R. McDermott
Brown University, Political Science, Faculty Member
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Risk plays a dramatic role in international relations as leaders make decisions about such issues as war and peace, disarmament, and about lowering economic barriers to trade and investment. How a country's leaders think about risk in... more
Risk plays a dramatic role in international relations as leaders make decisions about such issues as war and peace, disarmament, and about lowering economic barriers to trade and investment. How a country's leaders think about risk in making foreign policy decisions is important in understanding why and how they make decisions. Rose McDermott applies prospect theory, a theory developed by psychologists to understand decisionmaking under conditions of risk, to four cases in American foreign policy. Prospect theory suggests that decisionmakers who are confronting losses are more likely to take risks than are those decisionmakers who are satisfied with the status quo. The cases used to demonstrate this dynamic include: the Suez Crisis, the U-2 affair, the decisions surrounding the admission of the Shah of Iran to the United States in 1979, and the attempted rescue of the American hostages in Iran in 1980. McDermott shows how prospect theory enables us to understand cases that are otherwise inexplicable. Risk Taking in International Relations offers a unique application of a sophisticated psychological model to international relations theory. The book will be of interest to political scientists and psychologists interested in decision making, in international relations and in American foreign policy. Rose McDermott is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Cornell University.
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Abstract Beginning with the attack on Pearl Harbor, the war in the Pacific was a largely losing campaign for the Americans until the Battle of Midway, on 4–5 June 1942. The American ability to predict this Japanese attack the second time... more
Abstract Beginning with the attack on Pearl Harbor, the war in the Pacific was a largely losing campaign for the Americans until the Battle of Midway, on 4–5 June 1942. The American ability to predict this Japanese attack the second time around served as the turning point for the war in the Pacific. And the story of how the Americans turned a catastrophic failure into an impressive cryptological achievement involved the story of one man, Joe Rochefort, convincing another man, Admiral Chester Nimitz who commanded the Pacific Fleet, that he could trust his analysis of the intelligence he compiled and analyzed.
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The U.S. Intelligence community is in crisis. Contrary to popular opinion, this crisis in the intelligence community did not start in recent years, rather it dates back to the 1960s at a time when the U.S. intelligence on several accounts... more
The U.S. Intelligence community is in crisis. Contrary to popular opinion, this crisis in the intelligence community did not start in recent years, rather it dates back to the 1960s at a time when the U.S. intelligence on several accounts failed to provide sound national intelligence estimates. The failures of the U.S. intelligence is due to two factors: the common psychological traits which resulted in unmotivated biases in information processing which lead to systematically mistaken estimates in analysis; and the political environment of the intelligence system which has produced the notion that the intelligence product is not merely a means to achieve foreign policy goals but also a political commodity that can be used to advance political and bureaucratic interests. These biased outcomes have resulted in a bureaucratically incentivized and personally motivated manipulation in the production and use of intelligence analysis. This article discusses American intelligence failures w...
A randomised controlled trial assessed the efficacy of a psychological intervention in improving the mother-infant relationship and security of infant attachment postpartum.1 A consecutive series of 452 women in their last trimester of... more
A randomised controlled trial assessed the efficacy of a psychological intervention in improving the mother-infant relationship and security of infant attachment postpartum.1 A consecutive series of 452 women in their last trimester of pregnancy who were living in poverty in a crowded South African settlement were identified. All the women were invited to take part in the study, three of whom refused. The remaining women were randomly assigned to receive the intervention (n=220) or to a control group (n=229) that received no therapeutic input. An analysis was conducted with data from …
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AIDS is a serious health threat for many adolescents because they constitute the fastest growing population for new infections. This threat requires that intensive prevention programmes be initiated and maintained. And yet current... more
AIDS is a serious health threat for many adolescents because they constitute the fastest growing population for new infections. This threat requires that intensive prevention programmes be initiated and maintained. And yet current prevention efforts are narrowly focused and do not: always address the specific contextual needs for adolescents. In the field of adolescent AIDS research, three basic theoretical models
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This study investigated the impact of testosterone on aggression in a crisis simulation game. We found a significant positive relationship between levels of testosterone and aggression. Men were much more likely to engage in aggressive... more
This study investigated the impact of testosterone on aggression in a crisis simulation game. We found a significant positive relationship between levels of testosterone and aggression. Men were much more likely to engage in aggressive action than women. They were more likely to lose their fights as well. Since testosterone was around five times higher among men, and men engage in such fights more than women, there is an automatic statistical link between testosterone and aggression that is hard to separate from other possible gender-based causes.
