POLITICAL LEADERS IN THE SYMLOG SPACE - PERCEPTIONS OF RIGHT AND LEFT-WING LEADERS BY RIGHT AND LEFT-WING CONSTITUENCIES

Systematic Multiple Level Observation of Groups (SYMLOG) was applied t o studying images of political leaders. Three left wing and three righ t wing Israeli leaders were evaluated by left and right wing voters al ong the SYMLOG's three dimensions-friendliness, task orientation, and dominance. It was found that right wing voters rated right wing leader s higher on friendliness and task orientation than left wing leaders. In a similar fashion, left wing voters viewed left wing lenders as mor e friendly and task-oriented than right wing leaders. Leaders of the r ight were viewed as more dominant than leaders of the left by left and right wing voters alike. Right and left wing voters assigned differen t SYMLOG types to right and left wing leaders. The dimension that dist inguished between the various images was the dimension of friendliness . Whereas for right wing voters, all images of right wing leaders incl uded a component of friendliness, none of these three images included an accented component of friendliness when rated by left wing voters. In a similar fashion, left wing voters saw two out of the three left w ing leaders as including a component of friendliness, whereas none of the three left wing images included this component for right wing vote rs. Respondents from the right and the left rated their ''ideal leader '' as reflecting values of ''dominance,'' ''friendliness,'' and ''task -orientation.'' However, respondents saw leaders affiliated with their own political camp as closer to their image of the ideal leader on fr iendliness and task-orientation than leaders of the opposite political camp. Both right and left wing voters saw all political leaders as eq ually similar to their image of ''ideal leader'' on the ''dominance'' dimension regardless of that leader's political affiliation.