Political Psychology:Neuroscience, Genetics, and Politics

Doing Political Psychology prepares for the understanding of and research in the coming political psychology. While political psychology is a very old discipline, its roots can be easily found in ancient Greek scholars such as Plato and Aristotle, and their inquiries into what forms of politics suit the human condition, the discipline of political psychology is increasingly being shaped by the newest sciences such as neuroscience and by genetics and biology. This text is designed to prepare the students to understand the ancient questions raised by our elders, from Ancient Greece through the Enlightenment and to today. And, to see how the newer approaches enable us to escape static disputes by using new tools, conceptual, theoretical, and methodological to seek new answers. The pedagogy is very much based on the premise that learning and doing are linked. Doing enables learning. Topics covered include: politics and the human condition; the methodologies of political psychology such as experiments, surveys and the like, emotion, rationality, personality, conflict, and context, among others.