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Summary Overconfidence has long been noted by historians and political scientists as a major cause of war. However, the origins of such overconfidence, and sources of variation, remain poorly understood. Mounting empirical studies now... more
Summary Overconfidence has long been noted by historians and political scientists as a major cause of war. However, the origins of such overconfidence, and sources of variation, remain poorly understood. Mounting empirical studies now show that mentally healthy people tend to exhibit psychological biases that encourage optimism, collectively known as ‘positive illusions’. Positive illusions are thought to have been adaptive in our evolutionary past because they served to cope with adversity, harden resolve, or bluff opponents. Today, however, positive illusions may contribute to costly conflicts and wars. Testosterone has been proposed as a proximate mediator of positive illusions, given its role in promoting dominance and challenge behaviour, particularly in men. To date, no studies have attempted to link overconfidence, decisions about war, gender, and testosterone. Here we report that, in experimental wargames: (i) people are overconfident about their expectations of success; (ii...
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Monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) has earned the nickname "warrior gene" because it has been linked to aggression in observational and survey-based studies. However, no controlled experimental studies have tested whether the... more
Monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) has earned the nickname "warrior gene" because it has been linked to aggression in observational and survey-based studies. However, no controlled experimental studies have tested whether the warrior gene actually drives behavioral manifestations of these tendencies. We report an experiment, synthesizing work in psychology and behavioral economics, which demonstrates that aggression occurs with greater intensity and frequency as provocation is experimentally manipulated upwards, especially among low activity MAOA (MAOA-L) subjects. In this study, subjects paid to punish those they believed had taken money from them by administering varying amounts of unpleasantly hot (spicy) sauce to their opponent. There is some evidence of a main effect for genotype and some evidence for a gene by environment interaction, such that MAOA is less associated with the occurrence of aggression in a low provocation condition, but significantly predicts such behav...
Research Interests: Genetics, Psychology, Game Theory, Behavior, Behavioral Economics, and 15 moreMedicine, Multidisciplinary, Humans, Mutation, Aggression, Interpersonal Relations, Social Environment, Experimental Study, Genotype, Impulsive Buying Behavior, Cooperative Behavior, Monoamine oxidase, Impulsive behavior, Genetic factors, and Gene frequency
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Part of the Diplomatic History Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, International and Area Studies Commons, International Law Commons, International Trade Law Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Military, War, and... more
Part of the Diplomatic History Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, International and Area Studies Commons, International Law Commons, International Trade Law Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Military, War, and Peace Commons, National Security Law Commons, Political Science Commons, Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons, Rule of Law Commons, Social History Commons, and the Transnational Law Commons
Research Interests: Diplomatic History, Law, International Law, Security, Political Science, and 15 moreLaw and Politics, National Security Law, Rule of Law, Social History, International trade law, Cyberspace, Cyberwarfare, Warfare, National Security, Cyberwar, Cyber, Transnational law, Transnational Law, International Affairs and Area Studies, and Network Security Policy
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Much work has explored decision making under stress in political leadership. Less work has attempted to link the enormous emotional pressure of crisis with both the heightened sense of political accountability and responsibility and the... more
Much work has explored decision making under stress in political leadership. Less work has attempted to link the enormous emotional pressure of crisis with both the heightened sense of political accountability and responsibility and the increased need for social support under such circumstances. The authors examine the impact of political accountability, and the nature and quality of individual social support, on the relative performance of five central Israeli leaders on the second day of the Yom Kippur War. Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan and the Commander of the Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Shmuel Gonen, performed very poorly, whereas Prime Minister Golda Meir and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. David Elazar performed very well. The Commander of the Northern Command, Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Hofi, performed adequately. The authors account for these divergences in performance based on individual differences in personal accountability and available social support networks.
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Methods are usually classified as either “experimental” or “observational,” a dichotomy that has governed social science research for centuries. By implication, this dichotomization precludes a consideration of experimental strategies in... more
Methods are usually classified as either “experimental” or “observational,” a dichotomy that has governed social science research for centuries. By implication, this dichotomization precludes a consideration of experimental strategies in case study work. Yet, we argue that one gains purchase on the tasks of research design by integrating the criteria traditionally applied to experimental work to all research in the social sciences—including case study work, the focus of this article. Experimental research designs aim to achieve variation ...
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Summary Overconfidence has long been noted by historians and political scientists as a major cause of war. However, the origins of such overconfidence, and sources of variation, remain poorly understood. Mounting empirical studies now... more
Summary Overconfidence has long been noted by historians and political scientists as a major cause of war. However, the origins of such overconfidence, and sources of variation, remain poorly understood. Mounting empirical studies now show that mentally healthy people ...
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First paperback edition 2001 Copyright © by the University of Michigan 1998 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America © Printed on... more
First paperback edition 2001 Copyright © by the University of Michigan 1998 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America © Printed on acid-free paper 2004 2003 2002 2001 5432 ...
