Social Psychology and Politics

Joseph P. Forgas, Klaus Fiedler, William D. Crano, Joseph P. Forgas, Klaus Fiedler, William D. Crano

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138829671
• eBook ISBN: 9781317508984
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Psychology

Social psychology and politics are intricately related, and understanding how humans manage power and govern themselves is one of the key issues in psychology. This volume surveys the latest theoretical and empirical work on the social psychology of politics, featuring cutting-edge research from a stellar group of international researchers.

It is organized into four main sections that deal with political attitudes and values; political communication and perceptions; social cognitive processes in political decisions; and the politics of intergroup behavior and social identity. The contributions address such exciting questions as how do political attitudes and values develop and change? What role do emotions and moral values play in political behavior? How do political messages and the media influence political perceptions? What are the psychological requirements of effective democratic decision making, and why do democracies sometimes fail? How can intergroup harmony be developed, and what is the role of social identity in political processes?

As such, this volume integrates the role of cognitive, affective, social and cultural influences on political perception and behavior, offering an overview of the psychological mechanisms underlying political processes. It provides essential reading for teachers, students, researchers and practitioners in areas related to power, social influence and political behavior.

1

The Social Psychology of Politics

Homo Politicus Revisited

JOSEPH P. FORGAS, KLAUS FIEDLER, AND
WILLIAM D. CRANO

Social psychology and politics are intricately related. Ever since Plato’s Republic, written over two thousand years ago, one of the main concerns of social philosophy and later empirical social science was to understand how human beings manage power and how they govern themselves. Indeed, the role of politics in our lives has become ever more dominant since the emergence of complex mass societies in the last few hundred years. Whereas governance and the exercise of power were based on presumed divine rights and preordained notions of power and privilege throughout most of human history, the philosophy of the Enlightenment and the momentous changes in the eighteenth century resulted in a dramatically different view.

For the last three hundred years, based on the philosophical arguments of Kant, Locke, Hobbes and Hume, political life in most Western societies has been based on the revolutionary assumption that the source of all sovereignty and power is ultimately derived from the people who are governed. Consequently, the way popular will and preferences are to be transformed and delegated into effective government has become one of the most complex and intriguing questions of social psychology. This volume seeks to present some of the most recent cutting-edge psychological research and thinking on this perennial topic from a group of distinguished international researchers.

For social psychology, the study of political behavior has of course also been one of the core issues ever since the inception of our discipline. All political actions involve social psychological processes, and any understanding of the management of power in social units and even whole societies is predicated on our understanding of the social psychology of interpersonal behavior. The remarkable capacity of human beings to establish and manage ever more complex forms of social organization provides ultimate evidence for our highly developed ability of social organization.

The book is organized into four main parts. After this general introductory chapter by the editors (Forgas, Fiedler, and Crano), Part I will consider the fundamental processes and theories that apply to our understanding of political attitudes and values (chapters by Crano and Lyrintzis; Ginges; Skitka, Morgan, and Wisneski; Krosnick and MacInnis; and Jussim, Crawford, Anglin, and Stevens). Part II looks at the role of social communication, impression formation and impression management in the political process (chapters by Catellani and Bertolotti; Landau and Keefer; Wänke, Pizarro and Inbar; and Frank, Matsumoto, and Hwang). Part III will turn to perhaps the most complex domain of political psychology: the operation of social cognitive processes in political decision-making and the functioning of democracies (chapters by Fiedler, Hofferbert, Woellert, Krüger, and Koch; Vallacher; van Lange, Pratto, and Zeineddine; and Forgas, Kelemen, and László). Finally, Part IV will turn to examining the role of intergroup behavior, social identity and social change in political processes (chapters by Dovidio, Saguy, Ufkes, Scheepers, and Gaertner; Hogg; Sears; Reynolds, Batalha, Subasic, and Jones). This introductory chapter in particular will discuss the history and background of the social psychology of politics, introduce the major themes covered in the book, and highlight the links between the various chapters.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND POLITICS

Explaining the roots, features and consequences of the way human beings manage power and govern themselves has been a defining concern for writers and philosophers since antiquity. Many of the great thinkers over the centuries have addressed this topic, including Plato, Machiavelli, Locke, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Swift. In psychology, all the venerated grand theorists of our discipline commented on the role of psychology in political processes including James, Freud, McDougal, Skinner, Lorenz, and many others.

