Syllabus SCHEDULE revised as of 2/12/01

Spring 2001
POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY
30:154
TTH 1:05 - 2:20
15 Schaeffer Hall

Professor David Redlawsk         Department of Political Science
Office Hours: TTH 2:30 - 4:00         321 Schaeffer Hall
Or by appointment         335-2352

Syllabus

This course is designed to give students a sampling from the research into the connection between psychology and politics. When political scientists find themselves studying the attitudes and behavior of individual political actors, they find themselves necessarily relying on theories borrowed from psychology. In this course we will look at several areas where the study of politics relies especially on the study of psychology. We will, however, focus on the political science aspect of the intersection, rather than the psychological side. Yet, in order to understand the political we must, to some degree, understand the psychological.

Political Psychology is a broad and varied field of study. It touches on nearly every sub-field of political science, from mass behavior, to international relations, to comparative politics. We will look at research in four specific sub-areas:

Personality and politics, to understand how basic psychological theory on personality informs our understanding of the attitudes and behaviors of individual elite actors;

Political cognition, to understand how people interact with each other, how they see the political world and political players and how they process information about them;

Attitudes, which relate to our knowledge of the beliefs and behaviors of the mass public as reflected in public opinion research; and

Decision-making, to assess how good a job people do making political decisions and to consider the roles of both cognition and affect in this process.

Throughout the course our focus will be on the political applications of various psychological research. This is not a course in psychology so we will not get into the real nitty-gritty details of each psychological theory that we apply. The ultimate purpose of this course is to provide an overview of the field, perhaps to stimulate interest in this field for future study.

I have a web site at http://www.uiowa.edu/~c030111 where this syllabus is posted along with other information which might be of interest to the class. Any changes in the syllabus will be posted at the web site.

Requirements

        This course will include a great deal of reading; there are several books that are required, and a course-pack that includes current research in the field. Some of the readings pre-suppose some knowledge of statistics and methods that many of you may not yet have. In those cases I will try to give an overview of the methods, and ask you to focus on the substantive conclusions in the work. While this may make some of the readings quite difficult, it will allow you to develop an understanding of the kind of research done in political psychology and will introduce you to many of the major journals used in our profession.

        For this course to work well, all students must come to class prepared, having completed all assigned readings prior to class. I will generally provide an overview lecture for each area we study and then will expect class members to participate in discussion about the research we read. Your course participation grade will depend upon you completing the readings and participating in discussion. Each student will be expected to take the lead in class discussion during one period to be assigned by the instructor. Leading in this case means providing the class with a summary of the reading and identifying key questions to stimulate our discussion.

        Each student will prepare a research paper on any of the topics we cover in class or on any other topic related to political psychology. This research paper may be a literature review of relevant work in a field of interest, may be the development of a student's own theory or approach to some topic, or may be development of a research design to test one of the theories of psychology as applied to politics. Those students who are well-versed in statistics may choose to actually analyze available national survey data to look at political attitudes towards some problem or another. The point here is that the papers may be wide-ranging; none of the above is meant to limit you.

        The papers will be due the last day of class. An outline or abstract describing to me what you intend to do for your paper will be due as noted on the syllabus. This will include a list of sources that you expect to use for the paper, with some description of what you expect to find in those sources. I will be available at any time to discuss your paper proposal and progress with you personally.

        In addition to the paper, all students will take a midterm exam and a final exam.


Grading

    Research Paper     25%
    Midterm Exam     25%
    Final Exam     25%
    Class Participation     25%


Required Books

All of these books are available at Iowa Book & Supply.

Barber, J. D. 1991. The presidential character (4th Edition). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Fiske, S. T. and Taylor, S. E. 1991. Social Cognition. 2nd Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Iyengar, S. and McGuire, W. J., (Eds.) 1993. Explorations in Political Psychology. Durham: Duke University Press.

In addition, a course-pack of readings is REQUIRED. The course-pack is also available at Iowa Book & Supply. Course-pack readings are designated as (CP) in the Schedule.


Schedule


Jan 16
Introduction, Syllabus and Semester Review, Expectations.

Jan 18
What is the field of Political Psychology?
Read: Iyengar & McGuire, Chapters 1 & 2


PERSONALITY AND POLITICS: Does the individual trump the situation?

Jan 23
Introduction to Personality Theories
Read: Greenstein, Introduction, Chapters 1 & 2 (CP)

Jan 25
Why concern ourselves with personality and politics
Read: Greenstein, Chapters 3 & 4 (CP)

Jan 30
Aggregate Analysis
Read: Greenstein, Chapters 5 & 6 (CP)

Feb 1
Typologies of Political Actors
Read: Barber, Chapters 1 - 4, the chapter(s) about any president of your choice, and the last chapter (Adding it Up.)

Feb 6
Personality -- The Psychobiography
Read: Greenstein, Clinton Leadership Styles (CP)
Hermann, Presidential Leadership Style (CP)
Renshon, Preliminary Assessment of Clinton (CP)

Feb 8
Personality -- Some additional research
Read: Wayne, President Bush goes to War (CP)
Post, The Defining Moment of Sadaam's Life (CP)

POLITICAL ATTITUDES -- What do people believe?

Schedule Revision BEGINS here

Feb 13 & 15
Introduction to Attitudes and Consistency
Read: Iyengar & McGuire, Chapter 4 (Granberg)
Fiske & Taylor, Chapter 11

Feb 20
Attitudes & Ideology
Read: Campbell, et al., The American Voter, Chapter 10 (CP)
Lane, Political Ideology, Chapters 1 & 22 (CP)
Paper Outline/Proposal is due today.

