Personality and prediction

TECHNOLOGICAL

FORECASTING

AND SOCIAL CHANGE

16, 93-104

(1980)

Personality and Prediction DAVID LOYE

ABSTRACT Though all human perceptions and actions are shaped by personality differences, little attention has been given by futurists or psychologists to the influence of personality on forecasting. This article examines relevant psychological studies and reports the results of a new study of the relation of a reasonably comprehensive set of personality differences to political and economic forecasting and to both short- and long-term social forecasting. Variables of personality investigated include optimism, pessimism, skepticism, risk-taking, extroversion, introversion, intuition, imagination, fantasizing, internal versus external locus of control, alienation, anomie, trust versus defensiveness, orderliness versus lack of compulsion, social conformity versus rebelliousness, activity versus lack of energy, emotional stability versus neuroticism, masculinity versus femininity (tough- versus tenderminded), empathy versus egocentrism, intelligence, and variables of morality and social sense, including violence accepting versus violence abhorring, cooperation versus competition, psychosocial attainment versus personal aggrandizement, rights of people versus rights of property, and beliefs in racial and sexual equality.

Personality and Prediction When we modems forecast futures we generally go through certain motions with analogues in the rituals and stances of the ancient seers. Of these motions the donning of the cloak of the unconscious assumption is both notable and questionable. One such cloak that many forecasters wear is the assumption that passage through a machine (mathematical formulae, the computer, etc.) properly and thoroughly sanctifies a forecast. Another cloak is the assumption that when the really good forecaster goes to work somehow he or she rises above his or her own tainted and warping humanity and becornrs a machine, thereby again properly sanctifying the result. Down beneath these assumptions, of course, lie the facts that a thousand formulae or machinelike stances cannot hide-that all forecasting is done by human beings, that humans differ greatly from one another, and that these differences will affect forecasts at every stage from the selection of a subject, through the selection or construction of a forecasting method, the gathering, processing, and analysis of data, to the interpretation and elaboration of reports. Of these differences affecting forecasting, one of the most basic and widely ignored, is that amorphous realm of human constants known as personality differences. The ingenious industrial psychologist Douglas MacGregor was one of the first to explore this area speculatively in the mid 1930s. In his pioneering study of human factors in forecastof Prediction of Social Events” [23], MacGregor noted that whether a ing, “Determinants forecaster is by nature optimistic or pessimistic should greatly affect his forecasting.

DAVID LOYE is Co-Director of the Institute for Futures Forecawng in Carmel. California, and Research Director of the Program on Psychosocial Adaptation and the Future at the University of California School ot Medicine in Los Angeles. @ Elsevier North Holland,

