Course Syllabus

 

Psychology of Political Behavior

Semester & Location:	Spring 2019 - DIS Stockholm
Type & Credits:	Elective Course - 3 credits
Faculty Members:	TBA
Program Director:	Carla Caetano, Ph.D. Email: cca@dis.dk
Time & Place:	Tuesdays, 8.30 -11.25 Room #1D410

Description of Course

This course emphasizes the psychological mechanisms affecting political reasoning and behavior, such as how psychological biases affect our cognition, information-processing, and political behavior. Comparisons between U.S. and Swedish political contexts are explored, specifically examining how the political mind is embedded in social frameworks. This course is based on theory and research from the field of political psychology, an interdisciplinary academic field studying the relationships between psychological and political processes.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, students are expected

• To understand and describe principles and concepts related to political cognition such as information processing, decision-making, and perception.
• To apply theory and analyze political phenomena in daily life from a psychological perspective.
• To critically evaluate scientific methods and research within the field of political psychology.
• To contrast and consider cultural differences between American and European political contexts.
• To understand the dominant political ideologies in Sweden and how they differ from the US
• To engage with Swedish political groups to learn more about their underlying moral values and perspectives

Faculty

TBA

Readings

Required readings

Book

Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. Vintage.

Texts (selected chapters)

Cottam, M. L., Mastors, E., Preston, T., & Dietz, B. (2015). Chapter 3: Cognition, Social identitiy, Emotions (pp. 57-62) in Introduction to Political Psychology. Routledge.

Cottam, M. L., Mastors, E., Preston, T., & Dietz, B. (2015). Chapter 6: The Political Psychology of Mass Politics (pp 161-185). Introduction to Political Psychology. Routledge.

Cottam, M. L., Mastors, E., Preston, T., & Dietz, B. (2015). Chapter 10: The Political Psychology of Nationalism (pp 293-298, 304-311). Introduction to Political Psychology. Routledge.

Jost, J. T., & Sidanius, J. (2004). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior (Tajfel & Turner) (pp 276-293). Political Psychology: Key Readings. Psychology Press. 

Valentino, N., & Nardis, Y. (2013). Political communication: Form and consequence of the information environment. The Oxford handbook of political psychology, 559-590.

Zimbardo, Philip. (2007). Chapter 1: The Psychology of Evil: Situated Character Transformations (pp 3-22). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. New York: Random house.

Articles

Al-Gharbi, Musa. (October 17, 2017). Beware the Emerging Field of Trump Studies. Quilette. Retrieved from http://quillette.com/2017/10/17/beware-emerging-field-trump-studies/

Biglan, A. (2003). Selection by consequences: One unifying principle for a transdisciplinary science of prevention. Prevention Science, 4(4), 213-232.

Duarte, J. L., Crawford, J. T., Stern, C., Haidt, J., Jussim, L., & Tetlock, P. E. (2015). Political diversity will improve social psychological science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 38, e130.

Druckman, D. (1994). Nationalism, patriotism, and group loyalty: A social psychological perspective. Mershon International Studies Review, 43-68.

Hibbing, J. R., Smith, K. B., & Alford, J. R. (2014). Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in political ideology. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37(03), 297-307.

Jost, J. T. (2006). The end of the end of ideology. American Psychologist, 61(7), 651.

Kahan, D. M. (2013). Motivated numeracy and enlightened self-government. Yale Law School, Public Law Working Paper.

Milgram, S. (1965). Some conditions of obedience and disobedience to authority. Human relations, 18(1), 57-76.

PEW Research Center. (n.d.). Political Polarization in the American Public.

Pronin, E. (2007). Perception and misperception of bias in human judgment. Trends in cognitive sciences, 11(1), 37-43.

Pronin, E., Lin, D. Y., & Ross, L. (2002). The bias blind spot: Perceptions of bias in self versus others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(3), 369-381.

Reynolds, K. J., Subašić, E., & Tindall, K. (2015). The problem of behaviour change: from social norms to an ingroup focus. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 9(1), 45-56.

Stone, S., Johnson, K. M., Beall, E., Meindl, P., Smith, B., & Graham, J. (2014). Political Psychology. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 5 (4), 373-385.

Zimbardo, P. G. (2004). A situationist perspective on the psychology of evil: Understanding how good people are transformed into perpetrators. The Social Psychology of Good and Evil, 21-50.