Feb 22
Attitudes, Ideology, and Constraint
Read: Converse, Attitudes and Non-Attitudes (CP)
On RESERVE in TUFTE, Quantitative Analysis of Social Problems

Feb 27
If voters don't have true attitudes, then what?
Read: Shapiro (CP)

Mar 1
Recent Research on political attitudes
Read: Iyengar & McGuire, Chapter 5 (Sears)
Kinder & Sanders paper (CP)

NOTE REVISED MIDTERM DATE!

Mar 6 -- MIDTERM EXAM

POLITICAL COGNITION: How does our organization of the world affect our understanding and processing of politics?

Mar 8
How do we view political actors?
Read: Fiske & Taylor, Chapter 1

Mar 13/15 -- Spring Break

Mar 20
Schemas and organizing our world
Read: Fiske & Taylor, Chapters 4 & 5

Mar 22
The controversy over schemas
Read: Where's the Schema? APSR controversy (CP)

Mar 27
Person Perception
Read: Fiske & Taylor, Chapter 8, especially pp 328-345

Mar 29
Candidate Evaluation
Read: Iyengar & McGuire, Chapter 8 (Lodge & Stroh)
Redlawsk, You Must Remember This (CP)


INFORMATION PROCESSING & DECISION-MAKING – How is information used?

Apr 3
What is political Information Processing?
Read: Iyengar & McGuire, Chapter 9 (Wyer & Ottati)

Apr 5
Decision Making -- Bounded Rationality
Read: Simon papers (2 short papers) (CP)

------------------- The following is DROPPED ---------------------

Apr 5
Decision Making -- Voter decision making limits
Read: Herstein paper (CP)

---------------------The above is DROPPED--------------------------

Apr 10
Heuristics in Political Reasoning
Read: Sniderman, Tetlock, & Brody, Chapter 2 (CP)
Iyengar & MCGuire, Chapter 13 (Popkin)

Apr 12
Decision Making Quality
Read: Lau & Redlawsk, Voting Correctly (CP)

Apr 17
The role of Affect in Information Processing
Read: Iyengar & McGuire, Chapter 10 (Ottati & Wyer)

Apr 19 -- NO CLASS -- Midwest Political Science Association Meeting

Apr 24
Emotions and Decisions
Read: Marcus & MacKuen, Anxiety, Enthusiasm, and the Vote (CP)

Apr 26
Affect and Political Reasoning
Read: Lodge & Taber, Theory of Motivated Reasoning (CP)
On RESERVE in LUPIA, et al., Elements of Reason

May 1
New Directions in Research on Affect
Read: Redlawsk, Cognitive Processing and Emotional Anxiety (CP)

May 3 Wrap Up
Research papers are due last day of class

Political Science Web Site Information
Please visit the Political Science Department's web site: http://www.uiowa.edu/~polisci/. It is frequently updated regarding new events and procedures in our department, changes in the Schedule of Courses, plus TA and faculty hours when available. You may also find current information on pre-advising, and registration. Our Vernon Van Dyke Computing Facility (Political Science ITC) is located in Room 21 Schaeffer Hall. Available hours are listed at our web site and also posted outside Room 21 SH.


Political Psychology
Research Paper Topic Suggestions
Spring 2001

Following is a list of suggestions for research paper topics. This list is not all inclusive. Feel free to investigate other topics in political psychology that might be of interest to you. The goal of this research paper is to have you spend some time looking for and reading works by researchers in this field and critically analyzing their results. Your papers should be substantive -- not just "thought" pieces, but representative of significant effort in tracking down sources on your topic. At the same time, you must do more than just repeat what others have written. I expect you to insert yourself into the paper by analyzing the arguments made by others and relating them to work we do during the semester.

A Paper Outline/Abstract is due Tuesday, Feb 20. Late submissions of this abstract will lower your final paper grade by one-half step per day late. The Outline/Abstract should be a paragraph or two on your topic, telling me the main question and why it is interesting. Following this abstract should be a listing of sources you have begun to investigate, including author and title of at least three specific works that you have begun to look at. I also want to know what general indices and sources you plan to use. I will review this and make comments, returning them to you as quickly as possible so you may continue your work.


A Few Possible Topics

The Politics of Prevention -- Investigating Lasswell's (and Greenstein's) call for a normative political science that not only describes the political world but tries to mold it and shape it for the "betterment" of the public.

Do a limited psychobiography of a political actor -- While you don't have the time and resources to do a full analysis, perhaps you could find enough information on a major contemporary figure to begin to explore the psychodynamics of his or her actions as a political figure.

Candidate Centered Politics -- The rise of candidates has coincided with the decline of parties; or so say a number of researchers. Investigate this area, looking at research on political campaign and the organization of political activities. What are the implications for how the average voter sees the political world?

Do Polls affect Outcomes? -- Investigate the increasing use of polling during political campaigns. Does the continual broadcast of daily polls create some kind of effect that alters voters perception of events?

Are Voters Rational? -- Can voters understand the political world and do they make good voting decisions? Or are they misled by campaign tactics and promises that make politics nothing but a muddle?

Why do people get involved in politics? -- What is it about early life experiences (or even later ones) that lead people to become politically active; to run for office, to become party elites; to make politics an important part of their lives? Since almost nobody does this, there must be some reason why the few who do decide to get involved.

A comparison of Information Processing Theory and Rational Choice models of political cognition -- Rational choice models presume that voters maximize their utility in making a vote choice; that they proceed to investigate alternatives as completely as possible and weigh all the alternatives carefully. Information processing theory posits people as cognitive misers who use shortcuts whenever possible to simplify decision tasks. What are the implications of these two approaches? are they congruent or are they at odds with each other?

Do Voters vote the issues? -- Does issue voting happen? Does it affect elections? Do voters know enough and are their personal preferences clear enough that they can cast a vote based on issues? What are the implications for democracy if people cannot issue vote?
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