PERSONALITY EXPERT ANALYZES ROMNEY VS. PERRY

Psychiatrist and Author Samuel Barondes Uses His “Big Five” System to Analyze Republican Frontrunners

NEW YORK, NY (October 7, 2011)—Ever wish you could learn the real character of a candidate before casting your vote? With the emergence of Mitt Romney and Rick Perry as likely Republican presidential nominees, pollsters have been asked to find out how voters are deciding between them. The candidates’ stands on key issues are obviously important. But a CNN-sponsored survey that completed on Sept. 25 found that personal qualities count even more than issues by a margin of 49 to 43 percent. In his new book, MAKING SENSE OF PEOPLE: Decoding the Mysteries of Personality, Dr. Samuel Barondes, a leading psychiatrist and neuroscientist at the University of California San Francisco’s School of Medicine, shares his practical system for understanding others—including presidential candidates.

“It’s no surprise that voters are influenced by each candidate’s personality,” says Dr. Barondes. “But what exactly are they responding to? How do they make their assessments? How well do they explain their views to themselves and to others?”

When asked to describe personalities, Barondes says most of us have trouble putting our thoughts into words. To do a better job we need a system for putting together our observations, starting with an assessment of personality traits. To help us organize this information psychologists have identified five major categories of traits which they call the Big Five: Extraversion (the tendency to enthusiastically reach out to others); Agreeableness (the tendency to be altruistic, cooperative and good-natured); Conscientiousness (the tendency to
tenaciously pursue goals and to control impulses); Neuroticism (the tendency to have negative emotions, particularly in reaction to perceived social threats); and Openness (the tendency to be imaginative and to enjoy novelty and variety).

A good first step in sizing up a person it to ask whether they are high or low on each of the Big Five. For example people high on Extraversion are very outgoing, bold, assertive, energetic and talkative, whereas those who are low are the opposite. To compare two people we can take note of their similarities on the Big Five and then focus on their differences.

“In comparing Romney and Perry,” says Dr. Barondes, “the main differences are in Extraversion and Conscientiousness. Perry, who is extremely outgoing, assertive, and upbeat, is much higher in Extraversion than Romney, who is more reserved. On the other hand Romney, a tenacious and highly organized long-term planner, is much higher in Conscientiousness than Perry, who is more spontaneous and impulsive. Because these differences are so apparent I think it’s likely that they have a big influence on reactions to these candidates.”

Dr. Barondes is Jeanne and Sanford Robertson Professor and Director of the Center for Neurobiology and Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. A leading psychiatrist and neuroscientist, he is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His others books include Mood Genes, Better than Prozac and the Scientific American Library title Molecules and Mental Illness.

In MAKING SENSE OF PEOPLE, Dr. Barondes describes several easy-to-use tools for evaluating someone’s personality, each based on extensive research. He begins by providing ways to examine the person’s basic traits, such as conscientiousness and agreeableness, and to look for troublesome patterns such as compulsiveness and paranoia. To illustrate his system, Barondes uses examples of many well-known people --such as Bill Clinton, Marilyn Monroe, Benjamin Franklin, Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, and Oprah Winfrey.

Barondes’s system is critical as we choose our next leader amid national and economic turmoil—and as more people make their decisions on who to support in the 2012 election. “In making these judgments the voters also factor in each candidate’s positions on the issues,” Barondes continues. “But, as the CNN poll found, personality is important in its own right. And having a system for thinking through our observations about a candidate’s personality does not only help us clarify our preference. It may sometimes even change it.”

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Liza Lucas, 212-705-4226, llucas@goldbergmcduffie.com

Megan Beatie, 818-678-6288, mbeatie@goldbergmcduffie.com

Goldberg McDuffie Communications

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