Political psychology

Political psychology (or psychology of politics) is an interdisciplinary academic field, dedicated to understanding politics, politicians and political behavior from a psychological perspective, and psychological processes using socio-political perspectives. The relationship between politics and psychology is considered bidirectional, with psychology being used as a lens for understanding politics and politics being used as a lens for understanding psychology. As an interdisciplinary field, political psychology borrows from a wide range of disciplines, including: anthropology, economics, history, international relations, journalism, media studies, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology.

Political psychology aims to understand interdependent relationships between individuals and contexts that are influenced by beliefs, motivation, perception, cognition, information processing, learning strategies, socialization and attitude formation. Political psychological theory and approaches have been applied in many contexts such as: leadership role; domestic and foreign policy making; behavior in ethnic violence, war and genocide; group dynamics and conflict; racist behavior; voting attitudes and motivation; voting and the role of the media; nationalism; and political extremism. In essence political psychologists study the foundations, dynamics, and outcomes of political behavior using cognitive and social explanations.

History and early influences

France

Political psychology originated from Western Europe, France, where it was closely tied to the emergence of new disciplines and paradigms as well as to the precise social and political context in various countries. The discipline political psychology was formally introduced during the Franco-Prussian war and the socialist revolution, stirred by the rise of the Paris Commune (1871). The term political psychology was first introduced by the ethnologist Adolf Bastian in his book Man in History (1860). The philosopher Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893), a founder of the Ecole Libre de Sciences Politiques, applied Bastian's theories in his works The Origins of Contemporary France (1875–1893), to ideas on the founding and development of the Third Republic. The head of Ecole Libre de Sciences Politiques, Émile Boutmy (1835–1906), was a famous explorer of social, political and geographical concepts of national interactions. He contributed various works on political psychology such as English People; A study of their Political Psychology (1901) and The American People; Elements of Their Political Psychology (1902). The contributor of crowd theory Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931) suggested that crowd activity subdued will and polluted rational thought which resulted in uncontrollable impulses and emotions. He suggested in his works Psychology of Socialism (1896) and Political Psychology and Social Defense (1910) that in the uncontrollable state of a crowd people were more vulnerable to submission and leadership, and suggested that embracing nationalism would remedy this.

Italy

Meanwhile, in Italy, the Risorgimento (1870) instigated various social reforms and voting rights. The large division in social class during this period led lawyer Gaetano Mosca (1858–1914) to publish his work, The Ruling Class: Elements of Political Science (1896), which theorized the presence of the ruling and the ruled classes of all societies. Vilfredo Pareto (1828–1923), inspired by Mosca's concepts, contributed The Rise and Fall of the Elites (1901) and The Socialist System (1902–1903) to the discipline of political psychology, theorizing on the role of class and social systems. His work The Mind and Society (1916) offers a sociology treatise. Mosca and Pareto's texts on the Italian elite contributed to the theories of Robert Michels (1875–1936). Michels was a German socialist fascinated by the distinction between the largely lower class run parliament in Germany and upper class run parliament in Italy. He wrote Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchic Tendencies of Modern Democracy (1911).

Austria

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) contributed a large psychoanalytical influence to the discipline of political psychology. His texts Totem and Taboo (1913) and Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921) linked psychoanalysis with politics. Freud and Bullitt (1967) developed the first psycho-biographical explanation to how the personality characteristics of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson affected his decision making during World War I. Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957), inspired by the effects of World War II, was interested in whether personality types varied according to epoch, culture and class. He described the bidirectional effect of group, society and the environment with personality. He combined Freudian and Marxist theories in his book The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933). He also edited The Journal for Political Psychology and Sexual Economy (1934–1938) which was the first journal to present political psychology in the principal of western language.

Germany

In Germany, novice political alterations and fascist control during World War II spurred research into authoritarianism from Frankfurt School. Philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) opened up issues concerning freedom and authority in his book, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (1941), where he suggested groups compromise on individual rights. Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) also investigated authoritarian individuals and anti-Semitism. His report The Authoritarian Personality (1950) attempts to determine the personality type susceptible to following fascism and anti-democratic propaganda. Nazi movements during World War II also spurred controversial psychologists such as Walther Poppelreuter (1932) to lecture and write about political psychology that identified with Hitler. The psychologist Eric Jaensch (1883–1940) contributed the racist book The Anti-type (1933).

