UC Irvine Graduate Program in Political Psychology

Program Philosophy and Objectives

The last fifteen years has seen a renaissance of interest in the field of political psychology. This reflects a certain dissatisfaction with the increasing specialization and the growing division among the social sciences disciplines. Political psychologists are attempting to integrate political scientists interest in social change and institutional development with psychologists interest in cognition, emotion and personality. This has led to the establishment of both an international society and a new section of the American Political Science Association. Journals devoted to political psychology have been created both in the United States and in Europe. To meet the needs of a growing number of students, graduate programs have been established. In 1985, there were no organized political psychology graduate programs in the United States. Currently twenty universities offer graduate programs in this area.

The graduate concentration at UC Irvine is part of this development, but enjoys a rather distinctive place. Interdisciplinary programs are difficult to design. Crossing intellectual boundaries creates unusual demands both with regard to the theoretical definition of the subject matter and the empirical methods which may be used to examine it. Typically graduate programs adopt the perspective of either political science or psychology. Within this context they then tend to emphasize either theoretical issues or empirical ones. The explicit aim of the UCI program is to provide training which offers both greater breadth and integration than can be found in any graduate program in the United States. This is evident in a number of the program objectives.

1. Training in both macro-political and micro-psychological theories and methods. The graduate concentration is situated in the Department of Politics & Society. All students must complete the course work requirements established by the department insuring a solid background in political science. To ensure adequate training in psychology, they are also required to take three graduate psychology courses. In addition, students take two courses in political psychology which are designed to integrate the interests and concerns of political science and psychology. In this context, a number of research concerns central to the participating faculty are considered including: social change and democratization, ideology, altruism, social and political identity, voting behavior, mass media effects and international integration.

2. Close consideration of the theoretical and empirical difficulties associated with creating a new area of inquiry. Political psychology attempts to offer an integrative analysis of political life - one which considers the interrelationship between political organization and culture on the one hand and individual thought and emotion on the other. In so doing, it not only must confront the problem of how to conceptualize its subject matter as both social and psychological, but it must be self-aware in its construction of an epistemological frame of reference to facilitate that conceptualization. This defines a set of theoretical questions closely akin to those dominating current debates in social and political theory both in the United States and Europe. While encouraging students to become participants in those debates, they are also directed to consider seriously the relationship between these arguments and empirical research. The sense of empirical methods depends on the theoretical frame of reference within which those methods have been developed. In this context, students are asked to learn and evaluate an array of research methods utilized in psychology and political science.

3. Recognition of normative as well as analytical dimensions of political psychology. Many of the faculty associated with the program recognize the essentially normative character of both political and psychological analysis. In closely related fashion, politics consists of a contest for the definition and realization of the good and psychology addresses what is healthy and normal. In course work and directed study, students are encouraged to consider how the analysis and evaluation at one level, political or psychological, delimit inquiry at the other level.

4. Maintaining international scope by introducing European as well as American perspectives on research. Members of the program strongly believe that research is an international enterprise and thus eschew the academic parochialism typical of much American political psychology training. To broaden the intellectual horizons of students, a systematic attempt is made to introduce current research conducted in Europe, East Asia and Australia. To further this end, cooperative programs and student exchanges have been established with the Politics and Psychology Program at the University of Melbourne in Australia, the Institute of Psychology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Department of Political Science, Lund University in Sweden. We also maintain close contacts with the Psychology Department at the University of Hamburg and the WZB Berlin in Germany and the Institute of Israeli-Arab Studies in Tel Aviv.

Participating faculty

Professor David Easton. (Department of Politics and Society) Professor Easton has interests in political theory, political structure and political socialization.

Professor Helen Ingram. (Department of Politics and Society & School of Ecology). Professor Ingram has interests in social constructionism and public policy.

Professor Salvadore Maddi. (School of Social Ecology) Professor Maddi has interests in personality theory, social change and stress.

Professor Kristen Monroe. (Department of Politics and Society) Professor Monroe is associate director of the concentration. She has interests in altruism, social identity, cognition and personality.

Professor Shawn Rosenberg. (Department of Politics and Society) Professor Rosenberg is director of the concentration. He has interests in social cognition, developmental psychology, ideology and democratization.

Professor Gabriele Schwab. (Department of Comparative Literature) Professor Schwab has interests in representations of politics, identity and discourse. She is currently Director of the Critical Studies Institute.

Professor John Cash. (Department of Politics, Melbourne University) Professor Cash is director of the political psychology program at Melbourne. He is interested in personality, political identity and inter-group conflict, especially in Ireland and South Africa. Although located in Australia, Professor Cash has taught at UCI, offers supervision to UCI graduate students and serves on doctoral committees.