Inc., 1980

0040.1625/80/02009312$02.25

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Defining optimism and pessimism as tendencies toward wishful or antiwishful thinking, respectively, he felt that both types of people would tend to disregard the facts, with the optimist consistently predicting too rosy, and the pessimist too dark, a future. Support for this general view was found by later investigators in four empirical studies summarized by Armstrong in his investigation of bias in forecasting [ 11. That this dimension is of importance seems further to have been made evident during the debate in recent years over the degree to which the optimism of Herman Kahn or the pessimism of the first Club of Rome report might be biasing forecasts of our survival into the 2 1st century. Another personality quality MacGregor felt relevant was the presence or lack of skepticism. In gathering data for forecasts, the skeptic, he felt, would resist all knowledge except that which he’d obtained through personal experience. By contrast, the nonskeptical would tend to uncritically accept the opinions of others. Cautiousness could be another personally biasing factor, MacGregor felt. The overly cautious would tend to predict lower probabilities for events. As time went on, this particular speculation of MacGregor’s was extensively confirmed during investigations in the 1960s of the personality and cognitive variable known as risk-taking. Notably cautious people were low risk-takers, and a highly reliable measure for differentiating between high and low risk-takers, the Choice Dilemma Questionnaire, was perfected [ 151. To some extent this factor is also part of the “anchoring” form of bias dealt with by Armstrong [l] in his summary of nine relevant empirical studies. Other variables in which both speculations and experiments have indicated the possibility of a relationship to forecasting are the thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting, and extroverted and introverted typologies of the formative psychoanalyst and psychological theorist Carl Jung. Although it is hard to pin down most positions of Jung on the matter, one thrust to his thinking was that the intuitive type is futures-sensitive, or not only oriented to the future but able to foresee what will come to pass with more reliability than the more present and earth-bound feeling, sensing, and even thinking types [ 131. He also felt that, contrary to the stereotype of an outgoing “shallowness,” extroverts were as notably intuitive as introverts. These theories were translated into a measure, the MyersBriggs Type Indicator, by Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers [3], who concluded from this research that both extroverted intuitive and introverted intuitive types were notably futuristic, although in differing ways. The ingenious experimentalist and theorist Hans Eysenck took this strain of thought a step further with his own measures and research, venturing that extroverts were more likely to have so-called psychic sensitivities than introverts, i.e., that under the guise of “intuition” they could possess a peculiar ability to transcend the boundaries of rationality separating the present from the past and future [ 81. The Jungian work has been brought into the forecasting context by Ian Mitroff and Ralph Kilmann [24] and by Harold Linstone [ 161. As hypothesized by Linstone, building upon studies by psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond and associates, Jungian “sensation types” tend to be present oriented, discounting futures; feeling types to be past oriented, extrapolating futures; intuitive types to be future oriented, projecting goals and utopias; and thinking types to be past, present, and future oriented, relying on both extrapolation and projection. A personality variable often identified with forecasting is that of imagination. “. . to have visions of the future, we owe them to an exercise of imagination which is secret, but which we can and should seek out,” Bertrand de Jouvenel has noted [5]. A measur-

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able component of imagination-and we bear down on this matter of measurement, because without a valid measure one can do nothing but speculate-is fantasizing. The development by creativity expert Frank Barron of a Rorschach blot type of measure for differentiating high from low fantasizers [2] has led to studies showing fantasizing to be a variable useful in many research contexts [27, 181. Another personality variable intuitively appealing for investigation in this context is locus of control, as measured by the Rotter IE Scale [26]. To forecast adequately it seems the forecaster should have some reasonably firm sense not only of who he is, but of whether he is dominantly governed by forces from outside or from within himself. The Rotter scale-if modified to remove ideological bias [ 19]-measures the degree to which one is internally or externally governed. A final set of personality characteristics relevant to forecasting for which I have developed the case elsewhere is the complex of morality, intelligence, and the social sense. In studies of leadership elites [19] and of great American leaders who were also remarkable social and political forecasters, such as George Washington and the members of the famous Adams family, I found that the most notable characteristics they shared were high intelligence coupled with a high sense of morality and social obligation [20]. That this is more than coincidental is indicated by modem brain research, which has shown that precisely these qualities, along with the ability to plan or forecast, are seated within or peculiar to human forebrain [lo]. The finding is of special interest, I believe, because it so unequivocally asserts the place of the highest qualities of the human mind in forecasting, as against routinely accepting, and setting policy by, projections that are ostensibly (although never in truth) “untouched by human hand.”

Method To explore this area empirically, 1 conducted a study of the following nature during 1978. The sample used consisted of 61 volunteers who had previously participated both in a study of television effects requiring a massive testing of personality, demographic, mood, value, attitude, fantasizing, and behavioral variables in 1974 [ll] and in a study of the relation of ideology to political forecasting in 1976 [ 121. Thus, an unusually rich data bank was available to explore for relationships of personality to forecasting differences. The sample was of middle to upper class Los Angeles males; ranging in age from 20 to 70 years, with 66 percent falling between the ages of 36 and 55 years; of almost entirely white Caucasian racial backgrounds; with 89% of the sample having a college education, 44% at the graduate level; of annual incomes mostly over $10,000, 30% having incomes over $20,000 annually; almost equally split between Republicans and Democrats for political party affiliation. Nine questions about the future were asked of this group in questionnaires. These included questions of political futures, regarding the outcome of the 1978 congressional and gubernatorial elections and presidential election prospects for President Carter and California Governor Brown in 1980; what would be the state of the national economy as well as the social-political climate in 1979; prospects for war or peace in the Middle East during 1979; and whether conditions would be generally better or worse in the U.S. by the year 2000. Through cross tabulations, forecasting results were examined both for consensus of opinions and to see whether there were significant differences in forecasts according to

