My friend John Grohol has written an excellent article on what attributes, psychologically speaking, best predict Presidential greatness. In his recent “World of Psychology” post, he writes:

A researcher named Simonton did a study in 1981 that found the single most attribute correlated with presidential greatness was years in office. Other attributes that increase a president’s perceived greatness are an assassination or assassination attempt and the number of books he published before becoming president. The number of war years that the president presides over also predicts a president’s greatness. Being a professional soldier before becoming president and any scandals while in the White House decrease a president’s greatness. 

What is especially interesting are the factors that do not predict Presidential greatness:

Family background, personal characteristics, education, occupation, and political experiences provided few if any predictors of presidential performance, although succession to office through the vice presidency had a generally negative effect.

That last bit might explain why Al Gore couldn’t get elected, as the U.S. public seems to have a hard time taking vice presidents very seriously when they take a run at the higher office. Simonton summarized their greatness predictors:

The greatest presidents have longer administrations, lead the nation through more years of war, offer targets for unsuccessful assassination attempts, avoid major scandals, and publish many books before entering office.

These variables explain 75% of the variance of presidential greatness according to the researcher.

Then John asks and attempts to answer the question: How does this bode for Obama?

Obama has written three books and will likely lead the nation through at least another 4 years of war as he removes our troops from Iraq and continues work in Afghanistan. Hopefully he will not be the target of any assassination attempts and can avoid any major scandals, such as those that plagued his Democratic predecessor. He also has not been a professional soldier, which actually works to his favor in history’s eyes. 

All of which initially bodes well for Obama, at least from the perspective of predictive psychological research.

We join the rest of the nation — and, in fact, the world — in watching today’s inauguration and wishing Barack Obama the best of luck with leading the country through one of its most difficult times in the past century.

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