The integration of empirical social psychology with analyses of the political process is a signal feature of this volume. Indeed, both social psychology and political science can benefit if we bear in mind Campbell’s (1969; Campbell & Overman, 1988) “experimenting society” approach. A key message of these chapters is that as social psychologists, we must broaden our sometimes myopic vision to encompass the world beyond the confines of our laboratories. The political realm is typically studied more on the streets than in the lab, and this is as it should be.

Social psychologists can learn an important lesson from political science and political psychology in this regard, because if our theories do not work on the street, the fact that they work in our laboratories is largely irrelevant. The present volume’s recurring emphasis on understanding meaningful political behavior represents a clear acknowledgment of, and return to, social psychology’s historical roots, which were nothing if not concerned with practicality. Lewin’s (1951) well-turned phrase, “There’s nothing so practical as a good theory,” recognizes the importance of first-rate theorizing, but also implies that practicalities matter, for if they did not, then why bother striving for good theories.

There is in fact a rich tradition in political psychology that links good social psychological theorizing with sound practical action. Hovland and colleagues’ groundbreaking research on communication and persuasion grew out of the experience of World War II, where the practical task was to develop persuasive communications that were expected to work in what were sometimes life-and-death circumstances. It was this pragmatic approach that formed the basis of much of what was to come in social psychological research on attitudes and persuasion (Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953). The field owes a huge debt to the pioneering efforts of Hovland and his colleagues, as much of current work in social psychology can be traced to their research agenda of more than a half-century ago. Even though the work of the Yale Program in Communication and Persuasion was decidedly fixed on the development of good theory, the practical applications that could be developed from this work were never far from consideration. Several of the chapters presented here reach back to that rich tradition of linking theory and practice (see, for example, Chapters 2, 7, 8, 9, 14, 17, 19, and 20).

BACKGROUND AND HISTORY

What are the historical origins of the social psychological approach to politics? How can the research presented here be anchored historically? When reasoning backward from the present to the past, we are easily misled if we assume that what is visible in the social psychology of politics at the moment has been intended or causally initiated from the beginning. However, to borrow and slightly modify a quotation from Hans Hörmann (1976), “historical facts are like cows … if you look them in the eyes long enough, they generally run away.” Deeper reflection and more careful analyses reveal that the course of history of our field, as is the case with other evolutionary processes (Lewontin, 1998), is often less purposeful and straightforward than it appears in hindsight (Crano & Lac, 2012; May, 1975).

Human history provides ample evidence for both the failures and the successes of effective governance. The apparently unlimited human capacity for violence, conflict and intra-species aggression (Koestler, 1978) needs to be balanced against our species’ equally impressive ability for effective cooperation and the beneficial use of power. Humans are capable of amazing feats of cooperation, coordination, and empathy, and our species is also unique in its ability to organize and integrate extremely large social groups and units in a way that largely precludes the dangers of being caught up in daily conflict and aggression (Dunbar, 2004). In a fundamental way, it is our remarkable human capacity for symbolic thought and abstraction that is the basis of all political behavior and also lies at the heart of the immense human capacity for coordination and cooperation. Most of us today who live in modern industrialized societies live uncommonly peaceful and safe lives where conflict and aggression rarely if ever touch us. How do we achieve these amazing feats of coordination and effective governance? This is one of the topics this volume addresses.

