Recently I asked PT's bloggers what test they would want to give the presidential candidates. IQ? Rorschach? Maybe a turn on Survivor? A few of their responses were printed in the magazine. Here's a more complete (though not comprehensive) roundup:
Daddy Issues
I'd like to see how they deal with their own two-year-old having a meltdown in a public place.
—Hara Estroff Marano (Nation of Wimps) is Editor at Large at Psychology Today.
Straight Talk Express
My challenge would be for them to sit down with Jon Stewart for a two-hour live interview and a two-hour follow-up. Sadly, none of the other news anchors seems to be as interested in getting rid of BS answers and facing up to the chaos our country is in internationally and economically. I think it would really show the depth of their understanding of a wide range of issues (and where they are ignorant) and give us a better appreciation of their positions, their differences, their ability to think under pressure, and their stamina. And it would be fun! The two-hour followup would allow misleading statements to be thoroughly debunked-facing up to false claims and facts is often something handled only through sound bites.
—Joe Dumit (Promiscuous Facts) is an anthropologist at UC Davis.
Truth or Dare
Assuming both candidates stick to the rules, I would like to see them play "Truth or Dare" with each other. Actually, we've been watching them play variations of this game over the past several months, as this "game" is a central discourse in all election campaigns. But if there are formal rules and the candidates are face-to-face for the game, the best part would be that each candidate gets to choose which questions to ask and which dares to assign to the other candidate.
—Ilan Shrira (The Narcissus in All of Us) is a social psychologist at the University of Florida.
King of Cloud Nine
Let's administer a happiness inventory. Happy people are more productive, creative, charitable, energetic, friendly, and healthy. They set higher goals, cope better with challenges, and suffer burnout less. Of course Lincoln was depressed and Bush appears staunchly optimistic, but happiness plus realism helps you realize your dreams.
—Sonja Lyubomirsky (How of Happiness) is a social psychologist at UC Riverside.
Hear No Evil
I'd want the candidates to take the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (FNE). This scale measures people's sensitivity to being evaluated negatively by others. On average, Americans tend to be low in FNE, while members of East Asian cultures tend to be high in FNE. High FNE is also correlated with people's willingness to seek compromise solutions to hard dilemmas rather than sticking to one horn of the dilemma or the other.
—Art Markman (Ulterior Motives) is a cognitive psychologist at the University of Texas.
McRage
McCain is known to have a temper, and Obama is said to be good at forging peaceable compromise solutions, so we might want to know how each deals with frustration. A Harvard psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Funkenstein, was famous for his "stress interviews," conducted from the 1950s into the 1970s. Funkenstein might calmly ask a candidate for medical school to open the window - one that had been nailed shut. These challenges were formalized, for example, in a test situation in which undergraduates were given hard math puzzles to solve. Told that the problems were easy, the subjects were hurried and interrupted, by having their blood pressure taken repeatedly. After fifteen minutes of this treatment, the subjects were interviewed and rated on such dimensions as "intropunitiveness" and "extrapunitiveness." Which sort of President we should choose-intro- or extrapunitive-is up to the voters. But it would be nice to know how the candidates respond to provocation.
—Peter D. Kramer (In Practice) is a psychiatrist and author.
Gear Switch
From my perspective one of the most important qualities of a leader is to realize when they are wrong and change path accordingly. With this in mind I would like to ask or potential leaders to solve a series of five similar-looking problems. But in fact I would set the first four problems to be very similar but have the last one be very different. What I would like to see is how long they keep on trying to apply the approach from the first set of problems to the fifth one, and when they give up on the old approach and look for a new one. This test will also give us a measure of creativity and problem solving, which is not bad either.
—Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational) is a behavioral scientist at MIT.
Memories
I would like to ask each candidate to supply their most important "self-defining memory" (a memory that is vivid and emotional and helps to explain how they have come to be the person that they are). I would then ask them how this memory might reflect the kinds of concerns and issues that they would highlight in their presidency. For example, if McCain chooses his POW experience, how might that influence his approach to national security? If Obama chooses an experience related to his bi-racial upbringing, how might that affect how he approaches issues of race and social justice?
—Jefferson Singer (Life Scripts) is a psychologist at Connecticut College.
Heart of Darkness
I'd administer Henry Murray's Thematic Apperception Test. I want to know about the candidates' unconscious fantasies, and that's what the TAT elicits. It's a series of card drawings depicting people in emotionally fraught situations onto which the subject unknowingly projects his own needs and fears. Thus, it's perfect for getting at the darker strata of the mind. I want to know about the two of them what they don't even know about themselves.
—William Todd Schultz (Genius and Madness) is a psychologist at Pacific University.
Heart to Heart
The test I'd like to see the presidential candidates take is the MSCEIT, which is a test of Emotional Intelligence. Research has shown that emotions are central to good decision-making. Also, EI is thought to predict interpersonal and communication skills. We need a president with high "EQ" to help rebuild America's reputation around the world.
—Daisy Grewal is a social psychologist at Stanford Hospital.
Real Tests
The most relevant psychological question for a president is how he or she would react in a crisis, military or political, with lives at risk (think Lincoln and secession, or Kennedy and Cuban missiles). There is no good psychological test for such fitness, though I might suggest a poor substitute: Has the candidate failed at anything major in real life? If so, how did he react? Lincoln pulled himself up from the throes of suicide; Kennedy had PT109. In contrast, George W. Bush was untested by adversity before his election (unless we allow for recovery from alcoholism via evangelical religion, a dubious solution).
—Nassir Ghaemi (Mood Swings) is a psychiatrist at Tufts Medical Center.
Family Guy
Here's one I call the "family drawing". The candidates and their immediate family (spouses and children) are asked in front of a large piece of newsprint paper to pick a marker and "do something with the marker and the paper together without talking". They have five minutes to draw. No other instructions are given. Over the years I have found the exercise to be extremely revealing of family dynamics and process. Parents often learn alot from the exercise. We would learn what kind of family guys these candidates really are-if that matters to anyone.
—Larry Diller (The Last Normal Child) is a behavioral/developmental pediatrician.
