Midterm Political Psychology

Heuristic

Mental shortcuts to reduce cognitive workload and increase efficiency even if it may not be accurate

Availability Heuristic

An explanation that comes to mind because it seems more likely that comes from comes from the imaginability of event, easier to think the event could occur regardless of probability 

Representative heuristic

Probability judgement based on generalizations from passed experience from misrepresenting chance.

Ex: Gambler’s Fallacy

What is in the dual process model?

• Peripheral processing: Takes place outside mind (reliance on heuristics) 

• Central processing: Takes place inside mind (Deliberation)

How is information processed in preconscious?

• Brain directs preconscious stage 

• Consciousness (mind) takes 500 milliseconds 

• Brain confabulates (disguises) this gap so we don’t experience it 

• Information processed preconsciously can come to mind as emotional feelings 

• Feel before we think 

How is information processed in consciousness?

• Once we feel then we can reason and rationalize 

• Brain restricts conscious experience 

• Prior knowledge and stereotypes to understand world 

• Political thinking is habitual 

Confabulation

An unconscious memory process of brain fabricating details to fill gaps in memory 

Cognition

Psychological process in acquiring, organizing, and using knowledge.

Observation > Cognitive processes > Response

Mind meets environment

Affective Intelligence Theory

Uses a dual process model:

• Dispositional system 

• Surveillance system 

Dispositional system

• Monitors for enthusiasm and anger 

• Known threats dismissed preconsciously 

• Peripheral processing, outside awareness 

Surveillance system

• New, unknown threats invoke anxiety 

• Consciously process and think about the threat 

• Central processing, inside mind 
  
  
  

How it works?

• Preconscious compares new stimulus to existing expectations 

• If stimulus is incongruent with expectations, anxiety is generated 

• Leads to active processing of new information 

• Negative affect motivates people to learn more 
  
  

Elections

• Anxious voters more attentive and informed 

• Calm voters complacent and pay less attention

Attribution theory

People search for the causes of other’s behaviors, why people do what they do 

Fundamental Attribution Error

Emphasis of internal dispositions (traits) rather than situational context for how people behave

Positivity Effect

When we like people, we attribute good behavior to them being a good person and bad behavior to the situation

Negativity Effect

When we dislike people, we attribute bad behavior to them being a bad person and good behavior to the situation

Motivated Reasoning

• Motivated reasoning: Find reasons to defend rather than test beliefs 

• Immediate like/dislike given to info 

• Maintain tallies towards like or dislike 

• Initial evaluation effects the subsequent evaluations 

• No cognitive evaluation like in AIT 

• Learning something bad about liked candidate will lead to stronger preference towards them 

• A barrage of negative info might overwhelm previous affect 

Survivorship bias

• Survivorship bias: A focus on survivors in selection and ignorance of the failures 

• Ex: WW2 military wanted to add armor to planes to protect them from military fire, the study only focused on the planes that came back to be observed not the ones shot down 

Personality

• Personality: A collection or system of our traits, for consistent patterns of behavior 

• Affects all of our other thought processes (that’s why its at forefront of political being) 

• Affects political behavior nonconsciously 

Theories of Personality

• Psychoanalytic 

• Trait-based 

• Motivation 

• Mainly used to study political leaders

Psychoanalytic Theory

• Freud 

• Emphasis of unconscious and conscious operations being a small part of the mind 

• Behavior is the result of attempts to satisfy desires and unconscious efforts to suppress pursuit of satisfaction 

Id (pleasure principle)

• Instinctual drive, sexual and aggressive desire 

• Passions 

Ego (reality principle)

• Moderates Id and reality of social world 

• Reason 

• Ego tries to please both Id and Superego causing anxiety 

• To protect ego people use repression, projection, rationalization, and denial 

Superego (conscience)

• Social norms 

• Learned from parents and other authorities 

Psychobiography

• Look for consistent patterns of behavior that can be explained by psychoanalysis theory 

• Formative years as standard (mommy and daddy issues shape Id) 

• Sense of conscience and obligation 

Why is psychoanalytic approach not used?

Not falsifiable, cannot be proven untrue since focus on unconscious which is unobservable 

Trait-based Theories

• Traits determine how people respond to environment 

• Big Five Traits 

Big Five Traits

• A taxonomy of traits from high to low 

• Emotional stability (Calm/secure to insecure/nervous) 

• Extraversion (Sociable/outgoing to reserved/aloof) 

• Agreeableness (Trusting/helpful to cynical/uncooperative) 

• Openness (Curiosity/broad interests to conventional/practical)

• Conscientiousness (Organized/hard working to unreliable/careless)