Movies and other media

Galef, J (host). January 22, 2017. Jason Brennan on ”Against Democracy”. [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-176-jason-brennan-on-against-democracy.html 

Haidt, J. (2014, November 21). The Moral Psychology of Political Polarization: Many Causes and a Few Possible Responses [Lecture].  Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OnTTWkAv_E

The Economist. (2016, September 10.) The new era of ’post-truth politics’. The Economist. Retrieved from  http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21706498-dishonesty-politics-nothing-new-manner-which-some-politicians-now-lie-and

Mosesson, M. (2017, February 18). From this basement came a piece of fake news about who had desecrated a church in Sweden. Retrieved from http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/from-this-basement-came-a-piece-of-fake-news-about-who-had-desecrated-a-church-in-sweden/

Von Trotta, M., & Katz, P. (Directors). (2012). Hannah Arendt. [Film.] Germany.

 

Recommended readings

Texts

Cottam, M. L., Mastors, E., Preston, T., & Dietz, B. (2015). Chapter 1: Political Psycology – Introduction and overview (pages 1-14) in Cottam M. L (Ed.), Introduction to political psychology. Routledge.

Cottam, M. L., Mastors, E., Preston, T., & Dietz, B. (2015). Chapter 2: Personality and Politics (pp 15-45) in Introduction to political psychology. Routledge.

Cottam, M. L., Mastors, E., Preston, T., & Dietz, B. (2015). Chapter 3: Cognition, Social Identity, Emotions, and Attitudes in Political Psychology (pp 46-53) in Introduction to political psychology. Routledge.

Cottam, M. L., Mastors, E., Preston, T., & Dietz, B. (2015). Chapter 4: The Political Psychology of Groups (pp. 79-94, 107-112) in Introduction to political psychology. Routledge.

Cottam, M. L., Mastors, E., Preston, T., & Dietz, B. (2015). Chapter 7: The Political Psychology of the Media in Politics (pp 197-213) in Introduction to political psychology. Routledge.

Bishop, B. (2009). The big sort: Why the clustering of like-minded America is tearing us apart. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Greene, J. (2014). Moral tribes: emotion, reason and the gap between us and them. Atlantic Books Ltd.

Lieberman, M. D. (2013). Social: Why our brains are wired to connect. OUP Oxford.

Articles

Coe, K., Tewksbury, D., Bond, B. J., Drogos, K. L., Porter, R. W., Yahn, A., & Zhang, Y. (2008). Hostile news: Partisan use and perceptions of cable news programming. Journal of Communication, 58(2), 201-219.

Cohen, G. L. (2003). Party over policy: The dominating impact of group influence on political beliefs. Journal of personality and social psychology,85(5), 808.

Conover, P. J., & Feldman, S. (1981). The origins and meaning of liberal/conservative self-identifications. American Journal of Political Science, 617-645.

Feldman, S. (2003). Enforcing social conformity: A theory of authoritarianism. Political psychology, 24(1), 41-74.

Hochschild, A. R. (2016). Strangers in their own land: Anger and mourning on the American right. New Press.

Iyengar, S., & Westwood, S. J. (2015). Fear and loathing across party lines: New evidence on group polarization. American Journal of Political Science,59(3), 690-707.

Kahan, D. M. (2012). The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks. Nature Climate Change 2, pp. 732-735.

Kahan, D. M. (2007). The second national risk and culture study: Making sense of-and making progress in-the american culture war of fact. GWU Legal Studies Research Paper, pp. 08-26.

Kennedy, K. & Pronin, E. (2008). When disagreement gets ugly: perceptions of bias and the escalation of conflict. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(6), 833–848. doi:10.1177/0146167208315158

Lieberman, M. D., & Eisenberger, N. I. (2009). Neuroscience. Pains and pleasures of social life. Science (New York, N.Y.), 323 (5916), 890–891.

Miller, J. M., & Krosnick, J. A. (2000). News media impact on the ingredients of presidential evaluations: Politically knowledgeable citizens are guided by a trusted source. American Journal of Political Science, 301-315.

Monin, B., Pizarro, D. A., & Beer, J. S. (2007). Deciding versus reacting: Conceptions of moral judgment and the reason-affect debate. Review of General Psychology, 11(2), 99.

Munro, G. D., Zirpoli, J., Schuman, A., & Taulbee, J. (2013). Third-party labels bias evaluations of political platforms and candidates. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 35(2), 151-163.

Pides, R. H. (2011). Why the center does not hold: The causes of hyperpolarized democracy in America. California Law Review, 99(2), 273–333.

Stenner, K. (2009). Three kinds of “conservatism”. Psychological Inquiry, 20(2-3), 142-159.

