Political Psychology and COVID-19 Flashcards
What is political psychology? (according to Huddy et la 2013)
- an application of whatt is known ab human psych to the study of politics
- studies the psychological underpinnings of political beh & attitudes
What sort of politics topics could we explore?
- voter beh
- political attitudes
- influence of emotion of political decision mamking
- the role of cog biases in political beliefs
- impact of social identity on political attitudes and beh
What diff approaches from psych can be applied to politics?
biopsych, neuroscience, personality, psychopathology, evolutionary psych, social & dev, cog & intergroup relations
personality = compled psych concept - what does it refer to
the habitual and distinct patterns of physical and mental activity that = distinguishes one indiv from another
What is personality?
A dynamic system of psychological structures & processes that mediates the r/s between an indiv and the env
Falcao et al (2023) - personalities and voting
- voters personality traits = represnt significant predictins of voting decisions
- Warmth & competance represnted robust short term predictors of eval of candidates, turnout decison, demographic variables
Political Implications - what may the cause?
They cause parties to nominate candidates who = perceived as appealing to electorate, personalising campaigns to give them visibility and capitalise on their mobilising potential
Hirsh et al 2002 - on persuasive communication
Hirsh believed persuasuve communiction = effective when tailored to peoples unique psychological characteristics and motivations
personality prediction - Hirsh et al
People’s personality profiles have been predicted from personal websites, blogs, twitter messages, facebook profiles & instagram pictures
Matz et al 2017
sought to test effects of psychological persuasion on ppls behaviour in real world context
How did Cambridge Analytica - test effects of psychological persuasion on ppls behaviour in real world context?
- Dark video ads
- Dark posted ad looks like a facebook page but doesn’t show up on pages public timelines - only seen by the ppl it was targeted it at
- versions of these were targeted to individual’s based of their psychological ‘profile’
- These profiles were based on the big five model of personalitty
- openness
- conscientiouness
- extraversion
- agreeableness
- neuroticism
What is a real world example of test effects of psychological persuasion on ppls behaviour in real world context?
John Bolton 2014 campaign - working to support republican candidates for the senate
The first = targeted individuals who score highly on the neurotic scale
The second aiming = for agreeable individuals
Why is this method of - test effects of psychological persuasion on ppls behaviour in real world context a problem?
Privacy of users’ data (Matz et al 2020)
- blurred lines between public and private info
- outdated practices of notice and consent
- challange traditional conceptualisations of privacy
in the context of psychological targetting and
profiling
- Raises Qs regarding indiv autonomy and freedom
of choce as voters
- "what if your political opinions are not actually
yours" (wetherell 2018)
- Indivds may recieve ideologically infused messages
tailored to their personal fears, intrests and
preconceptions through social media (Richterich
2018)
2020/21 Covid - 19
- Flattening the curve
- A time when there was no vaccination nor ‘cure’
A new normal of:
- Lockdown / physical distancing from others
- regular hand washing
- wearing face masks
- complying w test & trace guidlines
Lessons learnt from intergroup psychology
- given the threat to personal health, unsuprising that research and commentary iitally focussed on factors relating to individual risk or compliance
- there was also a lot to learn from intergroup relations and social identity dynamics
