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First Wave of Political Psychology: Psychoanalysis and Political Leaders
In the first wave of political psychology the focus was mainly on understanding political leaders by using psychodynamic approaches. Psychodynamic theories are based on Sigmund Freud's ideas about the role of the unconscious in human behavior, and that we're driven by underlying motives and drives. Since most scientist studying political leaders using this method had no direct access to the subject they tended to adopt a psychobiographic approach. (See pages 18-21 in Cottam et al. (2015). -
The Authoritarian Personality
After World War II there was an increased interest into understanding how ordinary citizens could commit such atrocities as the Holocaust, and how the Nazi-regime in Germany could have such influence and power of people. You can read more about the authoritarian personality in Cottam et al (2015), pages 28-31. -
The Second Wave of Political Psychology: Voting Behavior and Public Opinion
In the 1940's and 50's there was an increased interest in studying public opinion and voting behavior in the United States. With the publication of "The American Voter" by Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes, the tradition of using political psychology to study public attitudes toward politics took off. You can read more about this at page 7 in Cottam et al (2015), as well as in chapters 3, 6, and 7, in the same book. -
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Third Wave of Political Psychology: International affairs
The application of political psychology and the development of political psychological frameworks for the analysis of behavior in international affairs was the third wave of political psychology. It came about in the beginning of the 1960's with studies of Soviet-American perceptions of each other and studies of the Vietnam war. More information about this can be found in Cottam et al (2015) in chapters 5 and 7-12. -
The End of Ideologies?
If ideological abstractions fail to provide a foundation for mass opinion, how do ordinary citizens manage to decide what they stand for politically? Political psychologists devoted a great deal of attention to this general question during the 1960s–1970s, and it has been revisited recently. You can read more about this debate in Jost, J. T. (2006). The end of the end of ideology. American Psychologist, 61(7), 651. -
International Society of Political Psychology
Jeanne N. Knutson played a key role in solidifying political psychology as a field in its own right. Knutson edited the first major work encompassing the field, the 1973 Handbook of Political Psychology, which drew from psychology, sociology, and political science. She also founded the International Society of Political Psychology in 1978, which published the first issue of Political Psychology that year. Visit their website at http://www.ispp.org/ -
Cognitive neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience refers to a field of study that focuses on how the function and structure of the brain and nervous system helps explain thoughts, feelings, and actions. For the past decade it has possibly been one of the hottest areas in within psychology, and thus also of interest to political psychologists. You can read more about this at page 8 and chapters 2, 3 and 6 in Cottam et al (2015). -
Will Political Diversity Improve Social Psychology?
Some researchers address a growing concern in the field och political psychology, that there is a lack of political diversity amongst researchers. How does this impact the quality of science? You can read more about this in Duarte et al (2015) and have a look at the initiative Heterodox Academy at http://heterodoxacademy.org/