Other media and articles

Crash Course, (13 November, 2015). How Voters Decide: Crash Course Government and Politics #38 [Lecture]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eermkiaFoWc

Greene, J. (2014). Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them. [Google talk]. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaoTKurm_1k

Haidt, J. (2008). The moral roots of liberals and conservatives. [TED talk]. Retrieved from  www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind

Haidt, J. (2016, August 9). Why the Centre Cannot Hold in America, Europe, and Psychology [Blogpost and video lecture.] Retrieved from http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/08/09/why-the-centre-cannot-hold/

Hegedus, C., Pennebaker, D. A., Cutler, R. J., Ettinger, W., Pennebaker, F., Carville, J., Stephanopoulos, G. (Directors). (2012). The War Room. [Documentary film.]  New York: The Criterion Collection.

Henkin, H., Mamet, D., Levinson, B., Hoffman, D., De, N. R., Heche, A., Leary, D., ... New Line Home Video (Firm). (1998). Wag the Dog. Calif.: New Line Home Video.

Dubner, Stephen. (2016, July 27). Ten Ideas to Make Politics Less Rotten. [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from  http://freakonomics.com/podcast/idea-must-die-election-edition/

Kolbert, E. (2017, February 27). Why facts don’t change our minds: New Discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds

Rauch, J. (2016, July/August). How American Politics Went insane. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/how-american-politics-went-insane/485570/

Richardson, B. (2016, June 11). Study from 2012 now corrected to show liberals, not conservatives, more authoritarian. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/11/liberals-not-conservatives-more-likely-possess-psy/ 

Roberts, Russ (Show host). (2015, January 5). Joshua Greene on Moral Tribes, Moral Dilemmas, and Utilitarianism [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/01/joshua_greene_o.html

The Economist. (2016, November 19.) League of nationalists. The Economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/news/international/21710276-all-around-world-nationalists-are-gaining-ground-why-league-nationalists

The Economist (2017, July). The power of groupthink: A special report on Donald Trump’s America.The Economist. Retrieved from: https://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21724115-observers-donald-trumps-presidency-who-hope-politics-will-eventually-return

The Economist (2017, February 4). Millennials across the rich world are failing to vote. The Economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/news/international/21716023-democracies-are-risk-if-young-people-continue-shun-ballot-box-millennials-across

McRaney, David (Show host). (2015, November 9). Why you often believe people who see the world differently are wrong [Audio podcast.] Retrieved from www.youarenotsosmart.com/2015/11/09/yanss-062-why-you-often-believe-people-who-see-the-world-differently-are-wrong/

Vedantam, Shankar (host). (2017, January 24). Strangers in Their Own Land: The 'Deep Story' of Trump Supporters. [Audio podcast] Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2017/01/24/510567860/strangers-in-their-own-land-the-deep-story-of-trump-supporters

Zimbardo, P. G., Musen, K., Stanford Instructional Television Network., & Insight Media (Firm). (1991). Quiet rage: The Stanford prison study. New York, NY: Distributed by Insight Video. Retrieved from http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/quiet-rage-the-stanford-prison-experiment/

 Zimbardo, P. (2008, February). The Psychology of Evil [TED talk]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil

 

Field Studies

Field Study 1 – Visiting the Swedish Parliament, February 27th, 13.00 – 17.00

• Topic: Understanding Swedish political system and contemporary political context, focusing on government and the legal system.
• Objective: To learn how the Swedish government and parliamentary system works, with both historical and contemporary perspectives. To identify and understand cultural differences between the political system in Sweden and the US.
• Description: We will visit the Swedish parliament, where we will get a tour of the parliament building as well as meeting with a Swedish MP.

Field Study 2 - Visiting the think tank Timbro, Apr 24th, 8.30 – 12.30

• Topic: Understanding the Swedish political system and contemporary political context, outside of a governmental context.
• Objective: To learn about how a Swedish think tank operates and aims to influence public opinion and politicians. To identify and understand the differences between the political landscape and public opinion in a Swedish context compared to the US.
• Description: TBA. We will visit the Swedish think tank Timbro, where we will learn about their work and mission as well as the Swedish political system. More information about Timbro can be at www.timbro.se/en.

 

Guest Lecturers

Steve Turner, DIS Abroad: 

• Topic: Swedish society and politics

Robert Örell, 

• Topic: Robert Örell is the founder of Exit, a non-profit organization which aims to help and provide support to those who wish to leave a nationalistic/racist/nazi oriented groups and movements. Exit provide hands-on support for persons wanting to leave a neo nazi or racist environment by cooperating with various housing corporations, the police, social services, legal system and also with the client’s own family and friends. During this lecture the students will get first-hand experience and extensive knowledge about real life application of theory related to extremism and radicalization processes. More information about Exit can be found here: http://exit.fryshuset.se/english/

Approach to Teaching

A variety of teaching methods will be used, including lectures, class discussions, group presentations, interactive classroom activities and multi-media to facilitate the understanding of theory, research, and their cultural implications. Psychological applications will be explored using case examples.