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individual significant

and group differences. correlates. Personality

Most variables of differences were also examined variables screened in this way included:

for

I. The ten dimensions of the Comrey Personality Scale [4], trust versus defensiveness, orderliness versus lack of compulsion, social conformity versus rebelliousness, activity versus lack of energy, emotional stability versus neuroticism, extroversion versus introversion, masculinity versus femininity, empathy versus egocentricism, plus a check for validity and response bias. 2. Alienation and anomie, as measured by new scales developed to clarify both concepts [ 191. 3. Risk-taking, using a modified form of the Choice Dilemma Questionnaire [ 15, 191. 4. Fantasizing, using the Barron Inkblot test [2]. 5. Locus of control, using a form of the Rotter IE scale modified to eliminate ideological bias [26, 191. 6. Intelligence, as inferred from participants’ reported levels of education. 7. Morality and social sense, using the Gomey-Steele Attitude Value Scale for measuring an individual’s valuing of violence-accepting versus violenceabhorring, cooperation versus competition, psychosocial attainment versus personal aggrandizement, the rights of people versus the rights of property, and beliefs in racial and sexual equality [ 111. The nature of these variables will be further explained discussion of results making significances more apparent.

within

the context

of a

Results Through missing data and other research problems, the N of 61 was sharply reduced for some variables. As a result, findings were marginal in many instances. However, the rare opportunity to draw on such a rich data bank assembled at great cost for other projects and the exploratory nature of this study posed the need, 1 felt, to be especially sensitive to trends useful for pursuit by other researchers to confirm or disconfirm, as well as to statistical significances at the conventional levels. Hence, 1 decided to report findings at anything less than the 0.10 level of probability according either to the Chi square relationship or Kendall’s tau B. The two figures shown after each finding are, first, the Chi square, and second, Kendall’s tau B significance levels.’ ‘To amplify regarding statistical procedures and decisions: the basic approach here, CUX~ tc~bnlations. the most commonly used method in the social sciences, compares frequency distributions of questionnaire scores for study participants on, in this study, a great many sets of two variables, e.g.. a comparison of distributions for tough/tender-minded scores with distributions for predictions for the year 2000. These joint frequency distributions were then analyzed using the c,hi squure test, which assesses statistical significance according to the degree to which the observed frequencies compare with expected frequencies. Since chi square is very sensitive to the numbers of cases, or the N involved, additional tests of association may sometimes better reveal the probable nature of the relationship of interest between variables. Kendull’s Tut does this by examining the rankings of scores to see the degree to which values of one variable correspond to rankings for the second variable-or stated in another way, the degree to which the values of one variable will predict values of the second variable, hence tau’a suitability for thla study. In psychology. the convention is to accept as “significant” only findings showing a 0.05, or better, statistical level, or only one chance in twenty that the variables are not significantly related. However, the 0.10 level, or a one in ten chance, has been widely used for exploratory studies emphasizing the “content of discovery, ” in contrabt to the more rigorous levels demanded of the “context of proof” prevailing in later studieb historically.