United Kingdom

At the turn of the century, Oxford University and Cambridge University introduced disciplinary political psychology courses such as "The Sciences of the Man", along with the foundation of the Psychological society (1901) and the Sociological society (1904). Oxford historian George Beardoe Grundy (1861–1948) noted political psychology (1917) as a sub-discipline of history. Motivated by social and political behavior during World War I, he deemed a new branch of historical science, "The Psychology of Men Acting in Masses".

Techniques to establish more effective decision-making skills in political dimensions have been suggested. Hirt and Markman (1995) claim that implementing an individual in a group to find faults and to critique will enable the members to establish alternative viewpoints. George (1980) suggested "multiple advocacy" which implements that a neutral person analyses the pros and cons of various advocate suggestions and thus makes an informed decision.

Applied psychology theories to improve productivity of political groups include implementing "team development" techniques, "quality circles" and autonomous workgroups.

Using psychology in the understanding of certain political behaviors

Evolution

Evolutionary psychology plays a significant role in understanding how the current political regime came to be. It is an approach that focuses on the structure of human behavior claiming its dependence on the social and ecological environment. Developed through natural selection, the human brain functions to react appropriately to environmental challenges of coalitional conflict using psychological mechanisms and modifications. An example of political conflict would involve state aggression such as war. Psychological mechanisms work to digest what is taken in from internal and external information regarding the current habitat and project it in the most suited form of action such as acts of aggression, retrieval, dominance, submission and so forth.

Political identity and voting behavior

In order to make inferences and predictions about behavior concerning voting decision, certain key public influences must be considered. These influences include the role of emotions, political socialization, political sophistication, tolerance of diversity of political views and the media. The effect of these influences on voting behavior is best understood through theories on the formation of attitudes, beliefs, schema, knowledge structures and the practice of information processing. The degree to which voting decision is affected by internal processing systems of political information and external influences, alters the quality of making truly democratic decisions. Perceiving external events such as terrorist attacks, governmental warnings, and shifts in racial demography can lead to shifts in political opinion (Jost, 2017).

Some prominent academics in the field include Dr. Chadly Daniel Stern, who currently works at the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. His research centers around answering social cognitive questions of how a person's political belief systems shape the way that they perceive the world and their everyday interactions.

Childhood influence

In 2006, scientists reported a relationship between personality and political views of Americans on a left–right spectrum as follows: "Preschool children who 20 years later were relatively liberal were characterized as: developing close relationships, self-reliant, energetic, somewhat dominating, relatively under-controlled, and resilient. Preschool children subsequently relatively conservative at age 23 were described as: feeling easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and relatively over-controlled and vulnerable."

The amount of research done on children and the impact their childhoods have on their political views or identity is limited. However, an increasing amount of empirical work on children and their environment could be highly revealing of how their political awareness and attitudes develop very early on (Reifen‐Tagar & Cimpian, 2020).

Conflict

The application of psychology for understanding conflict and extreme acts of violence can be understood in both individual and group terms. Political conflict is often a consequence of ethnic disparity and "ethnocentrism" Sumner (1906).

On an individual level participators in situations of conflict can either be perpetrators, bystanders or altruists. The behavior of perpetrators is often explained through the authoritarian personality type. Individual differences in levels of empathy have been used to explain whether an individual chooses to stand up to authority or ignore a conflict. Rotter's (1954) locus of control theory in personality psychology has also been used to determine individual differences in reaction to situations of conflict.

Group behavior during conflict often affects the actions of an individual. The bystander effect introduced by Darley and Latane (1968) demonstrates that group behavior causes individuals to monitor whether others think it is necessary to react in a situation and thus base their behavior on this judgment. They also found that individuals are more likely to diffuse responsibility in group situations. These theories can be applied to situations of conflict and genocide in which individuals remove personal responsibility and therefore justify their behavior. Social identity theory explains that during the Holocaust of World War II political leaders used the Jews as an out-group in order to increase in-group cohesion. This allowed for the perpetrators to depersonalize from the situation and to diffuse their responsibility. The out-groups were held in separate confines and dehumanized in order to aid the in-group to disengage themselves from relating.

