What is Political Psychology?

This branch of psychology helps us to better understand society and historical moments.

Political psychology is one of those areas of psychology that, not having an object of study as well defined as other branches of psychology, seems to be blurred in the ambiguity of the social sciences. However, this does not mean that it is not relevant.

In fact, thanks to its joint work with areas of knowledge such as sociology and anthropology, it is able to better understand what is happening in an increasingly globalized world, with increasingly broad and, ultimately, social conflicts.

We will now look at the main functions, characteristics and functions, characteristics and main problems of political psychology..

Political psychology: a definition

Political psychology is a difficult concept to define, and the fuzziness of its boundaries and structural characteristics has meant that for years this term has been used to refer to different things.

However, a definition that is as specific as it is complete is the one provided by Luis A. Oblitas and Ángel Rodríguez Krauth (1999): political psychology is the branch of psychology that is responsible for political phenomena based on their psychological aspects: the perception of corruption, the perception of corruptionIt is the perception of corruption, the political discourse of parties, social movements and pressure groups, the identification with reference groups or leaders, etc.

But a simple definition is not enough to understand what are the distinctive features of this branch of psychology. First of all, its relationship with historical processes and social psychology must be taken into account.

The importance of historical processes

Some people have a conception of what psychology is that relates it more to biology than to the social sciences. From this point of view, psychology would be a science that studies neural structures inside our body that emit behaviors, in the same way that a gland produces saliva.

While it is true that psychology is not strictly a social science in its entirety, the above view of the profession of psychologists is erroneous. This is so because psychology is the study of behavior, and as far as human beings are concerned, human behavior is never born spontaneously within bodies, but is always modulated by the historical context in which people live. The same person is very different depending on where and when he or she is born. For example, what is considered misogynistic behavior today might have been considered normal just a century ago.

Ultimately, our way of being is not separated from the flow of events that occur around us, and many of these are social and political in nature.

On the other hand, the actions we take also contribute to changing the context in which we live. As a consequence, the object of study of political psychology, and of social psychology, is constantly changing. This means that its approach to what is going on cannot be the same as that of the exact sciencesThe political psychology and social psychology approach, which analyzes phenomena whose components are more or less invariable, must use a probabilistic approach when investigating. In turn, this fact brings political psychology closer to other disciplines that study social phenomena, such as anthropology and sociology.

Political psychology or the politics of psychology?

It should be noted that people who are dedicated to political psychology are very sensitive to the way in which political phenomena influence our way of thinking. Of course, studying the processes of interaction between politically mobilized ethnic groups in today's Spain is not the same as doing so in Hitler's Germany. Science is also a human and social activityand therefore it is not totally isolated from these influences.

Consequently, one of the objectives of political psychology is also to analyze the way in which political processes, throughout history or in the present, contribute to certain models of human behavior gaining strength to the detriment of others, which lose support.

In short, political psychology always tries to direct efforts towards self-criticism of the assumptions from which about the presuppositions from which it starts, the epistemological approach it uses when reaching conclusions, and the effects that placing more emphasis on some topics of study than on others may have at any given time.

Its forms of application: examples

It may seem that political psychology is content to understand certain social phenomena by arriving at abstract and not very courageous conclusions, given that it works on the basis of concepts that are very difficult to study, since they are always changing and have not very concrete limits (where does humor end and chauvinism begin in certain propaganda initiatives, for example?) However, this does not have to be so.

Political psychology can be used, for example, to make prognoses about the future movements of mobilized groups, or to measure the degree of racism and xenophobia in the media. to measure the degree of racism and xenophobia in certain that appear in certain discourses of parties and groups (the consequences of this have been clear throughout history).

At the same time, it is also useful to know what are the probabilities of a regressive movement appearing in a generally progressive country, or the other way around, a progressive one in a country anchored in religious fundamentalism and nationalist essentialism.

In short, political psychology, although far from being infallible, serves to reach very important conclusions, since it tells us about phenomena that have the capacity to affect thousands or millions of people.