Another strand of my research focuses directly on the decision-making of political elites. In this work, I examine how cognitive and motivational factors interact with the strategic setting to impact leaders' foreign policy and national security choices. I am particularly interested in the role group dynamics play in shaping foreign policy decision making processes and outcomes, which was the focus of my first book The Polythink Syndrome (with Alex Mintz) and current projects (with Joshua Kertzer, Brad LeVeck and Marcus Holmes) that examine the "aggregation problem" in applying insights from individual psychology to study state policy-making.