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Of the Comrey variables, masculinity-femininity showed the highest number, four, of prediction differences between polarities. To aid communication the masculine polarity will be identified here as “toughminded” and the feminine as “tenderminded.” The toughminded predicted that President Carter would run for re-election more often than did the tenderminded (0.80,0.03). The toughminded were less prone to predict his defeat than the tenderminded (0.18, 0.08). The toughminded were adamant (85%) in their prediction that California Governor Jerry Brown would never be elected U.S. President, while a slight majority (58%) of the tenderminded were convinced he would be elected (0.11, 0.03). A majority of the toughminded predict a better future for us by the year 2000, whereas a majority of the tenderminded predicted our future would be worse (0.07, 0.03). In keeping with expectancies raised by the works of Jung, Eysenck, and Briggs and Myers, extroversion-introversion showed the next most reportable differences in forecasting, although all three findings were very marginal even by the above extremely permissive criteria. In economic forecasting, extroverts predicted a recession during 1979 more often than introverts, whereas more introverts predicted 1979 would be better economically than 1978 (0.13, 0.06). In political forecasting, 90 percent of the introverts predicted President Carter would run for re-election in 1980, compared to only 77% for the extroverts (0.27, 0.08). But then for Governor Brown this tendency was reversed, with 80% of the extroverts but only 65% of the introverts predicting Brown would run for the presidency again (0.29, 0.09). A correlate of extroversion-introversion with another test variable was with predictive intuition (0.05, 0.05). In keeping with Eysenck’s contension, by the measure used extroverts were markedly more intuitive than introverts. Emotionul stubility showed two reportable differences. Eighty percent of the stable, but only 64% of the more instable, predicted Brown would run for President again (0.19, 0.06). Also of considerable interest, a majority, 71%, of the stable predicted that a better future lay ahead for us by the year 2000, whereas a majority of the less stable, .53%, predicted the future would be worse (0.19, 0.03). For empthy, there are two findings. The egocentric were more prone than the empathic to predict the social-political picture for the United States would be worse in 1979 than in 1978 (0.08, 0.06). The empathic were more convinced that President Carter would not be re-elected (0.28, 0.08). For the rest of the Comrey variables, there were single findings each for trust, actkit?,, and order, and none for conformity. More of the trusting predicted California Governor Brown would run for the presidency in 1980 than did the defensive (0.2 1,0.04). Those high in trust were also highly intuitive (0.12, 0.02). The active showed a greater tendency than the inactive to predict Republican gains in the 1978 congressional election (0.06, 0.11). And the orderly were less convinced than the disorderly or noncompulsive that President Carter would be re-elected (0.27, 0.07). Both uiienution and anomie showed a greater number of prediction differences than any of the Comrey variables, seven for alienation and six for anomie. On Carter’s future, the nonalienated tended to predict he would and the alienated that he would not run for re-election (0.68, 0.08); the alienated then predicted somewhat better chances than the nonalienated for Carter’s chance of winning (0.05, 0.38). The alienated also gave Governor Brown less chance than the nonalienated for ever being elected President (0.07, 0.02). The alienated predicted a better chance for peace in the Middle East than did the nonalienated (0.0009, 0.48). Curiously, the nonalienated predicted that the 1979 social-political picture would be worse than it was in 1978, while the alienated predicted little change (0.0001, 0.28). As for our long-range future, the slight tendency was for the alienated to see a bleak future, whereas the nonalienated saw things getting better (0.87, 0.06).

