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Summary Lectures Political Psychology
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This is a complete summary of all the lectures for the course Political Psychology, with all the slides, figures and extra information!
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Stella Barenholz 2017-2018POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY
CONTENT
Content...................................................................................................................................................1
1. Introduction........................................................................................................................................2
2. Political attitudes and beliefs..............................................................................................................4
3. Motivated reasoning........................................................................................................................10
4. Morality............................................................................................................................................17
5. Diversity and inclusion......................................................................................................................22
6. Populism and conspiracy..................................................................................................................25
7. Cooperation......................................................................................................................................29
8. Choosing a party leader....................................................................................................................35
9. Political appeals................................................................................................................................39
10. Getting out the vote.......................................................................................................................45
11. Social utility in coalition formation.................................................................................................50
12. Social power...................................................................................................................................54
13. Trust in political psychology...........................................................................................................59
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,Stella Barenholz 2017-2018
1. INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY ?
Political Psychology can be seen in different places and times in life. Psychology is the study of
the human mind, so their mental processes and behavior. Politics are beliefs, world views, and
ideologies, but also the structure of a society and how it is ought to work out, what happens in
the parliament, or cultural movement. So, political psychology addresses the ways in which
political institutions both affect and are affected by human behavior.
If we look at the history of political psychology, some people trace it back to the publishing of
some books like The Prince and Leviathan. The Leviathan was a monster that ruled over society
according to Hobbes. It was made out of people and reflected its interests. It also influences the
people that it rules.
In 1922 the Public Opinion was published. Then, WWII happened, and this generated more
chances to think about politics. There was a reaction to this where people thought about how
others reacted on certain things. Personality and culture were investigated in the 1940s and
1950s; attitudes and voting were looked into in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s
people looked into political cognition and decision. Here, the journal Political Psychology also
began its publishing.
In the 1990s and 2000s, intergroup processes were researched more. Finally, social cognition
and ideology were looked into in the 2000s and 2010s. We can end the timeline with this class.
A good example nowadays is the BLMM. Black Lives Matter Movement is an international anti-
racism movement started in the US. Their key issues are police killings of black people, racial
profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the justice system. It started on social media
with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter after George Zimmerman was acquitted of the shooting
death of Trayvon Martin. It is now increasingly recognized during/after protests in Ferguson,
Missouri over the killing of Michael Brown. There are still continued protests but also art
installations, books, … . There is also more organized pressure on politicians and political
systems.
WHERE IS POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY ?
- Political attitudes and beliefs: Does the movement and its coverage in the media
influence people’s attitudes?
Sawyer and Gampa measured racism across time and looked at decreases or increases.
They saw that the levels of racism decreased after the Black Lives Matter Movement
started.
- Motivated reasoning: How do outsiders interpret these protests?
Kahan et al measured people’s political believes. The participants watched protesters at
an abortion clinic or a recruitment center of the US military. Although it was the same
video, they saw that people are pro-protest when it supports their view.
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,Stella Barenholz 2017-2018
- Morality: How do moral commitments affect how we think about police killings?
A good example here is the trolley problem, where people have to choose whether they
would or would not push a switch to let a trolley run over people in different situations.
- Diversity and intergroup relations: Why do people express racist views and support a
racist system? How can we get along in the end?
- Social status and power: Does power corrupt?
- Coalitions: How can people form partnerships to change things? To change laws, you
need people on your side, politicians on your side, and resources and motivation to vote.
- Cooperation: The protests showed many examples of people helping others, even in
dangerous situations. Why?
- Trust: Trust is hard to find, but how can we build it? Trusting societies tend to be less
unequal. The Netherlands scores high on trust, Russia low.
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, Stella Barenholz 2017-2018
2. POLITICAL ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS
WHAT ARE BELIEF SYSTEMS?
Other names are ideologies, world views, etc. The definition for ideology is very complex, but the
definitions for belief system or worldview are a bit looser and mean almost the same. Other
fields also use these terms but they then mean different things.
There are different ways that people define it. Phil Converse was a political scientist and
psychologist. He talks about belief systems as being an interrelated set of ideas and attitudes
that are logically bound together. He calls this constrained, because the values, attitudes and
ideas are all related. This means we can predict one attitude from another. So, if attitude #1 is
getting more conservative, the other attitudes, ideas and values also should become more
conservative. The constraint is the success we would have in predicting one attitude from
another.
Some attitudes, ideas or
values are more central than other attitudes, ideas or values. According to Converse, centrality
means that if you change the attitude or idea, it will also change the other parts of the belief
system. For example, if you think a strong welfare state is important, you will also support
higher taxes (otherwise you can’t get a stronger welfare state). But, if you think higher taxes are
important, it is not certain that you’ll also support a strong welfare state, because it can also
predict a lot of other attitude, for example a stronger military. This means higher taxes is less
central to ideology than a stronger welfare state or a stronger military. So, if the issue changes
another issue, it is more central.
WHERE DOES CONSTRAINT COME FROM ?
There are logical sources, some ideas logically go together. There are also psychological
sources, where it is experienced as logically constrained. An example is equality as having
connections with both strong welfare state and higher taxes.
The last one are social sources. These are beliefs based on particular interests, and combined
into packages by elites. They take different attitudes and policies and decide which ones go
together. Because of the interests that people have by being a member of a group, they can
follow these beliefs. For example: people who are anti-abortion are in favor of the death penalty
and vice versa.
D IFFERENCE BETWEEN LEFT AND RIGHT WING
It started in the French Revolution, where people with certain views sat on the left or right side
of the chamber. Looking at the ideology and parties in the US, the Democratic Party is seen as
left-wing, and the Republican Party as right-wing. In the Netherlands, we have the following
spectrum:
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