Doing Political Psychology

Professor of Political Science, Williams College; Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology. Author of books and articles on political tolerance, emotion, and politics.

This Political Psychology textbook is an excellent and extensive introduction to what political psychology is, as well as a thorough introduction to the field.

• Preface ; Section I: Introduction ; Chapter 1: The Importance of Political Psychology ; The Field of Political Psychology ; The Social Organization of Political Psychology ; The Core Concerns of Political Psychology ; The Usefulness of Taxonomies ; Human Nature and Human Politics ; Doing Political Psychology ; Explanation in Political Psychology ; Description and Explanation in Political Psychology ; Plan of the Book ; Exercises ; Chapter 2: A Brief Methodology Primer for Political Psychologists ; Explanations as Persuasion or Justification, and Explanation as Knowledge ; Generating Explanations: Theorizing ; Getting Observations: Data, Sampling and Generalization ; Surveys - Samples from a Population of Interest ; Experiments ; Other Data Collection Methodologies ; Measuring Concepts: Measurement Theory ; Forms of Relationships ; Conclusion ; Exercises ; Chapter 3: A Short History of a Long Tradition ; Time ; Understanding Premodern Conceptions of Time ; Understanding Modern Time ; Emotion and Reason Shaping Political Psychology ; The Modern Dilemma: The Unexpected Trajectory of Progress ; Conclusion ; Exercises ; Chapter 4: Neuroscience and Political Psychology ; Neuroscience and Time ; Neuroscience and Knowledge ; Neuroscience and Action ; Psychology and Knowledge ; Valence Conception ; Discrete, or Appraisal Conceptions ; Dimensional Conceptions ; Conclusion ; Exercises ; Section II: Political Psychology ; Chapter 5: Brain and Conscious Mind ; The Psychology of Mind and Brain ; Split Brain Experiments ; Time and Brain Functions ; A Provisional Beginning: The Theory of Affective Intelligence ; The Politics of Mind and Brain ; Conclusion ; Exercises ; Chapter 6: Political Action - The Uses and Limits of the Mind ; The Limits of the Mind, the Blind Spot of Political Psychology ; An Overview of Preconscious Appraisal and Action ; Political Psychology Wrestles with the Unconscious ; The Preconscious and Politics ; Dual Process Models - Brain and Mind ; Conclusion ; Exercises ; Chapter 7: Personality and Political Psychology ; A Very Brief Historical Introduction to Personality ; Personality as Taxonomy - Personality as Types ; The Four Humors ; Modern Research on Personality ; Personality in Psychobiography ; Personality in Political Psychology ; Four Limitations of trait Conceptions of Personality ; Neuroscience and Personality ; Pathology and Research Agenda of Personality in Political Psychology ; Political Psychology and Personality Going Forward ; Suggested Readings ; Resources ; Exercises ; Chapter 8: Political Psychology and Democratic Politics ; How Do We Know? ; How Do We Manage: Dual Process Models ; Moral Judgment ; Free Will ; The Special Challenge of Manipulation ; Rethinking Core Conceptions ; Appendix ; Critical books and articles exploring biological sources of variation in personality ; Gene Environment Interactions ; Motor Action (behavior) ; Vision ; Memory ; Seminal Pieces regarding Genes and Political Attitudes ; Applications to Political Psychology - Selected Examples ; Developmental Psychology ; Early Seminal Work on Personality ; Some Primers: Evolutionary Accounts & Probabilistic Epigenesis ; Affective Neuroscience ; Early Basics ; Recent Basics ; Consciousness and Preconsciousness ; Amygdala ; Social Neuroscience ; Behavioral Development ; Neural Development ; Decision Neuroscience ; Exercises ; Section III: Political Social Psychology ; Chapter 9: Using the Past and Present so as to Live in the Future ; A Brief Reprise ; Context in Political Philosophy ; Context in Psychology ; A Preliminary Consideration of Authority and Context in Politics ; A Provisional Psychological Taxonomy of Context ; Assessing the Empirical Story ; The Normative Story ; Affect and Context ; A Taxonomy of Context or a Taxonomy of Contexts ; Exercises ; Chapter 10: Conclusion: Political Psychology and Politics ; Introduction ; The Limitations of Political Psychology ; An Agenda for Political Psychology (Redux) ; Political Psychology for the Young Scholar ; Choosing Research Topics ; Political Psychology for the Citizen ; Index