What are the perennial questions that political psychologists try to answer empirically and theoretically? Traditionally, the social psychology of politics encompasses a variety of key domains, such as political perception and communication (e.g. Chapters 7, 8, 9, and 11), political attitudes and attitude change (e.g. Chapters 2, 4, 6, and 13), the social psychology of the mass media (e.g. Chapter 5), leadership processes, social identity, and intergroup processes (e.g. Chapters 17, 18, 19, and 20), social conflict, social categorization, stereotyping, and prejudice (e.g. Chapters 3, 10, and 19), nationalism, and last but not least, the social psychology of political decisions and voting behavior (e.g. Chapters 12, 14, 15, and 16). When considering the background and history of research in these domains, we may do well to bear in mind Baruch Fischhoff’s (2002) memorable injunction on the psychology of historical reasoning: “To those condemned to study the past,” historical interpretations are subject to a systematic hindsight bias.

The sophisticated ability of human beings to coordinate and manage ever-larger social units is probably one of the cornerstones of the evolutionary success of our species, and the foundation of the increasingly complex forms of political organization we have been able to develop. Homo sapiens is a highly sociable species. The astounding development of our mental and cognitive abilities, and our impressive record of achievements owes a great deal to the highly elaborate strategies we have developed for managing power, getting on with each other, and coordinating our interpersonal behaviors (Pinker, 1997). In fact, we might argue that it is the effective management of power and influence – our political ability, hence Homo politicus – that constitutes the essential prerequisite for holding groups and even whole societies together.

As modern industrialized societies become ever more complex and impersonal, and as our interactions increasingly require formal coordination as they mostly involve people we know only superficially, the management of political power also had to become more sophisticated, indirect, and complex. Politics in large-scale mass societies presents us with social and cognitive challenges that are dramatically different from those experienced in the paleolithic small group life to which we originally adapted. The last few hundred years in particular resulted in forms of social and political organization that produced psychological challenges that are far more problematic and demanding than was the case in earlier epochs. In short, our past evolutionary history could have scarcely prepared us for political life in the kind of anonymous mass societies in which we now find ourselves.

Since the dawn of evolution, human beings mostly lived in small, close, face-to-face groups. Human social organization from our earliest hunter-gatherer ancestors to life in small-scale villages that was dominant everywhere as recently as in the eighteenth century was typically based on coordinating the activities of intimately known others, mostly members of our small, immediate group. The eighteenth century brought with it a fundamental revolution in social organization. Several historical factors contributed to the rapid disappearance of traditional, face-to-face societies, and the fundamental change in social and political processes and mechanisms of social integration (Durkheim, 1956).

It was the philosophy of the Enlightenment that laid the conceptual groundwork for the image of the liberated, self-sufficient, and mobile individual, freed from the restrictive influence of unalterable social norms and conventions. This individualistic ideology found its political expression in the French and the American Revolutions. At about the same time, industrialization produced large-scale dislocation and the re-assembly of massive working populations as required by technologies of mass production.

These developments had crucial consequences for the way our societies are politically organized and the way people relate to each other. Democratic systems are built on the assumption that political decisions can profit from the wisdom of crowds (Surowiecki, 2004), the advantage of groups over individuals. It was Nicolas de Condorcet, the French diplomat and philosopher, who first developed the Condorcet method to translate majority preferences into decisions (Hastie & Kameda, 2005). However, many recent studies on group decisions suggest that potential advantage of groups over individuals is often not exploited, what might be called the ‘tragedy of democratic decision-making’ (see also Chapters 4, 12, and 13, this volume).

In stable, small-scale societies power and relationships are highly regulated. One’s place in society is largely determined by ascribed status and rigid norms. Mobility is restricted, and power and social influence strategies mainly function at the direct, interpersonal level. Compare this with life in modern mass societies. Most people we encounter are strangers. Our position in society is flexible and negotiable, personal anonymity and privacy is widespread, mobility is high. Yet politics continues to play a key role in determining our life opportunities, the achievement of our objectives and our well-being (see Chapter 16, this volume).

The fact that most people we depend on are not personally known to us makes the development of formal political systems and organizations particularly...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• 1 The Social Psychology of Politics: Homo Politicus Revisited
• Part I Political Attitudes and Values
• Part II Political Perception and Communication
• Part III Social Cognition and Democracy
• Part IV The Politics of Identity and Intergroup Relations
• Index