Thursday, August 4, 2016

The Psychology of Politics

I am planning an article for next month's column on the psychology of politics. A lot has been written about the personality, etc of D. Trump, and I have already written a column about the psychology of populism (mobilizing fear, anger, hatred) See: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17718035/The%20Power%20of%20the%20Shout.docx

 I have thought about doing something on the polarization of political points of view. Much of this phenomenon is a psychological way of dealing with the human inability to deal comfortably with ambiguity, and a need for certainty. At least this accounts for some strongly held political stances.
Racist/non-racist, pro-abortion/pro-rights, for and against gay marriage, etc. are examples. I am not the first person to write about how there are valid arguments on both sides of the issue, so I want to think about the psychology of politics from a fresh point of view.
 For quite awhile I have wanted to write about " Are We Smarter Than Our Congressmen?", but there is not much objective material , for example, on the IQ's of individual congressmen. I would start with the fact that the general population believes strongly in climate change, yet congress has repeatedly refused to take any action. I suppose much of the entrenchment is political response to lobbyists, and the need for individual congressmen/women to engage in "political speak" which might be different than what they privately believe. Is there a psychological issue here? I mean the two-minds theory which gets them off the hook. They can't really be that dumb about climate change, can they? But this issue may have to wait. I could not get my local former congressman to respond.
  So what is a focus of psychology of politics which is current? It changes every day. If I go with the polarization issue, there is some new TED talk stuff on tolerance for the "other" point of view, but it doesn't seem to plow much ground. I like the idea of facing our own inner (and maybe unacknowledged ) need for black-white thinking, but where to take it? I don't want to just moralize. Psychology, as a discipline, should be more factual, and observe, for example, psychological development of the person's participation in a democratic process. Yet it can't be too theoretical, and for the majority of the readership of the column, probably needs to be a little bit "pop" psychology, as an article on "Are We Smarter....." would be.
   Maybe something like,"Your Vote and Mine: Are We at Odds?" or "Voting as a Human Act: Are There Any Grey Areas?

 


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