¹ We ask that a model give adequate explanation and prediction of international events, not perfect explanation and prediction. There are, however, no hard and fast rules as to what is adequate explanation. In a sense, the test is a psychological one: an explanation is adequate when the “mind comes to rest.” And this will depend upon the nature of the problem, its importance, complexity, and the interests of the people working on it.

² An attitude or behavior rooted in such non-logical influences may be considered to be a “symptom,” in the Freudian sense of the word; that is, “…an overt tension-reducing response whose relationship to an unconscious motive is not perceived by the individual.” See Sarnoff, Irving, “Psychoanalytic Theory and Social Attitudes,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XXIV (Summer 1960), pp. 251–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

It may be useful to distinguish between motives that are non-logical and motives that are inappropriate. If, for instance, an individual responds to an international decision-making situation in terms of his desire for organizational promotion rather than the welfare of his nation, his motives may be considered inappropriate even in terms of his own value structure (he may feel guilty), but they are not non-logical as long as they are conscious motives.

³ An individual may respond to an international event in terms of the event itself and still not behave “rationally,” as the term is ordinarily used. (We shall consider the concept of rationality more fully below.) He may respond foolishly because of inadequate information. Or he may respond in anger and haste—not in the cool manner of the rational decision-maker—but the anger may be due to the acts of the adversary nation rather than to the previous existence of latent aggression in the individual. This type of behavior, while not rational, fits easily into the model of rational behavior, for its deviation from rationality is along the dimensions considered significant in the model of rationality.

⁴ For a fuller discussion of these theories and, in particular, of the origins of these personality-oriented needs and the ways in which these needs are translated into attitudes toward international affairs, see Farber, Maurice, “Psychoanalytic Hypotheses in the Study of War,” Journal of Social Issues, I (1955), pp. 29–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Christiansen, Bjørn, Attitudes Toward Foreign Affairs as a Function of Personality, Oslo, Oslo University Press, 1959.Google Scholar

⁵ For examples of these studies, see Christiansen, op.cit.; Farris, Charles D., “Selected Attitudes on Foreign Affairs as Correlates of Authoritarianism and Political Anomie,” Journal of Politics, XXII (February 1960), p. 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gladstone, Arthur I., “The Possibility of Predicting Reactions to International Events,” Journal of Social Issues, I (1955), pp. 21–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Levinson, Daniel, “Authoritarian Personality and Foreign Policy,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, I (March 1957), pp. 37–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶ One can distinguish between the effects on the course of international relations of the nature of man and of the hypotheses held by men about the nature of man. It may be mat the latter have as great an effect as the former, though, of course, the two are not completely unrelated. A belief that basic predispositions are learned as a child and cannot be changed or that aggression has its roots in human nature might well affect decisions in international affairs.

⁷ The underlying theory of attitude formation that we are using here is a functional one. This makes it difficult for us to ask the question that really interests us: under what conditions are attitudes toward international affairs likely to be caused by non-logical needs? We would fall into a teleological trap if we were to assume that because an attitude performs certain psychological functions for an individual, we have explained the cause or genesis of that attitude. Nevertheless, although one cannot assume causality, attitudes that do serve as the outlets for some psychological need are more likely to be determined at least in part by that need than attitudes that do not perform such functions. Theories of learning, for instance, suggest that individuals will adopt those attitudes and behaviors that perform functions for them. See Brewster Smith, M., Bruner, Jerome S., and White, Robert W., Opinions and Personality, New York, 1956Google Scholar; Brewster Smith, M., “Opinions, Personality and Political Behavior,” American Political Science Review, LII (March 1958), pp. 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Katz, Daniel, “The Functional Approach to the Study of Attitudes,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XXIV (Summer 1960), pp. 163–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ Take the example of national stereotypes. As Boulding has pointed out, these are important components of decisions in international relations. Stereotypes of other nations tend to be long-lasting and to color interpretations of a nation's acts. But while stereotypical thinking as a mode of thought (tendency to maintain rigid categories, lack of receptivity to contradictory information, fixed evaluations) can be linked to personality variables, the particular object and content of the stereotype are harder to derive from such psychological roots. For instance, the American image of Russia changed considerably between 1942 and 1948. Such change can best be traced to the activities of the Russians during that period and the changing relations of the United States and Russia. It would be hard to trace such a specific change from a largely favorable image to an unfavorable one to the psychological roots of stereotypical thinking. See Boulding, Kenneth E., “National Images and International Stereotypes,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, III (June 1959), pp. 120–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rokeach, Milton, The Open and the Closed Mind, New York, 1960.Google Scholar

⁹ We mean by a foreign policy elite roughly all individuals whose activities and attitudes have a perceptible effect on the course of international relations. In most cases, this refers to a small group of high government officials, and some high communications and interest group leaders. It is important to keep in mind that on the mass level any theory of the effects of personality factors on behavior must be able to explain the modal personality in a group. Idiosyncratic variation will have no discernible effect on policy. On the elite level, as we have defined it, idiosyncratic variation might have a great effect upon policy and a study of it might prove fruitful.

