The video that I like to refer people to to give them an idea of what political psychology is about is the TED talk by Jonathan Haidt: The real difference between liberals and conservatives.

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This is a good example of what Political Psychology can do: find common ground between people with different views, and usefully further our understanding of how we think about Political problems and the people involved with them.

I am at SIPP. 

Yesterday we heard Lee Ross speak.  He opened with a picture of him and a colleague with Yasser Arafat.  His research into the psychological causes of barriers to conflict resolution is simple yet fascinating.

He talked at great length about Naive Realism.  I am not talking about Naive Realism in the classic philosophical sense, but in reference to the body of re search Ross and others have put forth (example here).

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Here is a summary.

Naive Realism

People never really fully develop a purely rational intellect that fully understands the implications of individual construal.

1. I see reality as it actually is, and my actions and beliefs are based on a rational interpretation of reality.

2. Other people would share my view and actions and opinions if they had access to the same information that I do and if they have processed that information in a reasonable way like I do.

3. If others don't share my views, it's because:

* they have different information, and by sharing information we can reach an agreement
* they are lazy, or are not making rational decisions based on the information
* they are biased by ideology or self-interest, or some other distorting influence

One can see how this would create conflict.  I am interested in linking this with personality work, or Motivated Social Cognition.

I have created the group called Political Psychology.  It is for general discussion of the academic subfield of the same name.

The graphic is not original. I pulled it from here because I liked it.

www.apsanet.org/.../political%20psychology1.jpg

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