A Psychometric Study of Incarcerated Presidential Threateners

Because of the difficulties associated with studying actual presidential assailants, "proxies" have been used to help us understand those who have a pathological fixation on the presidency. The literature describing two groups of proxies, White House visitors who behave irrationally and people who threaten the president, was reviewed. MMPIs were collected on 45 presidential threateners and 45 nonthreateners evaluated at mental health facilities for federal prisoners. The threateners' characteristics resembled reports of other proxy groups in certain respects, but their criminal histories suggested more antisocial behavior and violence than previously indicated. Their MMPI profiles and classifications on Megargee et al.'s MMPI-based offender classification system were significantly more deviant than those of the nonthreateners. Overall, both samples of mental health patients had more elevated MMPIs and were classified into more pathological types on the MMPI-based typology than offenders previously tested in nonpsychiatric federal correctional settings. Implications were drawn regarding the characteristics of presidential threateners and the validity of the MMPI-based typology.