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Among the anemic, those high in anomie tended to see both the economy and the social-political picture getting better in 1979, while the nonanomic felt that both would get worse (0.40, 0.002); (0.28, 0.08). The anemic tended to predict Brown would run for president; the nonanomic that he would not (0.06, 0.27). As with the alienated, the anemic also tended to see a bleak future for the United States while the nonanomic thought things would get better (0.46, 0.05). Intelligence, as inferred from the measure of education, showed four reportable differences. The more highly educated predicted a recession in 1979 more often than the less educated (0.21, 0.04). Similarly, the less educated tended to predict the socialpolitical picture for 1979 would be better than in 1978 (0.19, 0.09). The less educated were more convinced that Governor Brown would run again for President (0.26, 0.08). The highly educated largely predicted a mixture of war and peace in the Middle East, whereas the less educated tended to predict either war or peace, with the odds heavily favoring war (0.05, 0.07). Morulity utzd social setue proved to be a productive complex. The largest number of reportable differences-four-were for violence-(Icc.epting \‘ersus violence-uhhorring The violence-accepting predicted a Republican gain in the 1978 fall election more often than the violence-abhorring (0.26, 0.06). The violence-accepting predicted a somewhat better 1979 economy, whereas the violence-abhorring predicted a recession (0.26, 0.05). Violence-accepters were convinced President Carter would not be re-elected; violenceabhorrers were convinced he would be (0.17. 0.05). Most suggestively, violenceaccepters were pessimistic and violence-abhorrers optimistic about the long-range U.S. future (0.04, 0.01). Valuing of cooperation 1,ersu.s competition showed three differences. The competitive were much more convinced of Republican gains in the 1978 fall election than the cooperative (0.03, 0.08). For Carter’s second term possibilities, the cooperative predicted he would and the competitive he would not be re-elected (0.17, 0.05). Again, most suggestive was the split on the long-range U.S. future, the cooperative optimistic, the competitive pessimistic (0.03, 0.008). Those valuing raciul eqwlity were also largely optimistic about the U.S. future, whereas those valuing inequality were split between optimism and pessimism (0.25, 0.08). Likewise, those valuingpsvc,hosocirrl ntt~~inment were optimistic and those valuing persotutl ~tg~rot~di,ctnent were pessimistic about U.S. future (0.10, 0.03). Respondents valuing property tended more often than those valuing people (0.27, 0.08) to believe Carter would run again for the presidency. lt~tertwl i’et-stts esterntrl locu.s of‘ cotltrol showed three predictive differences. More internals than externals predicted a Republican gain in the 1978 elections (0.14, 0.09). More externals than internals predicted Jerry Brown would run for president (0.14. 0.04). Internals tended to predict peace, whereas external predictions were more often war in the Middle East (0.24, 0.02). Funrtr.si:itlg also accounted for three predictive differences. High fantasizers tended to see little change in the economy for 1979; low fantasizers saw more chances for a recession (0.17, 0.04). High fantasizers were much more convinced than low fantasizers that Brown would never be elected president (0.19, 0.08). High fantasizers also tended to see a better long-range future for the United States, while low fantasizers were much less sure (0.14, 0.07). lntuiriott was a three prediction difference variable. Among conservatives, the intuitive predicted little change for the 1979 economy, whereas the nonintuitive predicted a

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recession (0.23, 0.07). The nonintuitive overwhelmingly (92%) predicted that Carter would run for re-election, but the intuitive were markedly (67%) less convinced (0.16, 0.07). The intuitive also tended to predict peace and the nonintuitive war in the Middle East (0.13, 0.02). Risk-taking accounted for only one prediction difference. On the question about the fate of the Middle East during 1979, high risk-takers showed a tendency to predict war and low risk-takers to predict peace (0.27, 0.05). Discussion HOW THE FINDINGS

RELATE TO EARLIER

WORK

The influence on forecasting of optimism, pessimism, and skepticism was indirectly confirmed by a phase of this study on ideological variables, reported elsewhere [21]. In brief, previous studies have shown that liberals tend to be optimists, conservatives pessimistic and skeptical [28]. In the ideology-testing phase of this study, whether one holds liberal or conservative views was shown to be a major variable accounting for eight reportable differences in forecasting. Risk-taking was thought to be an important variable affecting forecasting, but this study’s finding of only one reportable difference for high versus low risk-takers indicates it may not be worth further pursuit. However, imagination as measured by fantasizing, and locus of control, look promising, with three findings each. For the Jungian variables, extroversion-introversion and intuition seem confirmed as useful differentiators, with three findings for each. Unfortunately, this only scratches the surface in probing the Jungian potential, as in this study it was not possible to explore relations to forecasting of the fascinating Jungian subtypes cited earlier. Undoubtedly the most interesting of all the findings relating to earlier work are those for intelligence, with four differences, and morality and social sense, with a total of ten differences among six variables accounting for forecasting variations. I will end this section by examining evolutionary implications. “NEW”

