POS 6933 Political Socialization and Psychology

Description and Goals

This seminar will review the scholarly literature on political socialization, social influence, and personality, and emotions, and provide students with the theoretical background and empirical tools to write a research paper about the subject . (3 credit hours)

Syllabus

Full syllabus for Fall 2021 in pdf is available here.

Required Books

Students may access these books in any format of their choosing.  Three of these are available as E-books at the UF Library, but just as with a physical book, there may be limits on how many people can access the book at any given time.  E-books and physical books are also available for purchase at Amazon and other retailers. (This Amazon Wish List is provided for your convenience, but you may purchase or access these books in any way you wish.)

  • Albertson, Bethany, and Shana Kushner Gadarian. 2015. Anxious politics : democratic citizenship in a threatening world. New York: Cambridge University Press. (Available as E-book at UF Library.)
  • Burns, Nancy, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Sidney Verba. 2001. The private roots of public action. Harvard University Press. (On reserve at UF Library West.)
  • Jardina, Ashley. 2019. White Identity Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Available as E-book at UF Library.)
  • Mondak, Jeffery J. 2010. Personality and the foundations of political behavior. Cambridge England ; New York: Cambridge University Press. (Available as E-book at UF Library.)

Course Structure

This course is divided into a prologue, four modules, and an epilogue.

Prologue (August 23)

Topics of discussion in the seminar will be introduced.  Datasets and basic R code to access them will be made available.

Modules (August 30 – November 29)

In the first week in each module (first two weeks in the second module), we will read a set of articles and chapters that explore different aspects of the main question. In the following week, we will discuss a contemporary book and how well it synthesizes, challenges, or advances the perspectives of the authors in the preceding week. In the final week of each module, students will present some basic empirical analyses of secondary data showing the basic relationships discussed in the previous two weeks.

In the final week of each module, each student will either

  • Submit an essay (of about four to five pages) which synthesizes and critiques the readings addressed in the previous two weeks. Essays should note the major theoretical questions addressed by the book and the articles, substantive or methodological innovations or controversies, and propose research questions that emanate from this set of readings or discuss how the ideas in the book and articles can be applied by government or political actors (including campaigns); or
  • Submit and present an empirical analysis of secondary data that focuses on the major questions addressed in the literature, and how the relationships might vary over time, across space, or across different groups.

Essays and empirical analyses are due on Canvas at 9 am on the day of seminar.  Students who do empirical analyses for that week will present their findings in the seminar.

In each module, each student will decide whether s/he will submit an essay or an empirical analysis. But over the course of the semester, each student will write two essays and present two empirical analyses.

Epilogue (December 6)

Each student will present a final paper, formatted as one of the following:

  • A research proposal that reviews and synthesizes literature on aspect of political socialization or psychology, proposes an empirical research question, and presents preliminary research findings on that question. This may be a preliminary prospectus for an MA thesis or PhD dissertation, or a chapter in a thesis or dissertation. (Expected length: 15 to 20 pp, plus tables and references)
  • A letter to a campaign consultant, which explains in layman’s terms how the literature on political socialization or psychology can inform a modern political campaign or communication strategy. This is not intended to be a campaign plan, nor is it a memo about how to win a particular campaign.  Rather, it should be constructed as reading material for a major political or communications consultant who is beginning a reflection after campaign season on how s/he might use the political participation literature to think about campaign strategy or message strategy. (12 to 15 pp.)

In either format, the final paper will be due on December 13 at noon.

Course Schedule

Prologue

August 23

  • In our initial seminar meeting, we will review the course objectives and topics for discussion. We will also introduce datasets and some basic coding that students can use in modular assignments and in the preliminary data analysis for the final research paper.

Module 1 – Groups

August 30 – If you say so …

  • Asch, Solomon E. 1955. “Opinions and Social Pressure.” Scientific American 193 (5): 31-35.
  • Newcomb, Theodore M. 1970. Attitude Development as a Function of Reference Groups: The Bennington Study. In Learning About Politics. Ed. Roberta S. Sigel. New York: Random House, 380-391.
  • Beck, Paul A. 2002. “Encouraging Political Defection: The Role of Personal Discussion Networks in Partisan Desertions to the Opposition Party and Perot Votes in 1992.” Political Behavior 24 (4): 309-337.
  • Sniderman, Paul M., Louk Hagendoorn, and Markus Prior. 2004. “Predisposing Factors and Situational Triggers: Exclusionary Reactions to Immigrant Minorities” American Political Science Review 98 (1): 35-49.
  • Pettigrew, Thomas F, et al. “Relative Deprivation and Intergroup Prejudice.” Journal of Social Issues 64 (2): 385–401.
  • Suhay, Elizabeth. 2015. “Explaining Group Influence: The Role of Identity and Emotion in Political Conformity and Polarization.” Political Behavior 37 (1): 221-51.

September 6

  • No class – Labor Day

September 13

  • Jardina, Ashley. 2019. White Identity Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Available as E-book at UF Library.)

September 20

  • Presentations of Data Analyses and Module Wrap-Up

Module 2 – Political Socialization

September 27 – The Family as Group Influence (Mommy, have you seen my efficacy?)

