Judging personality can be explosive -- unexpectedly setting people off in a new direction (and not always a good one).
Strong negative judgments can cause a person mental anguish and result in the individual losing a job or career. Such serious consequences have meant that most nations have laws, and many professions have ethical guidelines, concerning the range of allowable judgments of personality.
The judgments made by reporters, bloggers, and pundits that swirled around Sarah Palin over the recent July 4th, 2009 weekend illustrate those kinds of personality judgments.
Leading into the July 4th weekend, for example, Todd S. Purdum's article in Vanity Fair discussed Palin's career and character in some detail.
Purdum's article revisited some earlier news reports, "...that anonymous McCain aides saw Palin as a 'diva' and a 'whack job.'"
Purdum put names to the comments, and more clearly specified what was said and why. As he described it:
...in a recent series of conversations, a range of people from the McCain-Palin campaign, including members of the high command, agreed to elaborate on how a match they thought so right ended up going so wrong. (p. 97).
Purdum's article consists of a great deal of background on Palin's political career, and freely portrays others' not-always-nice perceptions of her, sometimes touching on her vanity. "More than once in my travels in Alaska," Purdum wrote,
people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin's extravagant self-regard. Several told me they had consulted the definition of "narcissistic personality disorder"...and thought it fit her perfectly. (p. 141)
In last week's post, I considered laws pertaining to defamation of character. For one person to say something defamatory of another (e.g., meet standards for libel or slander), the report must be false.
No broad doubts were raised regarding Purdum's facts (although some argued specific points). So, defamation of character does not seem to be an issue here, but the judgments are far from inconsequential.
Some bloggers concluded that Palin's resignation was a result of Purdum's article (see Larry Ray's post at the Rag Blog and Tina Kells' post at NowPublic).
An MSNBC report indicated that pressures on Palin had mounted due to the reported flair-up of members of the McCain camp, which was likely a reference to the Vanity Fair article.
Palin's own remarks, made during her press conference announcing her resignation at the end of July, are a bit general, but informative. After describing her accomplishments, the middle portion of her resignation announcement stated (omitted material marked "..."):
...you don't hear much of the good stuff in the press anymore, do you?
Some say things changed for me...the day John McCain tapped me to be his running-mate - I say others changed...
Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt. The ethics law I championed became their weapon of choice. Over the past nine months I've been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations - such as holding a fish in a photograph, wearing a jacket with a logo on it, and answering reporters' questions.
Every one - all 15 of the ethics complaints have been dismissed. We've won! But it hasn't been cheap - the State has wasted THOUSANDS of hours of YOUR time and shelled out some two million of YOUR dollars to respond to "opposition research"... Todd and I are looking at more than half a million dollars in legal bills in order to set the record straight...
It's pretty insane - my staff and I spend most of our day dealing with THIS instead of progressing our state now...
If I have learned one thing: LIFE is about choice... [end of quote]
The editors of Vanity Fair noted the same day, "Don't blame us..." for Palin's resignation, and, tongue-in-cheek, suggested the responsibility fell to a Palin interview in Runner's World!
We don't really know why Sarah Palin resigned. As I remarked last week in my post on defamation of character, some said a scandal might be in the works.
It is plain, however, that powerful judgments of someone's character can change life outcomes for a specific person, and more generally change political outcomes.
Was Purdum's article fair? Surely some of the points made would not please Palin or her supporters ("...unfit for the vice-presidency...").
Some said it was a "hit piece;" and a "hatchet job", but Palin's strengths were sometimes recognized as well.
Purdum's journalistic mission was, in part, to better understand the dissention among campaign staff members regarding their vice-presidential candidate. In so doing, he convinced the staffers to speak on the record and more specifically about the issues and challenges they and their candidate, Sarah Palin, faced.
Such journalism can be of value in informing the public, and in writing "the first draft of history" as Phil Graham put it. Such an endeavor is in no way guaranteed, however, to result in a fair and balanced picture of the candidate herself -- though it can contribute to such a picture.
Psychologists are challenged by this same issue: How does one capture the richness, texture, and complexity of any individual's personality?
One lesson I draw from all this is that judgments of personality are easy to make. Understanding the degree to which those judgments are accurate or fair, however, requires a much greater investment.
A second lesson: If Mr. Purdum's report did contribute to Ms. Palin's decision to resign, the events provide an example of how judgments of a personality, accurate or not, can change the course of a person's life, and perhaps ultimately a nation's political history.
Notes
All downloaded July 10th, 2009: [Larry Ray's post:] http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/sarah-palin-reads-vanity-f... [Tina Kells' post:] http://www.nowpublic.com/world/sarah-palin-vanity-fair-article-di... [Text of Palin's resignation speech:] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/03/sarah-palin-resignation-... [MSNBC:] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31726640/ns/politics-more_politics/ [Vanity Fair: (Don't blame)]: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2009/07/dont-blame-vf-f... [Original article]: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/sarah-palin20...
Copyright (c) 2009 John D. Mayer
