Introduction
How can we predict how someone will vote in the future using only their grandfather’s job as a starting point? Why does convincing people UFOs exist reduce their racial biases? And how did tens of thousands of people across the globe come to believe that Comet Ping Pong Pizza in Washington D.C. was the headquarters of an international Satanic ritual abuse ring organised by the US Democratic Party? In this module, we will will learn how to use the fundamentals of political psychology to understand the biggest, most complex, and strangest issues of the day.
But what is political psychology? And how can we use it as a tool to make sense of politics? These are the questions we will discuss throughout this course. In Section 1, the module begins with an overview of the field of political psychology and some of the ways that questions in this field are answered. In Section 2, the module will consider the mechanisms of how people construct political beliefs and determine political choices, investigating topics how we process information, social identities, partisan bias, and persuasion. In Section 3, the module will explore the psychological roots of political behavior, and the contributions of influences such as socialization, social identity, emotion, and genes to how citizens and political leaders make decisions. In Section 4, the module will study the political psychology of the media, the psychological roots of international conflict, and the routes to cooperation and compromise
Syllabus
- Module Kit – This is an example syllabus from 2024-25.