  • Almond, Gabriel A. and Sidney Verba. 1963. The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chapter 12.
  • Easton, David and Jack Dennis. 1967. “The Child’s Acquisition of Regime Norms: Political Efficacy.” American Political Science Review 61 (1, March): 25-38.
  • Jennings, M. Kent and Richard G. Niemi. 1968. “The Transmission of Political Values from Parent to Child.” American Political Science Review 62: 169-184.
  • Jennings, M. Kent, Laura Stoker, and Jake Bowers. 2009. “Politics across Generations: Family Transmission Reexamined.” Journal of Politics 71 (3): 782-99.
  • Lyons, Jeffrey. 2017. “The Family and Partisan Socialization in Red and Blue America.” Political Psychology 38 (2): 297-312.
  • Sharrow, Elizabeth A, Jesse H. Rhodes, Tatishe M. Nteta, and Jill S Greenlee. 2018. “The First-Daughter Effect: The Impact of Fathering Daughters on Men’s Preferences for Gender-Equality Policies.” Public Opinion Quarterly 82 (3, Fall): 493–523.

October 4 – Socialization at Work

  • Jennings, M. Kent and Gregory B. Markus. 1977. “The Effects of Military Service on Political Socialization.” American Political Science Review 71: 131-147.
  • Finifter, Ada W. 1974. “The Friendship Group as a Protective Environment for Political Deviants.” American Political Science Review 68 (2): 607-625.
  • Elden, J. Maxwell. 1981. “Political Efficacy at Work: The Connection between More Autonomous Forms of Workplace Organization and a More Participatory Politics.” American Political Science Review 75 (1):43-58.
  • Mutz, Diana C. and Jeffrey J. Mondak. 2006. “The Workplace as a Context for Cross-Cutting Political Discourse.” Journal of Politics 68 (1, February): 140-155.
  • Frymer, Paul, and Jacob M. Grumbach. 2021. “Labor Unions and White Racial Politics.” American Journal of Political Science 65 (1):225-40.
  • Stanojevic, Antonia, Agnes Akkerman, and Katerina Manevska. 2020. “Good Workers and Crooked Bosses: The Effect of Voice Suppression by Supervisors on Employees’ Populist Attitudes and Voting.” Political Psychology 41 (2):363-81.

October 11

  • Burns, Nancy, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Sidney Verba. 2001. The private roots of public action. Harvard University Press.

October 18

  • Presentations of Data Analyses and Module Wrap-Up

Module 3 – Personality

October 25 – It’s Just the Way I Am …

  • Gerber, Alan S., Gregory A. Huber, David Doherty, Conor M. Dowling, and Shang E. Ha. 2010. “Personality and Political Attitudes: Relationships across Issue Domains and Political Contexts.” American Political Science Review 104 (1): 111-33.
  • Fatke, Matthias. 2017. “Personality Traits and Political Ideology: A First Global Assessment.” Political Psychology 38 (5) 881-899.
  • Chen, Philip G. and Carl L. Palmer, 2018. “The Prejudiced Personality? Using the Big Five to Predict Susceptibility to Stereotyping Behavior.” American Politics Research 46 (2): 276 – 307.
  • Glas, Jeffrey M. and J. Benjamin Taylor. 2018. “The Silver Screen and Authoritarianism: How Popular Films Activate Latent Personality Dispositions and Affect American Political Attitudes.” American Politics Research 46 (2): 246 – 275.
  • Lyons, J., A. E. Sokhey, S. D. McClurg, and D. Seib. 2016. “Personality, Interpersonal Disagreement, and Electoral Information.” Journal of Politics 78 (3):806-21.
  • Hassell, Hans JG. 2020. “It’s who’s on the inside that counts: Campaign practitioner personality and campaign electoral integrity.” Political Behavior 42 (4):1119-42.

November 1 –

  • Mondak, Jeffery J. 2010. Personality and the foundations of political behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press. (Available as E-book at UF Library.)

November 8 –

  • Presentations of Data Analyses and Module Wrap-Up

Module 4 – Emotions

November 15 – I’m Mad as Hell, and I’m Not Going to Take It Anymore!

  • Conover, Pamela Johnston and Stanley Feldman. 1986. “Emotional Reactions to the Economy: I’m Mad As Hell and I’m Not Going to Take It Anymore.” American Journal of Political Science 30 (1, February): 50-78.
  • Marcus, George E. and Michael B. MacKuen. 1993. “Anxiety, Enthusiasm, and the Vote: The Emotional Underpinnings of Learning and Involvement during Presidential Campaigns.” American Political Science Review 87: 672-85.
  • Ladd, Jonathan McDonald, and Gabriel S. Lenz. 2008. “Reassessing the Role of Anxiety in Vote Choice.” Political Psychology 29 (2):275-96.
  • Druckman, James N., and Rose McDermott. 2008. “Emotion and the Framing of Risky Choice.” Political Behavior 30 (3):297-321.
  • Magni, Gabriele. 2017. “It’s the emotions, Stupid! Anger about the economic crisis, low political efficacy, and support for populist parties.” Electoral Studies 50:91-102.
  • Fridkin, Kim, and Sarah Allen Gershon. 2020. “Nothing More than Feelings? How Emotions Affect Attitude Change during the 2016 General Election Debates.” Political Communication. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2020.1784325

November 22

  • Albertson, Bethany, and Shana Kushner Gadarian. 2015. Anxious politics: democratic citizenship in a threatening world. New York: Cambridge University Press. (Available as E-book at UF Library.)

November 29

  • Presentations of Data Analyses and Module Wrap-Up

Epilogue

December 6 – Presentations