Universität Wien
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200140 SE Advanced Seminar: Mind and Brain (2024W)

Introduction to Political Psychology

4.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 20 - Psychologie
Continuous assessment of course work

Vertiefungsseminare können nur fürs Pflichtmodul B verwendet werden!
Eine Verwendung fürs Modul A4 Freie Fächer ist nicht möglich.
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 20 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Tuesday 01.10. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 08.10. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 15.10. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 22.10. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 29.10. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 05.11. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 12.11. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 19.11. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 26.11. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 03.12. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 10.12. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 17.12. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 07.01. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 14.01. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 21.01. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624
  • Tuesday 28.01. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal D Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0624

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

This course will give an overview into the history and dynamics of political systems. We will begin by examining how political systems form and evolve, how they transmit information, and how they build knowledge. With insights from cognitive- and neuro- sciences, we will also see how they create ‘moral communities’, broad social agreements on what is right and wrong, as well as a ‘common sense’, i.e. broad social agreements on what is true. The course will consist on lectures and student presentations.

Assessment and permitted materials

- 50% student group presentation
- 50% multiple choice test

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Students must have a grade higher than 50% on both student group presentation and multiple choice test. Attendance must be superior to 2/3s of the classes.

Examination topics

Module 1: Where do political systems come from? Introduction to political philosophy, and the debate on the political nature of humans.

Module 2: What is power and how is it generated? The path from equalitarian to hierarchical societies.

Module 3 : What is morality and how does it interface with politics? How group psychology and dynamics creates moral tribes and political polarization.

Module 4: How political systems transmit information. The cognitive neuroscience of information processing and how it affects political psychology.

Module 5: What makes a political system stable? Determinants of political instability in pre-modern and modern states: the role of demographics, intra-elite competition, immiseration of the masses, and trust in institutions.

Module 6: What makes a political system democratic? The environmental and cognitive determinants of support for democracy.

Module 7: How political systems create ‘common sense’? The psychology of propaganda and fake news.

Reading list

- Fukuyama (2011) The Origins of Political Order: From prehuman times to the French Revolution
- Jonathan Haidt (2013) Moral psychology for the twenty-first century, Journal of Moral Education, 42:3, 281-297
- ‘Power of us’. Jay van Bavel
- Ferguson, Niall (2018). “The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook
- Golstone (2016).  Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World: Population Change and State Breakdown in England, France, Turkey, and China,1600-1850; 25th Anniversary Edition
- Turchin (2016) Ages of Discord
- B. Geddes, “What causes democratization” in Oxford Handbook Political Science, R. E. Goodin, Ed. (Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 2011). DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199604456.013.0029
- D. J. Ruck, L. J. Matthews, T. Kyritsis, Q. D. Atkinson, R. A. Bentley, The cultural foundations of modern democracies. Nat. Hum. Behav. 4, 265–269 (2020)
- D. Acemoglu, J. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (Crown Business, ed. 1, 2012).
- Chomsky & Waterstone (2021). Chapter 1 “COMMON SENSE, THE TAKEN-FOR-GRANTED, AND POWER” in “Consequences of Capitalism”.
- Harambam (2020) “Contemporary Conspiracy Culture: Truth and Knowledge in an Era of Epistemic Instability

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Mo 09.09.2024 11:46