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Prospect theory scholars have identified important human decision-making biases, but they have been conspicuously silent on the question of the origin of these biases. Here we create a model that shows preferences consistent with prospect... more
Prospect theory scholars have identified important human decision-making biases, but they have been conspicuously silent on the question of the origin of these biases. Here we create a model that shows preferences consistent with prospect theory may have an origin in evolutionary psychology. Specifically, we derive a model from risk-sensitive optimal foraging theory to generate an explanation for the origin and function of context-dependent risk aversion and risk seeking behavior. Although this model suggests that human cognitive architecture evolved to solve particular adaptive problems related to finding sufficient food resources to survive, we argue that this same architecture persists and is utilized in other survival-related decisions that are critical to understanding political outcomes. In particular, we identify important departures from standard results when we incorporate prospect theory into theories of spatial voting and legislator behavior, international bargaining and ...
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... Gen. Shmuel Gonen, performed very poorly, whereas Prime Minister Golda Meir and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. David Elazar performed very well. The Commander of the Northern Command, Maj. Gen. ... Gen. David Elazar, Commander of the... more
... Gen. Shmuel Gonen, performed very poorly, whereas Prime Minister Golda Meir and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. David Elazar performed very well. The Commander of the Northern Command, Maj. Gen. ... Gen. David Elazar, Commander of the Southern Command Maj. Gen. ...
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Although still more common in medical studies and some other areas of social science such as psychology and behavioral economics, experimental work has become an increasingly important methodology in political science. Experimental work... more
Although still more common in medical studies and some other areas of social science such as psychology and behavioral economics, experimental work has become an increasingly important methodology in political science. Experimental work differs from other kinds of research because it systematically administers a specific treatment to part of a population while withholding that manipulation from the rest of a subject pool. The best studies strive to keep all other aspects of the experiment similar, so that any emergent difference between the treatment and control group that emerge provide unparalleled traction in determining causal inference. Many other valuable forms of social research use observation of the natural world, rather than depending on intervention to advance understanding. Because experimentalists can create the environment or process they want to study, this strategy of intervention and manipulation constitutes the main distinction between experimental work and other forms of social observation.
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Monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) has earned the nickname "warrior gene" because it has been linked to aggression in observational and survey-based studies. However, no controlled experimental studies have tested whether the... more
Monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) has earned the nickname "warrior gene" because it has been linked to aggression in observational and survey-based studies. However, no controlled experimental studies have tested whether the warrior gene actually drives behavioral manifestations of these tendencies. We report an experiment, synthesizing work in psychology and behavioral economics, which demonstrates that aggression occurs with greater intensity and frequency as provocation is experimentally manipulated upwards, especially among low activity MAOA (MAOA-L) subjects. In this study, subjects paid to punish those they believed had taken money from them by administering varying amounts of unpleasantly hot (spicy) sauce to their opponent. There is some evidence of a main effect for genotype and some evidence for a gene by environment interaction, such that MAOA is less associated with the occurrence of aggression in a low provocation condition, but significantly predicts such behav...
Research Interests: Genetics, Game Theory, Behavior, Behavioral Economics, Multidisciplinary, and 13 moreHumans, Mutation, Aggression, Interpersonal Relations, Social Environment, Experimental Study, Genotype, Impulsive Buying Behavior, Cooperative Behavior, Monoamine oxidase, Impulsive behavior, Genetic factors, and Gene frequency
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Integrating the individual insights of psychology with the sociological perspectives of constructivism constitutes a laudable goal. Indeed, the chapters in this volume go a far distance toward establishing the theoretical and empirical... more
Integrating the individual insights of psychology with the sociological perspectives of constructivism constitutes a laudable goal. Indeed, the chapters in this volume go a far distance toward establishing the theoretical and empirical basis for such a synthesis. Combining the microfoundational aspects of individual psychology within a larger social, institutional, and political context offers an opportunity to explore the reciprocal and mutually determinative relationships between people and their environments. In providing a critical response to these chapters, several implicit aspects of the dominant arguments appear hidden in plain sight. First, one of the unexamined yet problematic assumptions that undergirds much of the discussion in this volume revolves around the suggested causal impact of ideas on behavior. While constructivists often assert this link as self-evident , most psychologists more fully appreciate the frequent disconnect between these phenomena. Second, the assimilations presented here, while not inaccurate, represent an unrealistically narrow theoretical conception of identity in psychology while simultaneously eliding a profound ontological difference between psychology and constructivist notions of human behavior. This means not that efforts to create a cohesive model remain quixotic in nature but rather that attempts to devise a unified theory may require a broader conception of psychology than that found exclusively or primarily in social identity theory. Moreover, incorporating other psychological approaches allows for a clearer explanation of the origins of preferences, a puzzle that currently limits both rationalist and constructivist applications to international relations...