Olavi Rudolf Holsti (August 7, 1933 – July 2, 2020) was an American political scientist and academic. He held the

position Position often refers to: * Position (geometry), the spatial location (rather than orientation) of an entity * Position, a job or occupation Position may also refer to: Games and recreation * Position (poker), location relative to the dealer * ...

of George V. Allen Professor Emeritus of Political Science at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

. He was noted for his writings on international affairs, American foreign policy, content analysis,

decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...

in politics and diplomacy, and crises. Holsti was born in Geneva, Switzerland, on August 7, 1933. Holsti received his Bachelor of Arts

degree Degree may refer to: As a unit of measurement * Degree (angle), a unit of angle measurement ** Degree of geographical latitude ** Degree of geographical longitude * Degree symbol (°), a notation used in science, engineering, and mathematics ...

from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1954, his Master of Arts in Teaching from Wesleyan University in 1956, and his Ph.D from Stanford University in 1962. Holsti worked at Stanford University as an instructor in the Department of Political Science (1962–1965), the research coordinator and associate director of Studies in International Conflict and Integration (1962–1967) and assistant professor in the Department of Political Science, (1965–1967). He moved to the University of British Columbia in 1967, working as assistant professor in the Department of Political Science (1967–1971) before becoming a professor (1971–1974). Holsti was at the University of California, Davis, as a professor in the Department of Political Science (1978–1979) before joining the faculty of Duke University as George V. Allen Professor in the Department of Political Science (1974–1998). He became a professor emeritus in 1998. Holsti's brother Kal is also a political scientist. Their father,

Rudolf Holsti Eino Rudolf Woldemar Holsti (8 October 1881 in Jyväskylä – 3 August 1945 in Palo Alto, California) was a Finnish politician, journalist and diplomat. He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1919–1922 and in 1936–1938 and a ...

, served as Finland's foreign minister.

Inherent bad faith model of information processing in political psychology

The "

inherent bad faith model The inherent bad faith model of information processing is a theory in political psychology that was first put forth by Ole Holsti to explain the relationship between John Foster Dulles' beliefs and his model of information processing. It is the m ...

" of information processing is a theory in political psychology that was first put forth by Holsti to explain the relationship between

John Foster Dulles John Foster Dulles (, ; February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American diplomat, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. He served as United States Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959 and was briefly ...

’ beliefs and his model of information processing. It is the most widely studied model of one's opponent. A state is presumed to be implacably hostile, and contra-indicators of this are ignored. They are dismissed as propaganda ploys or signs of weakness. Examples are

’ position regarding the Soviet Union, or Israel's initial position on the Palestinian Liberation Organization.“…the most widely studied is the inherent bad faith model of one’s opponent”, The handbook of social psychology, Volumes 1–2, edited by Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske, Gardner Lindzey

References

External links

Official website
1933 births 2020 deaths Wesleyan University alumni American political scientists Stanford University alumni Duke University faculty Finnish expatriates in Canada Finnish emigrants to the United States University of British Columbia faculty Political psychologists Finnish expatriates in Switzerland {{US-polisci-bio-stub