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

• MBTI related to Big Five 

• Not reliable or valid b/c self reported 

Motives Theories

• Motives are parts of personality concerned with goals 

• Big Three Motives 

Big Three Motives

• Need for power 

• Need for affiliation intimacy 

• Need for achievement 

High need in achievement

• Prefer some risk, but not too much 

• Enjoys takes they are personally responsible for 

• Prefers tasks w/ feedback on performance 

High need in power

• Want to have an impact on people by influencing behavior 

• Controlling situations or controlling people 

High need for intimacy

• Want warm and close relationships 

• Want to establish and maintain positive relations w/ people 

• Spends time thinking about relationships 

• Feel more pleasant when around people 

Aristotle’s Taxonomy of Regimes

Created a taxonomy of regimes based on how many rule and how virtuous that rule is 

Aristotle’s Ideas

• Psychology is to politics, as biology is to medicine 

• Knowledge of psychology is needed to practice politics

• Collective judgement by many 

• Rule by democracy 

• Reject’s Plato’s objective truth 

Plato’s Ideas

• Only some can reach truth over opinion 

• Can be trained as philosopher kings 

• Rule by best 

• Others are angrily defensive over beliefs 

• Motivated reasoning today 

Categorization

• Categorize things to simplify our environment to focus on important parts 

• Stereotypes

• Assimilation effects

• Contrast effects

Stereotypes

Beliefs about people in certain social groups/categories 

Assimilation effects

When info is similar to what is expected, info is perceived to be more similar than it is 

Contrast effects

When info is dissimilar from expectation, it is perceived to be more dissimilar than it actually is

James Madison

• We all have diverse interests and pursuit of self-interest, thus conflict 

• “If men were angels, no government would be necessary” 

David Hume

• Reason ought to be the slave of the passions 

• Reason should help us reach goals dictated by passions 

Premodern Conceptions

• Time was cyclical like cycles (days, seasons, lives) 

• Revolutions were completed circles 

• A belief in fate with natural order and destiny 

• Inherently traditionalist and honors elders (b/c they have seen more cycles) 

• Human nature being fixed 

Enlightenment Conceptions

• Time is a linear progression 

• Darwin for evolution 

• Marx for march to communism 

Premodern Mental States

Conflict between reason (mind) and emotion (body)

Enlightenment Mental States

• There is still reason and emotion, adds interests 

• Self or public 

• Moves us to action 

• Links a means and end w/ motive 

• May not realize what interests are, false consciousness 

Enlightenment Promise

• Progress would diminish emotion 

• Equality and democracy would make world peace and self-government 
  
  

• Public opinion has incoherent ideology, reliance of heuristics, and influenced by elites 

• Fear emotions of the public to be responsible in governance

Tocqueville

• Believed human imagination was engine of history 

• Democracy is best for diffusion of ideas 

• Free press, and public education enable progress 

• Technology like phones and Internet are fruits of imagination and levelers to power 

Independent variable (X)

The variable that does the affecting (cause) 

Dependent variable (Y)

The variable that is affected (outcome) 

Covariation

Relationship of the movement between two variables

• Positive Covariance= move in same direction 

• Negative Covariance= move in opposite directions 

Social Identity

Self-conception of the groups we belong to (in-group vs out-groups).

Ex: Nationalism, prejudice, genocide, war, terrorism 

In groups vs out groups 

• Favor in groups and discriminate against outgroups to validate our self-identity 

Automaticity

Most action precedes thinking (moving hand away from stove) 

Why have consciousness?

• Error correcting space: Fixes to automatic actions that no longer work and need a different solution 

Procedural memory

• Learned routines 

• Inaccessible to conscious awareness 

• Riding a bike 

• Political thinking can be like riding a bike if it becomes routine and habitual (unconscious) 

• People tend not to be good at introspection 

Conscious memory

Working (short-term) memory: What we are actively thinking about
Declarative (long-term) memory: Semantic and Episodic memory

Semantic memory

Factual knowledge

Ex: DC is capital of USA

Episodic memory

Personal experience

Ex: 8th grade trip to DC

Attitudes

• Attitudes: Combination of cognition and emotion 

• Accessible to thinker (top of mind) 

• Subject to change 

Implicit Attitudes

Attitudes not available to conscious introspection 

Implicit Attitude Test

• Familiar tasks take less time than novel tasks 

• Goal to ID in group and out group bias 

• IAT has no more insight than explicit bias measures 

Rational updating

Assuming voters were rational w/ negative info they would have lower opinion of candidate (opposite for positive info)

Reliability

Is the measure stable and consistent 

Validity

The method measures what it is supposed to measure (dependent var.) 

Cognitive Dissonance

• We like our beliefs to align w/ external world 

• Cognitive dissonance: When behavior or information does not align with our beliefs

Responses to Cognitive Dissonance

• Selective exposure to information that is agreement 

• Selective attention/retention of what is relevant/consistent 

• Selective interpretations information/behavior that is inconsistent 

Traits

Predispositions to think/feel/act in a similar manner to various stimuli