After reading both, Looking Back, Looking Forward: ISPP at 40 and Future Directions
for Political Psychology and the introduction of The Crowd; The Study of The Popular
Mind, I have gained a better general understanding of the different topics Political Psychology
offers. While both articles covered extremely different information, they share similarities as far
as demonstrating the patterns of human behavior when making political decisions.
In the first article, Looking Back, Looking Forward: ISPP at 40 and Future Directions for
Political Psychology, author Katherine J. Reynolds introduces the ISPP (International Society
of Political Psychology). This organization hopes to stimulate discussion and ideas about the
future of political psychology. The ISPP warns us that there are three areas that will attract
more attention involving the ideology of political psychology. First, Reynolds talk about the issue
of possible decline in scientific rationalism and the threat of anti-liberalism. In this segment,
they introduce terms such as “truthiness”, “post truth”, and “motivated reasoning” to illustrate
the current climate of political thinking. Reynolds tells us that people have always doubted
scientific facts and relied more on emotions and personal beliefs when choosing which
“crowd” to choose. Second, Reynolds talks about the challenges with measurement and
prediction of political opinions attitudes and voting behavior. This topic is significant because
it shows us how social media is playing a significant role on political psychology by helping
us understand public opinion and voter behavior. This segment goes on to talk about
the various ways social media can automatically differentiate ones public opinions by which
post they like on Facebook, and later translate to how individuals are targeted when it
comes to advertising candidates or policies. The last segment Reynolds talked about
was common theoretical assumptions surrounding humans as political animals. This portions
talks on the topic of the way people first formulate their ideas. Whether it be form language,
culture, or anything else that surrounds them. After one has their set of ideas and beliefs
they join a “group” that shares similar opinions and together they attempt to advance
their group- based view on the world.
My reading of the introduction of, The Crowd; The Study of The Popular Mind, was a bit
confusing. Perhaps it was the difference in the language of the article or the complex
academic vocabulary being used. Anyway, what I got from it was that there are great benefits
when you don’t follow a crowd or become a part of one. The article gives great examples
of this being beneficial. One great example being eminent thinker, M. Goblet d'Alviella,
stated, “belonging to none of the contemporary schools, I am occasionally found in
opposition of sundry of the conclusions of all of them. I hope this new work will merit a
similar observation. To belong to a school is necessarily to espouse its prejudices and
preconceived opinions.”. I thought this was significant because not too many people are
willing to join the unpopular opinion in today's political climate. From d'Alviella’s experiences, I can begin to think for myself about the many times I followed the “crowd” when in reality
I had a difference in opinions or beliefs.
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