Reagan's Midlife Crisis and the Turn to the Right

Abstract

and ego defensive needs for him at a time when his personal andprofessional life had bottomed out. A movie career which had started out auspiciously never did take off, and a marriage portrayed as idyllic ended in divorce. Drawing upon psychological adaptations that had served him since boyhood- the energetic attack on obstacles in his path and the avoidance of emotional and intellectual ambiguities- he was able to find new routes to professional and personal success. His turn to anti-communism and more gradual embrace of a conservative political philosophy facilitated his rise to the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild and provided him with new opportunities for work and influence. The targeting of the communists and the federal government in Washington as the sources of all that had gone wrong in Hollywood provided him with safe outlets for the anger he felt as a result of his blocked career and an explanation of what had happened to him. The avoidance of ambiguity kept him from any troubling doubts about either the motives of some of the leaders of the anti-communist impulse or its effects on the careers of those who resisted it. An interactionist life-history model is used in the analysis and hypotheses suggested for further research. Individual shifts on the political spectrum, as this case history suggests, may not be accompanied by cognitive and psychological transformations. Threats to fundamental values may well intensify cognitive and emotional rigidities as a way of avoiding anxiety.