Psychology in Policy: Redefining Politics Through The Individual (SpringerBriefs in Psychology)

Provides an inside perspective to policy making Advances political psychological theory Provides targeted advice to practioners to advise politician Series Editors’ Preface 6 Politics Brought Home: Cultural Psychology of Generating Values 6 References 9 Introduction: The Political Power of the Person 10 What This Book Is 13 References 16 Contents 17 About the Author 19 Moving Toward a Cultural Political Psychology 20 Ideology 21 Cultural Contact 22 Defining Political Psychology 23 Political Psychology: Values 24 Political Psychology: Policy 26 Political Psychology: Power Dynamics 28 A Cultural, Political Psychology 30 What Does Cultural Psychology Bring? 30 Imagination Within Public Policy 31 Power of Inaction 32 Normativity and Norms 33 Conclusion 34 References 35 Value-Laden and Value-Creation: The Political Process of Values 39 Psychology as Political 39 Science as Political 41 The Politicization of Data and Publication 43 The Goal of Methodology: Publication 45 Value-Laden Outcomes 46 Conclusion 47 References 48 Private and Public Policy: The Intersection of Cultural and Societal Laws 51 “Public” (and Private) Policy 52 Public and Private Relationships 52 Policy 54 Policy Influences Our Behavior, Cognitions, and Emotions 55 Black Letter Law (Public) Versus Commonsense Justice (Private) Policy 57 Private Policy: The Legislative Staff Member 59 Speech Writing and the Loss of Identity 61 Moral Responsibility 61 Private Policy: The Individual Story and Hypogeneralization 62 The Language of Policy 64 Conclusion 65 References 66 The Power of Inaction: Power Dynamics and Public Policy 70 Centering Power Dynamics Within the Individual 70 Efficacy of Self and Group 72 Alignment to the Environment: Black Joy 74 Nonsophistication as Sophistication 75 Primary Control 76 Secondary Control 77 Predictive Control and Avoiding Disappointment 77 Illusory Control and Associating with Chance 78 Vicarious Control and Associating with Power 78 Interpretive Control and Making Meaning 78 Social Power Making 79 Cultural Political Psychology of Power 79 Political Hobbyism 81 References 82 Applications for a Cultural Political Psychology 85 Unionization as a Cultural Political Process 86 Unionization as a Case Study of Both Fast and Slow Revolutions 87 Unionization as an Actualized Democracy 87 Unionization as Value-Laden 88 Unionization as Power Dynamics 89 Unionization as Public Policy 92 Conclusion 93 References 94 Psychology Is Policy: Cultural political psychology's promise 96 Reference 99 Index 100 This book takes an insider perspective of the psychological issues of creating policy. Instead of considering what the products of policy are - often the case in psychological and political science work - this book examines the individual processes present in proposing and engaging with policy. The individual who engages with the policy and its meanings, the individual who resists the policy through conformity, and the individual who writes the policy for their own ideological purposes are all political actors in a psychological system. This book puts forward a cultural political psychology as the psychological study of the process of values, policy, and power dynamics. Through exploring public policy through private policy generation and individual interaction, this book pushes theoretical understandings of policy and activism in new ways. Centering on an individual’s own values in facing various policy restrictions from governments, parents, or peers, the importance of examining collective actions and also collective inactions of individuals is noted and expanded on in the text. The book provides applications of its arguments through examining the processes of unionization and actualized democracy. It seeks to point out new research avenues, including the hypogeneralization of values, one’s exclusion through activism, and everyday revolutions. This book addresses the centrality of the individual and meaning-making systems when considering where policy, politics, and psychology intersect. This book is primarily addressed to psychologists and political scientists interested in how to make change in public policy. While the experiences within the book are United States-centric, the thoughts and theories behind them are meant to be applicable to a wide variety of political systems. As there is currently very little literature on the topic, this book seeks to fill the gap and offer concise information on such an important dimension of cultural and political psychology. It is expected that the book will be of great interest for researchers in these areas, as well as for graduate-level students. In particular, this book will be relevant to researchers and students working on political psychology, public policy, development, community psychology, social representations, semiotics, activism, and social movements, to name a few.