USPP
Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics
The Political Personality of 2007 French
Presidential Candidate Nicolas Sarkozy
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 French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, candidate of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement, in the 2007 French presidential election. The study was conducted from the conceptual perspective of Theodore Millon’s model of personality. Information concerning Sarkozy 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. Sarkozy’s primary personality patterns were found to be Ambitious/exploitative and Dominant/controlling, with secondary features of the Conscientious/dutiful, Outgoing/gregarious, Dauntless/venturesome, and Contentious/resolute patterns.
The amalgam of Ambitious and Dominant patterns in combination with distinctive Contentious features in Sarkozy’s profile suggests the presence of an adaptive, nonpathological variant of Millon’s compensatory narcissist syndrome. According to Millon, people with this personality composite seek to counteract feelings of inferiority by creating illusions of superiority.
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
"Could Sarkozy's personality cost him the election?" (AFP, April 27, 2007)
"Personality key hurdle to Sarkozy" (The Telegraph Group, April 21, 2007)
Page maintained by Aubrey Immelman
www.csbsju.edu/Research/Sarkozy.html
Last updated May 08, 2007