Expectations of the Students

Students are expected to have done the readings and come prepared with relevant questions and notes for each class. This will give us material to generate conversation. When responding to questions in class, make reference to our readings to support the points you are making. Students are expected to challenge themselves and their worldviews with an investigative mindset and curiosity, seeking to understand the topics at hand as well as how they relate to themselves as individuals and the world around them.

Evaluation

Evaluation: A number of diverse tasks will be given throughout the semester to address learning objectives. Emphasis will be on engaged participation and may include individual and/or group-based written/oral tasks. Projects may be given that will explore topics experientially.

  

Grading

Methods of Evaluation	How evaluated	Due Date	Percentage of grade
Engaged participation	Individual	Ongoing	10%
Moral Psychology Fieldwork and Presentation	Pairs	October 19	25%
Mid-term exam	Individual	October 5	20%
Group presentation	Group	November	20%
Final Research Paper	Individual	December 7th	25%
Total			100%

 

Evaluation: A number of diverse tasks will be given throughout the semester to address learning objectives. Emphasis will be on engaged participation, and may include individual and/or group-based written/oral tasks. Projects may be given that will explore topics experientially.

 

Engaged Participation (10%):

Your participation grade reflects the importance of being active in this course, which relies in great part on the reflections, discussions, and exercises in class. Students are expected to come prepared with relevant questions for discussion pertaining to the topic, as well as making contributions with relevant analytical insights and critical evaluations. The participation grade also takes into consideration punctuality.

 

Mid-term exam (20%)

There will be an exam covering the theories and concepts that have been discussed so far in the course.

 

Moral Psychology Fieldwork (25%):

This task was originally developed by Jonathan Haidt (author of The Righteous Mind, 2012) and has been adjusted to suit this class. Working in pairs, your assignment is to step out of your moral matrix and into another. Immerse yourself in a network of meanings and values that conflicts with your own, acting like an anthropologist trying to understand them accurately and fairly. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz said that the goal of fieldwork is not to become a native but to converse with the natives, and in the process, to "figure out what the devil they think they are up to."

 

You will be provided with a list of suitable groups (representing Swedish political parties or other organisations) to contact, and get guidelines for how to reach out and present yourself and the task. You will then conduct interviews with people from the selected community to further your understanding of their moral matrix and attitudes. You should put together an interview template and run that by me before you conduct the interview(s). Be bold, take social risks, but be careful that you don’t hurt or offend the people you are trying to learn from. We will discuss your plan in detail when you have chosen your group. The interviews would take approximately 30-45 minutes.

 

After conducting interviews, you will write up a paper consisting of two parts. Part I should be purely descriptive, explaining what the aims of the group, their values and attitudes, without evaluation and only minimal interpretation. Part II should attempt to extract or describe the underlying moral worldview or commitments of the people/group you studied. You should present them as sympathetically as possible, in a form that they might recognize as a fair statement of what they are up to, and of why they say and believe the things that they do. But then be sure to go deeper; try to figure out why or how they came to have the particular moral matrix they have, when others nearby have a different one.

 

Part 1 should consist of one to two pages (1.5 spaced with a maximum of 2 pages). Part 2 should consist of 3-5 pages (1.5 spaced with a maximum of 5 pages). Quality is more important than quantity, meaning that more text does not necessarily entail a higher grade. Be sure to draw on some of the readings and analytical tools you have acquired so far in the course and include references. Your grading will be based on three parts: how well you structured the interviews (35%), the descriptive part of the write up (15%), and mostly on the depth and insight you provide in your second section, the analysis (50%). See Canvas for more detailed instructions.

 

 

Group presentations (20%):

Students will form groups at the beginning of the semester and prepare to hold their own class and present a deeper analysis regarding a key concept/research finding from the course. The class/presentation should include both theoretical background and a case study applying this to real life political phenomena. A critical perspective should be taken, unanswered questions should be raised and potential for future intervention/research considered. See Canvas for more detailed instructions.

 

Final Paper (25%):

The course will conclude with an individually written final paper which should demonstrate an integration of course material and research findings with the topic of your choice, related to political phenomena in real life. The topic must be approved by the instructor. The paper should be around 6-7 pages 1.5 spaced (excluding references) and be conducted using APA style. The references should include class readings and independent sources. See Canvas for more detailed instructions.

 

To be eligible for a passing grade in this class you must complete all of the assigned work.

 

To be eligible for a passing grade in this class you must complete all of the assigned work.

 

Academic Regulations  

Please make sure to read the Academic Regulations on the DIS website. There you will find regulations on:

• Course Enrollment and Grading
• Attendance
• Coursework, Exams, and Final Grade Reports

 

 

DIS - Study Abroad in Scandinavia - www.DISabroad.org