VARIABLES

AFFECTING

FORECASTING

In addition to personality characteristics earlier discerned that were confirmed as relevant to forecasting, “new” variables of promise seem to have been unearthed by our scan. These include tough/tender-mindedness, four findings; emotional stability, two; trust, activity, order, one each; and alienation, seven, and anomie, six findings. The strength of the tough/tender-mindedness dimension is of interest because of the tangled history of this concept. First proposed by William James [ 121, the concept was built into a major factor of personality and ideology by Eysenck [7], relabeled masculinity-femininity by Comrey [4], and then gradually abandoned by most psychologists because of semantic and conceptual difficulties and sensitivities raised by the women’s liberation movement. Because of the importance of this factor in historical [ 161 and sociological contexts [9,18], it was included in the development of Ideological Matrix Prediction (IMP) forecasting [20]. Good results in this as well as three earlier studies indicate a personality factor of appreciable importance for forecasting. Emotional stability is another dimension of potential for forecasting studies. This is the same variable as the “neuroticism” which Eysenck found, through factor analysis, to be the single most important variable accounting for behavioral differences, and for which other investigators have found comparable usefulness under the label of “anxiety.” I was

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surprised to see it account for only two reportable differences in this study, but this could be attributed to the relatively settled and stable sample for this study. In other contexts, this variable could be a more critical differentiator. The slight findings for empathy, trust, uctivity, and order indicate that these variables could be of some importance in forecasts by groups heavily skewed toward one of the other of the polarities indicated, but that they are probably not worth attention otherwise. Alienation and anomie, however, raise a different prospect. These variables are of special interest because of their historic importance in sociology, alienation deriving from Marx [25] and anomie from Durkheim [6]. During the past two decades both variables have been badly confounded conceptually and operationally through measures that blur meanings or collapse the two into a single scale. The new “purified” measures for both concepts that were used in this study were constructed by returning to their historical roots and newly defining both concepts in relation to the idea that all behavior is governed by norms-alienation thereby becoming a rage against the feeling of norm constraint prevalent among those with norm-changing or liberal orientations, and anomie becoming the fear of normlessness prevalent among those with a norm-maintaining or conservati\!e orientation [ 191. The large number of differing forecasts for the alienated versus the anemic strongly supports the validity of this redefinition and resealing of concepts and their potential for improving the accuracy of forecasts. HOW PERSONALITY

DIFFERENCES

SEEM TO AFFECT

FORECASTING

The nature of the concepts, the findings of this study, and, where available, earlier work, suggests the following “rules of thumb” for relating these variables to forecasting. The tough-minded can be expected to vote for, and thereby be a factor for analysis in, issues involving punitive measures, cutbacks, and tough-talking candidates. The tenderminded are a factor in all issues of human rights, and the polarities will clash on such issues, with the decision going to whichever side marshalls the greater support. Neither this or earlier studies suggests to me any useful gestalt relating to forecasting for extroversion-introversion or internal versus external locus of control, despite the continuing interest of this variable complex for research. Differing predictions for the long-range U.S. future by the emotionally stable and the less stable, however, suggest uses for this dimension. Aside from the merits of either view, the example suggests that in a forecasting group, such as used in Delphi or comparable studies, overrepresentation by of contentment.” the emotionally stable could lead to results biased by the “insensitivity Likewise, overrepresentation by the less stable could lead to forecasts biased by “morbidity.” Pessimistic views of the long-term U.S. future shown by both the alienated and the anemic indicate the relevance of these two variables to forecasting. When viewed with the perspective of internal turmoil, such as the worldwide power shifts and economic dislocation following the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1978, these findings suggest that surveys showing how large a proportion of a population falls into one or the other category could be important. In the world’s trouble spots such surveys could, for example, provide the basis for predicting the violence and revolution of the alienated and/or the departure of the anemic and their money, bringing on social and economic collapse. Fantasizing seems a variable one should, like spice to food, use sparingly. While the high fantasizer can be expected to visualize the future with much greater ease than the low fantasizer, the danger is that, without suitable personality and situational constraints, what he foresees could be nothing but fantasy divorced from useful reality. For intuition, while

