136 I. THEORETICAL  PERSPECTI vES AND  CONCEPT uAL uNITS
edly low scores on scales assessing need for 
social recognition, harm avoidance, play, 
sentience, affiliation, change, and defen -
dence (defending oneself against blame or 
assault). Nasby and Read (1997) argued that 
Morgan’s trait profile indicates high consci -
entiousness, as indexed by strong scores on 
achievement and endurance, and very low 
neuroticism. The importance of trait con -
scientiousness appears even in his responses 
to prompts from the TAT (Murray, 1938), 
which focus on themes of achievement, au -
tonomy, and dominance. The trait profile 
frames well many of Morgan’s emotional 
responses during the voyage and provides a 
useful dispositional sketch for the case.
Nasby and Read (1997) supplemented the 
trait profile with a consideration of motiva -
tion, context, and change in Morgan’s life, 
as manifested in narrative. Looking to Mor -
gan’s memoir and daily ship logs, Nasby and 
Read argued that Morgan relied heavily on 
what Campbell (1949) described as the myth 
of the hero  to provide structure and clarity 
to his personal development. Through his 
solo circumnavigation, Morgan is—quite 
literally—  a man venturing alone into a great 
challenge: one in which he will either win or 
die in the pursuit of the ambitious goal. In 
keeping with the hero myth, Morgan’s first 
episodic memory in life concerns compet -
ing in (and winning) races on the Fourth of 
July. The early scene is narrated in an active 
rather than reflective tone, foreshadowing 
a full narrative identity that will be marked 
by one adventure after another. Morgan in -
scribes his life narrative, furthermore, with -
in the cultural expectations of maleness: The 
protagonist is independent, fearless, and 
nonconformist. Toward the end of the jour -
ney, however, themes of love and a longing 
for friendship begin to make their way into 
Morgan’s narrative accounts. But they never 
take over the plot. The hero myth remains 
dominant from beginning to end, crowd -
ing out a more tender discourse of human 
communion. Nasby and Read (1997) argued 
that Morgan is both affirmed and confined 
by the classic hero myth.
The same kind of dual function—  how 
the same narrative identity can both inspire 
and imprison an author—  appears in McAd -
ams’s (2011) psychological analysis of the 
life and American presidency of George W. Bush. Like Nasby and Read (1997), McAd -
ams (2011) blended dispositional traits and 
life narrative in his psychological case study. 
And he focused, as did Nasby and Read 
(1997) in their analysis of Morgan’s 150-day 
voyage, on a critical moment in the life of his 
subject: President Bush’s decision, consum -
mated in March 2003, to launch a preemp -
tive military invasion of Iraq.
McAdams began his analysis by con -
sidering George W. Bush as a social actor. 
Going back as far as the letters his famous 
father wrote about his firstborn son at age 
2, George W. Bush was described by all who 
knew him—  friends and foes alike—as en -
thusiastic, cheerful, energetic, and socially 
dominant. Throughout his life, George W. 
Bush displayed the classic features of a su -
preme extravert. He was relentlessly opti -
mistic and sociable on nearly every social 
stage he ever encountered, from his boy -
hood days in Midland, Texas, through his 
time at Andover, Yale, the Texas Air Guard, 
and Harvard Business School, and up to his 
adult years as a businessman, governor, and 
president. He was also very low on openness 
to experience. Indeed, historians’ ratings of 
all the American presidents going back to 
George Washington show George W. Bush 
near the top on extraversion (with Bill Clin -
ton and Theodore Roosevelt) and at rock 
bottom on openness to experience (Ruben -
zer & Faschinbauer, 2004). Consistent with 
nomothetic research on these dispositional 
traits, high extraversion and low openness 
predisposed President Bush to approach the 
problem of Iraq as a highly energized, op -
timistic, and confident actor on the world 
stage. His traits made it more likely that 
he would act in a swift and supremely self- 
assured manner. He would be bold and ag -
gressive, and he would never doubt that the 
decision he made was the right one.
After the 9/11 attacks, the president 
found a straightforward way to channel his 
boundless energy and confidence into the 
achievement, as a motivated agent, of one 
of his most cherished life goals—to defeat 
his beloved father’s greatest enemies. It is 
difficult to overestimate the visceral hatred 
that George W. Bush felt toward Saddam 
Hussein. The animus was largely driven by 
the Bush family’s belief, well supported by 
evidence, that Hussein had ordered an assas -