at‐a‐distance’ assessment of a leader's psychological characteristics. The stability of both cognitive and personality attributes decreases as observations focus on shorter time frames, more spec fic policy domains, and private rather than public arenas. Despite these qualifications on the use of texts to profile individual leaders, the indices of social cognition and personality do discriminate individual differences between leaders. Because the results reveal significant differences in assessing individual leaders over time with multiple sources and at different levels of analysis, it becomes more worthwhile to investigate research questions that would be moot in the absence of important source, context, or aggregation effects. With the use of automated content analysis and greater access to data from electronic sources, it is now easier to carry out quantitative content analyses of psychological characteristics and to confirm or qualify the insights generated in this symposium

Big Five personality traits · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Content analysis · Context (archaeology · Personality · Psychological research · Psychological science · Social science · Sociology · Applied Psychology · Community Health and Development · Cultural Differences and Values · Psychology · Social Psychology

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