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it made a fairly decent showing in this study, there is as yet insufficient venture a sense of potential use.

data upon which to

WHAT KINDS OF PEOPLE MAKE THE BEST FORECASTERS?

It is far too early to do more than speculate on this question of great practicality. However, speculation may provide leads for research. My suggestion would be that the question has two aspects, forecasting by individuals and by groups. In forecasting by individuals, it would seem that intelligence, morality, social sense, intuition, fantasizing ability, and emotional stability are all good personality characteristics to look for. All these qualities, however, could be overridden in the individual by ideological and other biases we have noted. Hence, the strength of forecasting by groups if such groups are balanced for, or statistically controlled for known imbalance deriving from, the personality differences that are particularly relevant to each particular forecasting context. In other words, where these biases are clearly relevant, be sure forecasting groups are balanced for the ideological differences a series of our studies have shown to be important factors: liberals and conservatives, younger and older generations or factions, activists and passivists, extremists and moderates, leaders and followers, and/or tough and tenderminded [19-211. THE RELATION

OF PERSONALITY

TO TYPES OF FORECASTING

In our 1978 survey questions regarding four types of forecasting were asked. There were four questions regarding short-term political futures, one question regarding the short-term economic future, two questions regarding short-term social futures, and one question regarding the long-range future. Personality variables that showed prediction differences for each area were as follows: For political forecasting, alienation, locus of control, extroversion, intuition, anomie, order, fantasizing, empathy, stability, trust, activity; for economic forecasting, anomie, extroversion, and fantasizing; for social forecasting, alienation, anomie, risk taking, locus of control, empathy; for long-range forecasting, alienation, anomie, fantasizing, and stability. While the extent to which these alignments do operate generally must be determined by further research, the list may be found heuristically useful in the meantime. STATISTICAL

SIGNIFICANCE

AND A COMPARISON

WITH OTHER PREDICTION

VARIABLES

Of 53 reportable findings at the 0.10 significance level selected for exploratory purposes, only 21 reached the traditional acceptance level of 0.05. This can be viewed in two ways: as a challenge to researchers interested in further examination of the personality to forecasting relationships with the larger Ns likely to increase statistical significance, or as reassurance to the busy professional pollster or futurist that he or she needn’t bother with most, but not all, personality differences. There is also the statistical problem that because of the large number of variables involved a small percentage of these findings is significant or near significant only by chance. Another perspective still further reducing the significance of these findings is a comparison with findings for the variables of ideology which were also examined in this study, but with their nature and results reported in detail elsewhere [21]. Ideological variables were a selection of bipolarities, combining psychological and sociological variables, which have shown considerable predictive strength in studies over several years [ 19-21]-liberalism-conservatism, both economic and social-political activisminactivism; extremism-moderation; tough/tender-mindedness (the same variable as in this

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study but in a different context); leader-follower; older-younger; and norm-changing and norm-maintaining. Though this ideology set represents only nine bipolar variables, in comparison with the 19 for the bipolar personality variables for this report, there were 44 reportable findings at the 0.10 level for correlates with forecasting, with 29 being at the traditional 0.05 level. Thus, the ideology set appears to be more useful as a whole for relating individual and group differences to forecasting than the personality set. However, there do seem to remain important potential uses for certain of these personality variables, as outlined earlier in this discussion. Moreover, the history of vast shifts and catastrophes brought on by a snub or a misperception linked to personality differences indicates how these factors, however generally minor, can become specifically major in forecasting. The link between the paranoia of Hitler and the killing of 6 million European Jews, or between the paranoia of Stalin and his periodic purges, are examples of the relationship of a time 1 personality variable, emotional stability, to forecastable time 2 events. TESTING

