Personality and policy preference: Attitudes in the arms control and disarmament agency and the state department

This is a report of the results of a small project intended to determine what relationships there are between the personality trait of authoritarianism and variations in arms control‐related policy preferences held by bureaucrats in the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the State Department. Several moderately strong correlations are found. A major implication of this finding is that as international relations scholarship assumes a greater “policy analysis” focus, it will be advisable to remember that policymaking is embedded in a psycho‐cultural milieu and that therefore the potential substantive and methodological contributions of psychology to policy studies should not be overlooked.