¹⁰ This is not to deny the possible impact of non-elite opinion on foreign policy. Several commentators, for instance, have described the foreign-policy formulation process in the United States as one in which mass or public opinion, dominated by mood, affective reactions, and non-logical predispositions, impedes rational decision-making by the foreign policy elite. But, insofar as non-logical factors have their greatest effect on the non-elite level, such factors can be more easily incorporated into models that assume that policy choices are based upon more rational criteria. The non-logical aspects of non-elite behavior may be considered as informational input into the elite level and a factor to be taken into account in the elite's calculations. Since one of the elite's goals will be maintenance of their position, their perception of “public opinion” may induce them to initiate policies that they might not otherwise undertake. However, in terms of the model used to explain the formation of foreign policy, it can be a rational decision-making model.

¹¹ The following discussion draws upon a variety of works dealing with rationality, including the work of Herbert Simon and James G. March and their associates on organizational decision-making (see, in particular, March, and Simon, , Organizations, New York, 1958Google Scholar, and Cyert, and March, , “A Behavioral Theory of Organizational Objectives,” in Haire, Mason, ed., Modern Organization Theory, New York, 1959)Google Scholar; Schelling, Thomas C., “Toward a Strategy of International Conflict,” The RAND Corporation, P-1648, 1959Google Scholar; Garfinkel, Harold, “The Rational Properties of Scientific and Commonsense Activities,” Behavioral Science, V (January 1960), p. 72Google Scholar; Lindblom, Charles E., “Policy Analysis,” American Economic Review, XLVIII (June 1958), pp. 298–313Google Scholar; and Lindblom, , “The Science of Muddling Through,” Public Administration Review, XIX (Winter 1959), pp. 79–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹² In terms of training, skills, values, and information, there is no reason to expect higher levels of rationality among detached abservers than among decision-makers. There are, however, certain important structural characteristics of the situations in which decision-makers and detached observers operate that make it likely that the detached observer will more closely approximate the rationality model. This will be discussed below.

¹³ Lindblom, “Policy Analysis” and “The Science of Muddling Through,” loc.cit. This suggests why the rational model of economic man, though also inadequate, is not as inadequate as the rational model of political man. Though it oversimplifies economic choice situations to say that there is a single goal which is easily quantifiable and under which various alternatives can be rated one against another, nevertheless this is more closely approached in economic calculation, where the sphere of activity is essentially defined by its concentration around a set of values having to do with maximizing economic gain, than it is in political affairs, where the sphere is not defined by a set of values relevant to it but by the employment of certain means for the maximization of any or all values held by the individual or the group. This may also explain why rationality models have been used in international relations largely in connection with military problems—more specifically, in connection with the problems of nuclear deterrence. The reason may be that the relevant goals within this limited sphere are less ambiguous (deterring an attack, avoiding nuclear destruction) and easier to place in a hierarchy.

¹⁴ On bargaining as a process of making foreign policy, see Huntington, Samuel P., “Strategy and the Political Process,” Foreign Affairs, XXXVIII (January 1960), pp. 285–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hilsman, Roger, “The Foreign-Policy Consensus: An Interim Research Report,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, III (December 1959), pp. 361–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the general subject of bargaining as a characteristic of the American political process, see Dahl, Robert A., A Preface to Democratic Theory, Chicago, 1956, ch. 5.Google Scholar

¹⁵ See, in this connection, Abelson, Robert and Rosenberg, M., “Symbolic Psychologic: A Model of Attitudinal Cognition,” Behavioral Science, III (January 1958), pp. 1–13.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See Cyert, R. M., Dill, W. R., and March, J. G., “The Role of Expectations in Business Decision-Making,” Administrative Science Quarterly, III (December 1958), pp. 307–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Richard C. Snyder and Glenn D. Paige, “The United States Decision to Resist Aggression in Korea,” ibid., pp. 341–78; and Gyr, John W., “The Formal Nature of a Problem-Solving Process,” Behavioral Science, V (January 1960), p. 39.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Lindblom, “The Science of Muddling Through.”

¹⁸ Writing about the role of interest groups in foreign policy, Cohen has noted that “Since most foreign policy is by nature designed to deal with large national interests rather than special group interests, then it may turn out that the motivations of interest groups, the intensity of their involvement, and the extent to which they can advance legitimate claims to share official power tend to be more circumscribed in these foreign policy situations than they would be under typical conditions of domestic policy-making.” (Cohen, Bernard C., The Political Process and Foreign Policy, (Princeton, N.J., 1957) p. 283.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar Though this was written about non-governmental interest groups, it probably applies as well to organizations within the government.

¹⁹ See Hilsman, op.cit., and Snyder and Page, op.cit.

²⁰ The term “unattached” is taken from Merton, Robert, “The Role of the Intellectual in Bureaucracy,” in Social Structure and Social Theory, Glencoe, Ill., 1957, pp. 207–24.Google Scholar