CHARACTERISTICS OF CANADIAN PRIME MINISTERS: RATINGS BY HISTORIANS AND POLITICAL SCIENTISTS by ELIZABETH JEAN BALLARD B.Ed., The University of British Columbia, 1975 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of Psychology) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA May, 1982 (7) Elizabeth Jean Ballard, 1982 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of Psychology" The University of British Columbia 2075 Wesbrook Place Vancouver, Canada V6T 1W5 Date ^Wck 25, DE-6 (2/79) i ABSTRACT Personality, situational and behavioural theories of political leadership fall short of explaining the interaction among the leader, the followers and the environment. In contrast, the transactional approach emphasizes this reciprocal process of social, cognitive and situational influences. Integrative complexity theory provides a framework and a methodology for studying this interaction and its effect on how people process information. This study focuses on the Canadian Prime Ministers as a population of political leaders worthy of investigation. In addition to studying their integrative complexity level, other aspects of value in understanding great leaders were examined. Based on items found in studies of American Presidents (Maranell, 1970; Schlesinger, 1962) the following dimensions were studied: difficulty, activeness, motivation, strength, effectiveness, prestige, innovativeness, flexibility, honesty and overall> accomplishments. Two sets of complexity scores (on prepared and spontaneous materials) were obtained in order to test the question: Whose complexity is being rated in prepared speeches — the writer's or the speaker's? Prepared speech scores came from the Response to the Speech from the Throne texts in Hansard, while spontaneous speech scores were based on extemporaneous responses to informal questions in the House of Commons. Two groups of experts (historians and political scientists) on Canadian leaders were approached for their opinions about the 16 Prime Ministers along the ten dimensions mentioned. An eleventh item was included as a check on the experts' knowledge of each leader. There was no difference between the prepared and spontaneous integrative complexity scores. Except for honesty, there were no correlations between complexity and the 11 dimensions rated by experts. The experts' ratings did not differ as a function of their discipline on 10 of the 11 scales. Only on the amount of information they had about each Prime Minister did the two groups differ. The difficulty of the political issues facing a Prime Minister had an effect on how he was rated on five dimensions: activeness, strength, effectiveness, innovativeness and accomplishments. Based on the four items found to be most predictive of greatness in American Presidents (i.e., strength, prestige, activeness and accomplishments), Canada's five greatest Prime Ministers are: Macdonald, Laurier, Borden, King and Trudeau. Both primacy and recency effects can be seen in these choices. The difficulty of the issues facing a Prime Minister had an impact on 3 of the 4 components contributing to greatness. The 5 Prime Ministers selected as great tended to rate high on the items which correspond to the 3 major dimensions (evaluative, activity, potency) of the semantic differential. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract 1 Table of Contents '.. iii List of Tables Acknowledgement vl INTRODUCTION 1 Leadership 1 Political Leadership 6 Integrative Complexity 15 Levels of Conceptual Complexity 19 Effects of the Environment Upon Levels of Information Processing 21 Measuring Integrative Complexity 22 Integrative Complexity 23 Evaluations of Canadian Prime Ministers.... 28 METHOD : 33 Expert Opinion Questionnaire 33 Rater Selection 34 Integrative Complexity Scores 34 RESULTS •••• 37 Expert Opinion Questionnaire 37 Returns 37 The Experts 37 Interrater Reliability 39 Historians and Political Scientists 39 Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient 42 Multivariate Analysis of Variance of Mean Ratings 42 Integrative Complexity 45 Correlation Among Measures 51 The Effects of Difficulty Political Issues 53 DISCUSSION 57 Spontaneous versus Prepared Speech Integrative Complexity 57 Experts' Opinions 58 Integrative Complexity and the Experts' Opinions 60 Relationships Among the Rankings 62 (a) Item One 63 (b) Item Two 64 (c) Item Three 65 (d) Item Four 66 (e) Item Five 67 (f) Item Six 68 (g) Item Seven 69 (h) Item Eight 70 (i) Item Nine 71 (j) Item Ten. 72 (k) Item Eleven 73 Studies of Presidential Greatness 74 Canada's Five Greatest Prime Ministers... 