Political psychology
Political psychology studies how psychological processes shape political behavior, attitudes, decision-making, and institutions.
Motivated reasoning: Reasoning shaped by goals and prior commitments, often favoring conclusions that protect them. It explains how political identities and preferences influence evaluation of evidence.
Voting behavior: The study of how and why people participate in elections and choose candidates or parties. It is a central outcome political psychology seeks to explain.
Gustave Le Bon: A French social psychologist whose writings examined crowds and collective behavior. His crowd theory helped establish early psychological approaches to political mass behavior.
Rational choice theory: An approach that models choices as efforts to maximize preferences under constraints. It emphasizes calculated incentives where political psychology also examines emotion, identity, and bias.
Political polarization: The widening separation of political attitudes or identities between groups or parties. Researchers debate how identity, media, and elite cues contribute to its growth.
Social identity theory: A theory explaining how group memberships shape self-concept, intergroup attitudes, and behavior. It connects group belonging to political alignment and hostility toward rival groups.
Political socialization: The process through which people acquire political values, identities, and habits. It traces how family, schools, peers, and events shape political outlooks.
Walter Lippmann: An American journalist and political thinker who analyzed public opinion and the limits of political knowledge. His account of stereotypes and mediated information anticipated later research on political judgment.
Institutionalism: An approach that explains political outcomes through the rules and structures of institutions. It foregrounds institutional constraints rather than individual psychological processes.
Affective polarization: Dislike and distrust between supporters of opposing political parties, beyond policy disagreement. It raises questions about whether group emotion can undermine democratic cooperation.