As far as I have been taught until now, politics and psychology were barely related. Politics went the way they did because it was politics, and the human psyche was never introduce as a factor. Psychology only dealt with the person and close relations, with acquaintances mentioned and the relation to the world politics necessitates was never mentioned. That is until while wandering through the library hoping to find a novel with action, romance, and a great evil to be overcome, I instead found a collection of articles in the interdisciplinary field of political psychology.
The concept seemed so obvious to me that I did not realize at first that the field was less refined and much newer than I expected. For a scientific field it is very new, its official beginnings being slated to 1940. This means much of the information is not refined yet, but the field itself represents something I think anyone who is concerned with the nature of man and government, and could possibly lead to identifying the true causes of war, oppression, authoritarianism, prejudice of all kinds, which opens the door to eliminating them once and for all.
I am by no means an expert in the field after a week of study, but I write this in hopes it might convince someone to take a glance at it. We all have our ideas concerning politics and how people reason and think. Most of these ideas are based off personal experience that is limited in scope and warped by our own beliefs, no true monitoring of data, and subject to emotion. However, even with currently limited methodology and experimentation, political psychology could remedy the emotional side of politics that distorts even the explanations we give to ourselves out of fear or desire. Whether you are republican, democrat, independent, green, socialist, communist, or even an anarchist, you can agree understanding how and why people make the decisions they do politically is important for our world to take the next step in understanding the path to peace.
In short, google Political Psychology, check your library, and give it a look. Hopefully you’ll find it as intriguing as I do. But as always, think for yourself.
-Justin