Other faculty are less centrally associated with the program, but open their courses and offer to aid in the supervision of graduate students. They include Professor Ray Novaco (Department of Psychology and Social Behavior), Professor Janusz Reykowski, (Director, Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences) and Professor Shaul Mishal (Director, Institute of Israeli Arab Studies, Tel Aviv University).

Educational Activities

Course work. Apart from the two core courses, a number of courses are offered to those concentrating in Political Psychology. They include: Psychology, Social Theory and Democracy; Human Nature and Altruism; Identity and Politics; Rationality, Psychology and International Relations; Representations of War; and Imaginary Ethnographies. There are also a number of graduate courses on basic areas of psychological research including Cognitive Science, Social Psychology, Human Development, and Personality and Psychopathology. These courses are offered under the auspices of several departments including Politics and Society, Cognitive Science, English and Comparative Literature, and Psychology and Social Behavior. Class sizes range between 5 and 12 students.

Directed Studies. Students are encouraged to take directed studies and participate in faculty research. Frequently this leads to independent student research activity. Eight of the students associated with the program have either given conference papers or published articles on topics in political psychology.

Colloquia and reading groups. The concentration has for the last four years conducted a regular colloquia series which meets four times per quarter. Often the group meets to discuss current research of the members. This has provided venues for presentations by graduate students and the faculty affiliates of the program as well as by outside speakers. True to our international orientation, we have hosted over 25 speakers from Europe and Australia in the last five years. Several of these faculty have continued their relationship with the political psychology program and now actively work with our graduate students. There are also reading and research groups which meet regularly under the auspices of the program. Professor Rosenberg organizes a research group for those interested in the links between psychological and political development which meets weekly. Professor Monroe organizes a reading group for those interested in identity which meets weekly.

Presence of the program outside of the university

The key venue is the International Society for Political Psychology (ISPP). Six graduate students and two faculty gave papers at the 1996 Annual Meeting of the ISPP, creating a very strong presence. Only one other department in the United States had a higher level of participation. Our faculty has also become quite visible in the political psychology community. For example, Kristen Monroe has been appointed to Editorial Board of the journal Political Psychology and edited a special issue of the journal in 1995. Shawn Rosenberg was the Program Chair for the 1990 Annual Meeting of the ISPP, served on the Editorial Board of Political Psychology from 1990-1993 and was elected a member of the Governing Council of the Society. He was also chair of the Political Psychology Section of the American Political Science Association. David Easton, Helen Ingram, Salvadore Maddi and Gabriele Schwab are senior scholars with substantial international as well as national reputations in their disciplines.

The program has also begun to attract advanced students and young scholars who come for additional training. In the last three years, the following have come for extended stays as post-doctoral fellows in order to expand their training: Bernard Fournier, political science, Laval University, Canada; Agnieska Golec, psychology, Crakow Unversity, Poland; Peter Eklundh, political science, Lund University, Sweden.

Concentration Requirements

General. The purpose of the concentration is to provide a course of study which supplements the Ph.D. in Political Science. Therefore, all students are required to complete all the requirements for the Ph.D. stipulated by the Department of Politics and Society. As part of or in addition to these requirements, students must take five courses which are part of the political psychology concentration and write one qualifying paper in the area of political psychology.

Course requirements. Students participating in the concentration are required to take two courses designed to introduce the study of political psychology. This includes: Seminar in Political Psychology I and II. The first of these courses focuses on psychological perspectives and their relationship to traditional political science orientations. The second course focuses on a number of areas (e.g. identity, morality, decision-making) in which political psychological approaches are currently being applied. These courses are offered at least every other year.

To provide a strong background in psychology, students are also required to take three graduate psychology courses. These courses are taught in the Department of Cognitive Science in the School of Social Sciences and the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior in the School of Social Ecology. Examples of recently offered courses which satisfy this requirement are:

P233	Personality in Development, Society and Pathology
P244	Personality Assessment
P237	Violence and its Social Impact
P250	Emotion, Reasoning and Memory
SS 202	Proseminar in Cognitive Science
SS 203C	Experimental Design
SS 254	Human Information Processing
P220	Principles of Human Development
P236	Issues in Human Development
P223	Cross-Cultural Developmental Psychology

Qualifying paper. Of the three qualifying papers required for advancement to candidacy, one must be in the area of political psychology. This must be stipulated by the student and the choice of topic must be approved by the Director of the Concentration.

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