Progress and Promise in the Study of Political Psychology

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

What is political psychology, and what could it be? Political psychology occupies an important place in the study of political science, psychology, and the social sciences broadly. Given its inherently interdisciplinary orientation, the study of political psychology provides key insights about citizens, government, democracy, and how psychological processes shape power, governance, and politics. An increasing number of political scientists draw from psychological foundations of some kind, and political psychology as an area of focus has rising relevance to governments, campaigns, political leaders, and citizens across the world.

This roundtable includes editors and authors who contributed to the forthcoming Handbook of Innovations in Political Psychology. The chapters of that volume highlight innovative research questions, novel perspectives, and new methodological tools that have contributed to the development of political psychology or promise to do so. That is, what are the questions, theories, methods, or perspectives that have expanded or could expand the scope of political psychology? Such expansion could include cross-fertilization between political psychology and other disciplines, including behavioral economics, neuroscience, psychology, and computational social science. More broadly, how can political psychology be more innovative, rigorous, inclusive, and useful? While we recognize the enormous progress that the subfield has made and the extraordinary contributions of recent generations of scholars, what are the questions political psychology should wrestle with in the coming years, and what are the next steps? Our aim for this panel, then, is to both highlight recent advances in political psychology and also to imagine what political psychology could be.

Sub Unit

• Division 5: Political Psychology

Chair

• Christopher F. Karpowitz Brigham Young University

Presenters

• Cara Wong University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Ethan C Busby Brigham Young University

• James N. Druckman University of Rochester