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The Psychology of Politics

Draft preface for The Psychology of Politics (3rd ed.), in preparation

Aubrey Immelman, St. John's University

William F. Stone, University of Maine

Paul Paul E. Shaffner, Bowdoin College

Preface

The Psychology of Politics is an introduction to political psychology. Political psychology has a long past as a field but a short history as an organized discipline. The founding of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP) just two decades ago in 1978 was its defining moment (see Stone, 1981, 1988). The formal establishment of this emerging interdisciplinary enterprise drawing upon a variety of academic specialties was anticipated by several precursors in the 20th century: Graham Wallas’s Human Nature in Politics (1908); Harold Lasswell’s Psychopathology in Politics (1930); a book with the present title by Hans Eysenck (1954); and the Handbook of Political Psychology (1973) edited by Jeanne Knutson, founder of the ISPP. The Handbook, most notably the chapter "From where and where to? by James Davies, defined the field at the time of its publication. The first edition of The Psychology of Politics (Stone, 1974) was the first attempt to produce a text specifically for courses in political psychology.

The present revision of Stone and Schaffner’s (1988) second edition of The Psychology of Politics provides a selective introduction to the discipline of political psychology, emphasizing topics the authors believe to be representative and important. We intend the book to be a general introduction to the field, an integrative overview rather than an exhaustive survey. Its title reflects the authors’ perspectives as psychologists interested in elucidating the contribution of psychology to a fuller understanding of phenomena traditionally in the domain of political science. This implies that some topics of interest to political psychologists have been omitted due to the limited insights offered by psychology. In other cases exclusions were dictated by the limited scope this work, which does not aspire to be a comprehensive handbook of political psychology. Clearly, there are no established rules or even a general consensus for determining which topics to include in a text of this nature. Ultimately the content of this text represents our best judgment based on surveys of earlier textbooks in political psychology, syllabi of existing courses in the field, and our personal preferences.

The two chapters comprising Part I of the book serve as a general introduction to the modern field of political psychology. Chapter 1 outlines the historical background and highlights contemporary issues in the field. Chapter 2 reviews conceptual systems and methods guiding current theory and practice in the field. It emphasizes the multiple orientations to the study of political behavior, showing how political acts are influenced by the historical environment, political culture, current events, the immediate situation, and biological drives, motives, emotions, and thought processes.

The next three parts of the text, building on the foundation laid in the first two chapters, need not be read in any particular order; their sequencing will be dictated by the needs of the reader or the emphasis of the political psychology course in question. Based purely on considerations of elegance, we have chosen to start with topics emphasizing primarily intrapsychic concepts, followed by a consideration of interpersonal processes mostly of a social or developmental nature, and concluding with larger, societal-level political processes.

Part II deals with issues at the forefront of the emerging field of political psychology: the roots of political behavior in human thinking and emotion. Although philosophers and political theorists have long debated human rationality, the so-called "cognitive revolution" of the past three decades has produced empirical data that have shed new light on this age-old question. Along with the burgeoning interest in thought processes the past decade has witnessed a resurgence of interest in the role of emotion in human behavior. Political cognition and decision making are covered in Chapter 3 and the closely related areas of affect and motivation in Chapter 4.

Part III provides psychological perspectives on important political processes relating to the person in politics. We consider temperament, character, and personality and the ways in which these internal dispositions are shaped by external influences to shape political attitudes, values, ideologies, and political behavior. Chapter 5 focuses on political attitudes, values, and ideology. Chapter 6 deals with the important developmental process of political socialization. The section concludes with an enduring topic that has interested students of politics from the ancient philosophers to Machiavelli in the middle ages, and from Freud at the dawn of modern psychology to present-day political psychologists: political personality. Thus, in Chapter 7 we survey the diversity of current approaches to the psychological examination of political leaders.

Finally, in Part IV we examine the diverse manifestations of political participation. In Chapter 8, which deals with organizing, voting, and protesting, the emphasis is on the "mass politics" of ordinary citizens. In Chapter 9, dealing with leadership, the focus shifts to so-called political "elites." Mass media exert a powerful influence both on citizens and political leaders. Thus, In Chapter 10 we turn to public opinion and the media, a topic of increasing interest in the present "information age." Finally, the future of humanity hinges upon the ability of Earth’s inhabitants to live together without destroying each other. Therefore the psychological origins of the conflicts that threaten peaceful coexistence are discussed in Chapter 11, along with some possibilities for the resolution or conciliation of national antagonisms, involving both masses and political elites.

More than a decade has passed since the publication of the second edition of The Psychology of Politics (Stone & Schaffner, 1988). The third edition reflects the growing maturity of the field and the continued elaboration of theoretical perspectives and diversification of research methods in the field since 1988. The content of this edition has been thoroughly reorganized and much of the material is new. There is more focus on cognition, affect, and political personality and less on group conflict, war, and social change. Unchanged from previous editions is our goal of providing a readable, broadly representative introduction to the field. Our only regret is that practical considerations precluded a more exhaustive coverage of the many fascinating topics in the growing field of political psychology.


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Last modified: 04/16/2000