Psychological Approaches To President

Studying past presidencies through psychological analysis takes an angle we have not yet seen in so far. Rather than studying the big picture of history or on the history of a president’s constitutional powers, the psychological approach takes an individual, case-by-case approach to evaluate each president. For example, in Wayne’s book we saw how Obama’s personal life and campaign strategy shaped who he was as President of the United States. In class we reviewed other past presidents as well and made connections from their life growing up and predicted how this could shape their presidential characteristics. It is important to come into this approach knowing that our predictions are not definite or completely reliable. With that being said, the psychological approach does provide …show more content…
A main benefit is that the psychological approach is more personal to each candidate. What this means is that when I am looking at a candidate and want to decide if I will support them in elections, I am more willing to vote on they will perform in office. With this being my goal, the question arises: is the constitutional or historical approach going to determine this specific candidate’s characteristics and features as president? I argue those two approaches are appropriate indicators of the potential level of change one president can have. However, the psychological approach will be more effective at giving insight on how a specific candidate will act as president during a national threat, or how involved they will be in the political system. What the psychological approach allows which the historical and constitutional do not is that you are able to take a specific candidate and make a predication without having ample knowledge of other historical presidents. Rather than looking at trends and precedents, as we see in the historical analysis, each candidate can be reviewed on their specific