3rd Edition

Political Psychology Situations, Individuals, and Cases

By David Patrick Houghton Copyright 2026
272 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

272 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

272 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

What shapes political behavior more: the situations in which individuals find themselves, or the internal psychological makeup—beliefs, values, and so on—of those individuals? This is perhaps the leading division within the psychological study of politics today.  Political Psychology: Situations, Individuals, and Cases, 3rd edition , provides a concise, readable, and conceptually organized... Read more

Preface.  Part 1: Introduction  1. Studying Political Psychology  2. Two Conceptual Schemes  3. A Brief History of the Discipline  Part 2: Situationism 4. Behaviorism and Human Freedom  5. Obedience and Authoritarianism  6. Creating a "Bad Barrel"  7. Group Decision-Making  Part 3: Dispositonism 8. Psychobiography  9. Personality and Beliefs  10. Cognition  11. Affect and Emotion  12. Neuroscience, Biology, and Genetics  Part 4: Bringing the Two Together  13. The Psychology of Electoral Choice  14. The Psychology of Political Communication, Persuasion, and the Mass Media  15. The Psychology of Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Cults  16. The Psychology of Terrorism  17. The Psychology of Race and Political Intolerance  18. The Psychology of Foreign Policy and International Conflict  Part 5: Conclusions  19. The Future of Political Psychology

 

Biography

David Patrick Houghton is a British-American academic and a retired Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, RI. His other books include The Decision Point (Oxford University Press, 2012), A Citizen's Guide to American Foreign Policy (Routledge, 2013), and U.S. Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis (Cambridge University Press, 2001). He has also published academic articles in a wide array of outlets, including Political Psychology, The British Journal of Political Science, Foreign Policy Analysis, Security Studies, and Terrorism and Political Violence.