Research by Dan Kahan has demonstrated that individuals are resistant to accepting new political views even if they are presented with evidence that challenges their views. The research also demonstrated that if the individual was required to write a few sentences about experiences they enjoyed or spend a few moments affirming their self-worth, the individual was more likely to accept the new political position.

Although somewhat unusual, evolutionary psychology can also explain conflicts in politics and the international society. A journal article by Anthony C. Lopez, Rose McDermott and Michael Bang Petersen uses this idea to give out a hypothesis to explain political events. According to the authors, instincts and psychological characteristics developed through evolution is still existent with modern people. They suggest human being as "adaptation executers"; people designed through natural selection, and not "utility maximizers"; people who strive for utility in every moment. Though a group of people, perhaps those who are in the same political coalition, may seem as if they pursue a common utility maximization, it is difficult to generalize the theory of "utility maximizers" into a nation-view because people evolved in small groups. This approach helps scholars to explain seemingly irrational behaviors like aggressiveness in politics and international society because "irrational behavior" would be the result of a mismatch between the modern world and evolutionary psychology.

For example, according to evolutionary psychology, coalitional aggression is more commonly found in males. This is because of their psychological mechanism designed since ancestral times. During those times men had more to earn when winning wars compared to women (they had more chance of finding a mate, or even many mates). Also, the victorious men had more chance of reproduction which eventually led to the succession of aggressive, eager-to-war DNAs. As a result, the authors hypothesize that countries with more men will tend to show more aggressive politics thereby having more possibility of triggering conflicts within and especially among states.

Indeed, some exceptions do exist in this theory as this is just a hypothesis. However, it is viable enough to be a hypothesis to be tested to explain certain political events like war and crisis.

Terrorism

On an individual level terrorism has been explained in terms of psychopathology. Terrorists have demonstrated to show narcissistic personality traits (Lasch, 1979, Pearlstein, 1991). Jerrold Post (2004) argues that narcissistic and borderline personality disorders are found in terrorists and that mechanisms such as splitting and externalization are used by terrorists. Others such as Silke (2004) and Mastors and Deffenbaugh (2007) refute this view. Crenshaw (2004) showed that certain terrorist groups are actually careful in not enlisting those demonstrating pathology. The authoritarian personality theory has also been used as an explanation for terrorist behavior in individuals.

In terms of explaining reasons for which individuals join terrorist groups, motivational theories such as need for power and need for affiliation intimacy are suggested. Festinger (1954) explained that people often join groups in order to compare their own beliefs and attitudes. Joining a terrorist group could be a method to remedy individual uncertainty. Taylor and Louis (2004) explained that individuals strive for meaningful behavior. This can also be used to explain why terrorists look for such radical beliefs and demonstrations. Studies on children in northern Ireland by Field (1979) have shown that exposure to violence can lead to terrorist behavior later on. Implicating the effect of developing acceptable norms in groups. However this view has also been criticized (Taylor, 1998). Other theories suggest that goal frustration can result in aggression (Dollard, Doob. Miller, mower, and Sears, 1939) and that aggression can lead to frustration (Borum, 2004).

Group settings can cause a social identity and terrorist behavior to manifest. Methods such as dehumanization allow individuals to detach more easily from moral responsibility, and group influence increase the chance that individuals will concede to conformity and compliance. Manipulations of social control and propaganda can also instrument terrorist involvement.

In fact, a strategic model has been proposed to examine the political motivations of terrorists. The strategic model, the dominant paradigm in terrorism studies, considers terrorists are rational actors who attack civilians for political ends. According to this view, terrorists are political utility maximizers. The strategic model rests on three core assumptions which are: (1) terrorists are motivated by relatively stable and consistent political preferences; (2) terrorists evaluate the expected political payoffs of their available options; and (3) terrorism is adopted when the expected political return is superior to those of alternative options. However, it turns out that terrorists' decision-making process does not fully conform to the strategic model. According to Max Abrahms, the author of "What Terrorists Really Want: Terrorist Motives and Counterterrorism Strategy", there are seven common tendencies that represent important empirical puzzles for the strategic model, going against the conventional thought that terrorists are rational actors.

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

External links

International Bulletin of Political Psychology
The Center for the Study of Political Psychology
The Center for Research in Political Psychology (Queen's University Belfast)
The International Society of Political Psychology
Political Psychology at The George Washington University