75 Conclusions 77 iv- Page REFERENCES. 79 APPENDIX A 84 Cover Letter 85 Information Packet 86 Questionnaire •••• 88 APPENDIX B 101 Princeton Scoring Manual 102 LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: Distribution of Experts Currently Holding Academic Positions in Canada 39 Table 2: Interrater Reliabilities for the Responses of Historians and Political Scientists Taken Together 41 Table 3: Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient for Rank Ordering of 12 Prime Ministers 44 Table 4: Multivariate Analysis of Variance of Mean Ratings on Eleven Dimensions by Historians and by Political Scientists for 12 Prime Ministers 45 Table 5: Rank Orderings of 12 Prime Ministers on Eleven Dimensions 47 Table 6: Integrative Complexity Scores for 13 Prime Ministers 52 Table 7: Correlation Matrix Among 11 Rated Dimensions and Two Complexity Scores for 13 Prime Ministers 53 Table 8: Fourfold Table Categorizing 11 Prime Ministers According to Their Integrative Complexity and the Difficulty of the Political Issues They Faced 56 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is often the case with major projects that many people make valuable contributions in the form of support, effort and ideas. And so it is with this project. Thanks go to my many tolerant friends who never failed to encourage me whenever I slowed down. Grateful acknowledgements go to Sheryl Mitchell and Janet Granger for their library research efforts; to Dr. Margaret Prang, Dr. Peter Ward and Prof. Donald Blake for their constructive criticism and contributions to the items on the questionnaire; and to Patricia Waldron for her excellent and speedy typing. Special thanks go to Michael Perry for both his contribution of a testable hypothesis and his moral support at the beginning of this project. I also give special thanks to Dr. Ralph Hakstian who patiently led me through the intricacies of data analysis and to Dr. Robert Knox who quietly persisted in his request for quality work. My greatest thanks are reserved for Dr. Peter Suedfeld. His contributions were in all three forms. Besides providing intellectual guidance and professional advice, he always expressed faith in my abilities. He not only believed I would complete this project satisfactorily, but he also succeeded in convincing me, at the darkest moments, that I could and should complete it. 1 INTRODUCTION Leadership "How Hard it is to Keep From Being King When It's in You and in The Situation" (title of poem by Robert Frost, 1951) Since before the time of Plato's philosopher-king people have been fascinated with the concept of leadership and its attendant characteristics. History records the effects of individuals like Christ, Beethoven, Queen Victoria, Marx and Hitler who have had significant impact on multitudes of people in their own time and beyond. Leaders and their attributes first attracted intensive scientific attention around the turn of the twentieth century. Since that time hundreds of studies have been conducted in attempts to describe, categorize and predict the tantalizing phenomenon of leadership. One major theory of leadership could be referred to as the Great Man theory. According to this view leaders possess a relatively small number of special qualities, characteristics, or traits that set them apart from nori-leaders. These traits are considered to be stable across time and situations. Proponents of this view of leadership chose to ignore the effects of both non-leaders (i.e., followers) and of situational variables upon the leader. The Great Man theory implied that the role of leader was a stable one and that variations in the leader-follower context across situations did not influence the role requirements of the leader. In empirical studies, using personality assessments, observers and peer ratings, some common characteristics among leaders did seem to emerge with considerable regularity. These included: intelligence, a high rate of energy output, alertness, knowledge, originality, personal integrity, self-confidence, decisiveness and fluency of speech (Stogdill, 1974). Unfortunately, neither how much nor exactly which combination of these qualities were required for a successful leader has been specified. Even as the Great Man or trait theory was being expounded, researchers were looking elsewhere for more complete explanations of leadership. The situationalists felt that it was a combination of timing, placement and circumstances which gave