PRACTICALITIES

While a sensitivity to personality differences may be useful as a piece of knowledge in the structuring and analysis of forecasts, for the quantification necessary for empirical use one must have tests for the variables of interest. Since most personality tests are lengthy questionnaires with many items required to produce a single score, only wellfinanced researchers can afford to explore this area. For this reason, an important question is whether there are any personality variables that the busy polling or forecasting professional can afford to deal with. Of the tests used in this study, all in their traditional forms are useful only for researchers-that is, the 182-item Comrey Personality Scale 141, and the full Choice Dilemma Questionnaire for risk-taking [ 151, the Rotter scale for locus of control [26], most alienation and anomie scales, and the Barton Ink Blot test [2]. It is possible, however, to take all but the Barron test and select subsets of items that may cut down testing time to bring them within the economic parameters of professional polling and forecasting. Reliabilities drop, but there could be a trade-off in useful results. Another strategy is to develop single items of sufficiently high validities and reliabilities to replace the batteries impractical for professional polling and forecasting. This is the approach currently being pursued with the ideological variables of this study. HIGHER

ASPECTS

OF MIND AND FORECASTING

The writings of perhaps all cultures record the emergence of those fascinating personalities called prophets in the Judeo-Christian, or oracles in the Greek, tradition. While secularization and demystification have diminished this role in modern life, at the same time its lesser analogues have spread among us. At most junctures of life today we find either the forecasting expert or the forecasting group, or better still, in many cases confidence in our own “powers of prophecy,” based on an education and an economic and political independence that simply was not available to earlier generations. This expansion of the power of forecasting, over the span of history recorded in writings, is mirrored in an earlier expansion recorded in fossils, within our own development as embryos in the womb, and eventually within the physiology of our grown brains and what is known of mind. Once on earth there were only creatures with nothing but crude sensing-responding equipment to probe the shallowest of futures. Then came the cerebellum to expand the repertoire, then right and left brain, then finally the frontal brain.

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Research has shown that within this frontal brain reside the critical components of an intelligence that lifts us above the level of our prehistory and the current level of the machine-our capacities to look ahead, to plan, to govern our actions and manage our lives, and our self-transcending sense of the rights and values of other living bodies, our social sense [ 10,22,14]. The thrust, then, of the evidence of our history and our bodies is that the prophetic or forecasting personality is not merely a sport, a fluke, a deviant within our mass, but quite possibly the repeated foreshadowing of the developmental direction for us all. Further, the moral variables of this study-violence versus nonviolence, cooperation versus competition, etc.-suggest that our greatest weapon in what unfortunately is all too often a fight rather than a game for survival may be this sense of the future. All about us are the festering fruits of the short-sightedness and the selfishness of human personalities mainly governed by the reptile and the wolf brain. Yet though our ranks may be composed of softer creatures, we may yet prevail because of the capacity of the forecasting personality not only to foresee the pitfalls into which the reptiles drop, but also to help our cohorts gain safety. Conclusion A problem with most personality research is that the complexity and diversity of variables and relationships become bewildering to researchers and practitioners alike. A consequence is that such research too often becomes nothing more than another exercise for the graduate student to absorb and forget. It is hoped these findings may not suffer such a fate, but be used to begin an important new expansion of knowledge bearing on forecasting. The high costs both of the research and of incorporating results into operational forecasting will likely work against much advancement in this area until new plateaus of economic strength are reached in the developed nations of this earth. And certainly these findings should be applied with caution until replicated. In the meantime, however, because of the scarcity of work in this vital area, they can be of use to both practitioners and researchers in sensitizing themselves to personality aspects in the development and interpretation of forecasts.

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