USPP
Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics
The Political Personality of 2007 French
Presidential Candidate Ségolène Royal
Pascal de Sutter and Aubrey Immelman
University of Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium, and St. John’s University, Minnesota, U.S.A.
January 2007
Abstract
This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of Ségolène Royal, candidate of the Socialist Party in the 2007 French presidential election. The study was conducted from the conceptual perspective of Theodore Millon’s model of personality. Information concerning Royal was collected from biographical sources and media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the second edition of the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM–IV.
The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals. Royal’s primary personality patterns were found to be Conscientious/compulsive and Ambitious/self-serving, with secondary features of the Dauntless/dissenting, Dominant/controlling, and Contentious/resolute patterns.
The amalgam of strong Conscientious and Ambitious patterns in Royal’s profile suggests the presence of Millon’s bureaucratic compulsive syndrome. According to Millon, people with this personality composite feel empowered in formal organizations, where group rules provide identity and security. They tend to be officious, high-handed, intrusive, petty, meddlesome, and closed-minded.
Related links:
"Un
profileur décrypte Ségo et Sarko." Pascal de
Sutter,
Le Nouvel Observateur, 19 Avril
2007
[English translation]
Ces fous
qui nous gouvernent: Comment la psychologie permet
de comprendre les hommes politiques
Pascal
de Sutter
Page maintained by Aubrey Immelman
www.csbsju.edu/Research/Royal.html
Last updated May 07, 2007