Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Perception and Misperception in International Politics
    Unavailable
    Perception and Misperception in International Politics
    Unavailable
    Perception and Misperception in International Politics
    Ebook867 pages14 hours

    Perception and Misperception in International Politics

    By Robert Jervis

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    This study of perception and misperception in foreign policy was a landmark in the application of cognitive psychology to political decision making. The New York Times called it, in an article published nearly ten years after the book's appearance, "the seminal statement of principles underlying political psychology."

    The perspective established by Jervis remains an important counterpoint to structural explanations of international politics, and from it has developed a large literature on the psychology of leaders and the problems of decision making under conditions of incomplete information, stress, and cognitive bias.

    Jervis begins by describing the process of perception (for example, how decision makers learn from history) and then explores common forms of misperception (such as overestimating one's influence). Finally, he tests his ideas through a number of important events in international relations from nineteenth- and twentieth-century European history.

    In a contemporary application of Jervis's ideas, some argue that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 in part because he misread the signals of American leaders with regard to the independence of Kuwait. Also, leaders of the United States and Iraq in the run-up to the most recent Gulf War might have been operating under cognitive biases that made them value certain kinds of information more than others, whether or not the information was true. Jervis proved that, once a leader believed something, that perception would influence the way the leader perceived all other relevant information.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateMar 25, 2015
    ISBN9781400873135
    Unavailable
    Perception and Misperception in International Politics
    Author

    Robert Jervis

    Nathan Rosenstein is professor of history at The Ohio State University. He is author of Imperatores Victi: Military Defeat and Aristocratic Competition in the Middle and Late Republic and coeditor of War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: Asia, the Mediterranean, Europe, and Mesoamerica.

    Read more from Robert Jervis

    Related to Perception and Misperception in International Politics

    Related ebooks

    International Relations For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Psychology Of Conspiracy

      Nov 16, 2022

      The Psychology Of Conspiracy
      6 min read

    • Article

      Why We Search for Silver Linings

      Mar 13, 2024

      Pollyanna, Eleanor Porter’s buoyant novel from 1913, tapped into something deeply rooted in the human psyche. In the story, the eponymous protagonist is tragically orphaned and sent to live with a grumpy aunt, but nonetheless maintains such an optimi

      4 min read

    • Article

      Entrenched Perceptions

      Nov 7, 2020

      Entrenched Perceptions
      14 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Jan 1, 2023

      You believe we are at a moment of heightened importance in the history of humanity. How so? We are facing a perfect storm of crises that will require our united efforts to overcome. Climate change is accelerating at breakneck speed; citizens are losi

      6 min read

    • Article

      We’ve Sleepwalked Into A Crisis Of Trust

      Mar 4, 2024

      A dubious milestone was reached at the end of January: the one thousandth fact check of a statement by Donald Trump undertaken by the website Politifact. Trump’s thousandth claim? That the Democrats had “used Covid to cheat” in the 2020 election. Mea

      3 min read

    • Article

      Accentuate The Positives

      Nov 15, 2020

      Accentuate The Positives
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Critical Role of Context in Behaviour Change

      Jan 1, 2022

      WHETHER IT’S A NEW PROJECT management platform or a complete company restructure, when organizations attempt to implement change, more often than not they are met with resistance. The question is why. The fact is, there is always a portion of people

      7 min read

    • Article

      Opinion: In A Medical Emergency, Who In Your Social Network Will Call For Help Quickest?

      Jun 25, 2019

      Applying the "strength of weak ties" theory to medicine, a weakly connected familiar in your social network can be the outside voice of reason who isn't afraid to call for…

      3 min read

    • Article

      Confronting Bias at Work

      May 1, 2019

      Describe how mindsets affect our everyday behaviour. Mindsets are our fundamental understanding of how human attributes like intelligence and personality work. The specific mindsets that I study fall along two dimensions. The first is ‘malleability’

      5 min read

    • Article

      Are You a Naïve Realist?

      Jun 22, 2022

      Are You a Naïve Realist?
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Closer Look At Cynicism

      Oct 18, 2022

      A Closer Look At Cynicism
      2 min read

    • Article

      To Rescue Democracy, Go Outside: Real spaces, not digital ones, will fix our politics.

      Oct 13, 2016

      When I see a liberal writer’s description of Donald Trump, or a conservative writer’s views of Hillary Clinton, I am embarrassed for them both. I wouldn’t let a 5-year-old child make such impolite and obviously extreme statements—and yet, today, extr

      6 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      May 1, 2017

      You believe that the ability to ‘read other people’ is the human brain’s greatest asset. Please explain. This ability — which I also call our social sense or sixth sense — enables us to achieve life’s most important goal: connecting with other human

      6 min read

    • Article

      Test Your Beliefs By Seeking Out Other Viewpoints

      Jul 23, 2019

      The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard famously observed that if everyone is a Lutheran then no one is a Lutheran. What he meant is that if you're born into a culture in which everybody has a similar worldview, you don't have an opportunity to deve

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Right Kind of Motivation Comes From You

      Jun 23, 2017

      What motivates us? Fear and punishment? Or money, fame, and power? One train of thought, called self-determination theory, starts from the idea that all humans have the natural—or intrinsic—tendency to behave in effective and healthful ways. Central

      4 min read

    • Article

      Behavioural Insights

      May 1, 2020

      Behavioural Insights
      2 min read

    • Article

      Are You an Authentic Leader?

      Sep 1, 2018

      “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” As Shakespeare indicates in this quote from Hamlet, being true to oneself — being authentic — is a pre-condition of being true to others,

      5 min read

    • Article

      When Gut Feelings Go Too Far

      May 1, 2022

      How has the daily presentation of data by experts affected our risk-taking behaviour? All of our actions and behaviour are driven by us doing what we think is the right thing. It is interesting how people use data to inform what they think is the rig

      6 min read

    Reviews for Perception and Misperception in International Politics

    4.5/5

    9 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words