What Is Political Psychology?

What is Political Psychology? Rajiv S. Jhangiani, Kwantlen Polytechnic University Peter Suedfeld, University of British Columbia Reference: Suedfeld, S., & Jhangiani, R. (forthcoming). What is political psychology? In O. Feldman & S. Zmerli (Eds.), Politische Psychologie: Handbuch für Studium und Wissenschaft [Political Psychology: Handbook for Study and Science]. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft. 2 What is Political Psychology? Politics permeates the world, and in the Broad sense proBaBly had done so even Before human Beings came on the stage. If politics has to do with such phenomena as power, access to resources, group cohesion, relations with other groups, and the like, then certainly pre-hominids too engaged in political Behavior (as most animals still do). As for Homo sapiens, we have engaged in political activities as far Back as our records and even legends show, and much of our present time is devoted to them. In fact, although in times past people tried to draw a line Between their private lives and their politics, some ideologically committed people go so far as to argue that even the personal is political. This is, obviously, an untestable assertion of belief, albeit one that shows the importance of politics in the minds of some. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that the issues mentioned aBove are relevant to every phase of human interaction from the family up through the gloBal international community. Philosophers appear to have considered the role of psychology in political behavior long Before psychology emerged as a discipline, as indicated by perspectives ranging from Plato’s prescription for disinterested and justice-seeking philosopher-kings to Machiavelli’s pragmatic, amoral analysis of an early form of Realpolitik -- advice prescribing how a leader can succeed by deceiving, manipulating, and when appropriate, destroying those who have challenged him or might do so in the future. What is often ignored is that Machiavelli, too, meant his advice to Be taken in the pursuit of good government. But although such topics are well within the concerns of today’s political psychologists, contemporary political 3 psychology is a much Broader enterprise. As the interdisciplinary study of the psychological aspects of human political Behavior, political psychology “explores the border that runs between the intellectual nations of political science and psychology” (Jost & Sidanius, 2004, p. 1). In doing so it encompasses such topics as electoral politics, the shaping of public policy, leadership, elite decision-making, intergroup relations, personality and political ideology, political violence, and conflict resolution. Political psychology addresses the political behaviors of the elite as well as the masses, in both cases exploring the reciprocal determinism Between political behavior, individual psychology, and the political context. Thus Marx’s revolutionary philosophy, Freud’s notion of Thanatos, or death instinct, and the research of Adorno and his colleagues on the development of authoritarianism can all be seen as products of their respective political contexts as much as they fueled political discourse for decades to come. Political psychology considers personal and environmental factors as intertwined rather than as distinct influences, with the psychology of the individual nested within the many layers of their political context. We cannot presume to understand the political behavior of either a Chancellor or a terrorist without first studying his or her personality, situational constraints, prevailing social and cultural norms, and the wider economic, historical, and geopolitical context. Understanding political behavior in turn allows us to make predictions, including, for example, about the likely impending decisions and actions of individual political actors. Of 4 course, given the vagaries and multiple determinants of human Behavior, those predictions are not necessarily correct. Finally, as with all of science, with understanding and prediction comes the ability to influence, including, for example, through developing effective re-election campaign strategies or de-radicalization programs. Who are Political Psychologists? Within the general discipline of psychology, political psychologists include a diverse group of social, personality, developmental, organizational, environmental, clinical, evolutionary, and more recently neuropsychologists. Their theoretical foundations come from all sources: depth psychology, Behaviorism, cognitive psychology, existential psychology, and others. However, although the field principally involves the application of psychological knowledge, not all political psychologists are psychologists. Many in the field identify themselves as political scientists, sociologists, economists, historians, literary critics, psychiatrists, media experts, legal scholars, policy analysts, or military strategists. As a result, the methods employed By political psychologists vary as widely as their disciplinary affiliations and topics of study, running the gamut from quantitative and statistical to qualitative and narrative, and including laboratory and field experiments, archival research, surveys, longitudinal studies, meta- analyses, interviews, and case studies. Although this may appear chaotic at first, the diversity within the field and the resultant ability to draw on insights from a multitude of disciplines and specialties is arguably one of the great strengths of political psychology. 5 The premier organization in the field is the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). It was founded in 1978, and has reached a membership of more than 800 at the present time. Those members come from all of the disciplines enumerated earlier, and from all over the world. To enhance its multinational reach, the ISPP moves its annual meetings around the world, rotating around North America (including the U.S., Canada, and Mexico), Europe, and locations outside Both of those. This enaBles political psychologists and interested students living anywhere to attend conferences at least occasionally with relatively little cost or travel. The diversity of the field and its outlets is also reflected in the wide patterns of origins of its adherents and their global concerns. For instance, an analysis of the last five years of issues of Political Psychology (January 2010 – December 2014) reveals that aBout half of the empirical articles puBlished each year were written by researchers from outside the United States and Canada, including from countries in Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South America, Asia, Africa, and Australasia. Topics addressed during this period included victimhood experiences in Northern Ireland, competitive victimhood in Kosovo, anti-Semitism among American Jews, RomaphoBia among SerBian adolescents, religious Bias in Côte d’Ivoire, hereditary rights in England, indigenous rights in Chile, political participation in South Korea, political trust in China, Palestinian autobiographical memories, social cohesion in the Israeli military, and an evolutionary account of Kamikaze suicide attacks. The diversity of this list alone attests to the heterogeneity 6 and wide-ranging applications of the discipline, factors that also make it difficult to point to a common core. If political psychology has any general theoretical foundation, it may Be its acceptance of Kurt Lewin’s famous formulation that Behavior is a function of the interaction Between the person and the environment [B = f (P x E)], or to put it another way, between internal and external factors. Relevant internal factors include personality traits, temperament, heredity, demographic characteristics, attitudes, Beliefs, ideology, values, temporary states such as mood, emotional and physiological arousal, energy level, and health; external ones include the physical, social, political, and informational environment. Thus, for example, voters’ level of conservatism vs. liBeralism is a product of earlier learning, the opinions of their social circle, their gender, age, and socioeconomic class, staBle personality components (e.g., cognitive flexiBility, adventurousness, altruism, threat tolerance), philosophy of life, religious Beliefs, and – according to some new data – genetic makeup. In turn, conservatism/liBeralism interacts with economic conditions, international threat, the perceived personality of political leaders and media coverage to affect the person’s reaction to social and political programs and candidates. This general interactive expression can fit a wide variety of specific theories and models, although the relative roles of the internal and external components are weighted differently from one theory to the next. For example, The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950), a seminal work in political psychology, argues that child-rearing customs in families and 7 cultures are primarily responsiBle for people’s susceptiBility to Fascist propaganda and policies that emphasize suBmissiveness to authority figures, hostility toward dissenters and “outsider” ethnic groups, and aversion to change and uncertainty. Although external forces are paramount in shaping the individual’s outlook, the result is internalized. The now internal characteristic takes on a life of its own to produce not only a preference for an ethnocentric, orderly, unquestioning, top- down sociopolitical structure But for similar preferences in the workplace, in morality, entertainment,

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