What shapes political behavior more: the situations in which individuals find themselves, or the internal psychological makeup—beliefs, values, and so on—of those individuals? This is perhaps the leading division within the psychological study of politics today.
Political Psychology: Situations, Individuals, and Cases, 3rd edition, provides a concise, readable, and conceptually organized introduction to the topic of political psychology by examining this very question. Using this situationism—dispositionism framework—which roughly parallels the concerns of social psychology and cognitive neuroscience—this book focuses on such key explanatory mechanisms as emotion, cognition, neuropolitics, genopolitics, personality, beliefs and social identities to explore topics ranging from voting behavior and racism to terrorism and international relations. The new edition is completely revised and contains new chapters to introduce and conclude the book, as well as fundamentally updated material on (for instance) foreign policy decision-making and electoral choice. Houghton has also updated the text to bring us into the era of Donald J. Trump, to pick apart the results of the 2024 US presidential election, and to include up-and-coming research in the areas of neuropolitics and genopolitics. Houghton's clear and engaging examples directly challenge students to place themselves in both real and hypothetical situations which involve intense moral and political dilemmas.
This highly readable text will provide students with the conceptual foundation they need to make sense of the rapidly changing and increasingly important field of political psychology.
Political Psychology: Situations, Individuals, and Cases, 3rd edition, provides a concise, readable, and organized introduction to the topic of political psychology by examining this very question. The new edition is completely revised and contains updated material on foreign policy decision-making, electoral choice and more.
Preface. Part 1: Introduction
1. Studying Political Psychology
2. Two
Conceptual Schemes
3. A Brief History of the Discipline Part 2:
Dispositionism
4. Behaviorism and Human Freedom
5. Obedience and
Authoritarianism
6. Creating a Bad Barrel
7. Group Decision-Making Part 3:
Situationism
8. Psychobiography
9. Personality and Beliefs
10. Cognition
11.
Affect and Emotion
12. Neuroscience, Biology and Genetics Part 4: Bringing
the Two Together
13. The Psychology of Electoral Choice
14. The Psychology of
Political Communication, Persuasion, and the Mass Media
15. The Psychology of
Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Cults
16. The Psychology of Terrorism
17.
The Psychology of Racism and Political Intolerance
18. The Psychology of
Foreign Policy and International Conflict Part 5: Conclusions
19. The Future
of Political Psychology
David Patrick Houghton is a British-American academic and a retired Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, RI. His other books include The Decision Point (Oxford University Press, 2012), A Citizen's Guide to American Foreign Policy (Routledge, 2013), and U.S. Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis (Cambridge University Press, 2001). He has also published academic articles in a wide array of outlets, including Political Psychology, The British Journal of Political Science, Foreign Policy Analysis, Security Studies, and Terrorism and Political Violence.
