DSPO 25A86 - Politics and the mind
DSPO 25A86 · Spring semester 2025-2026
- Language of tuition
- English
- Course type
- Cours séminaire
- Number of hours
- 24
- Credits
- 5
Information
Description
What are the roots of the animosity between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans in the United States? To what extent are we predisposed to racism and xenophobia and what can we do to remedy it? Why are our minds so prone to conspiratorial thinking? Why are political activists often hypocritical? Why do we often not practice the principles we preach (eat less meat)?
Those questions lie at the core of political psychology, a field at the crossroads of cognitive and social science, to which this course introduces. The course will emphasize that human cognition is shaped by social goals of influencing others, fitting in tribes, and enhacing our personal reputations. It will also strive to explain political behaviors from the "proximal" level of analysis (psychological mechanisms and social influences) but also from the "ultimate" level of analysis (the evolutionary selection pressures that shaped our minds through natural selection).
Prerequisites
Some basic knowledge of social science and psychology concepts and methods is useful but not required.
Assessment
Group presentation (exposé)
In class, written exam on the whole course materials (2 hours)
3-pages research essay (design an empirical research question, and propose a method to test it)
Readings
Main readings 4
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‘2. The Current theory’ Kahan, D. M., Wittlin, M., Peters, E., Slovic, P., Ouellette, L. L., Braman, D., & Mandel, G. N. (2011). The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change. SSRN Electronic Journal. pp. 1-17. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1871503
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Graham, J., Haidt, J., Koleva, S., Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Wojcik, S. P., & Ditto, P. H. (2013). Moral Foundations Theory: The Pragmatic Validity of Moral Pluralism. In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 47). https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-407236-7.00002-4 Lisez jusqu’à la fin de la section
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Pietraszewski, D., Curry, O. S., Petersen, M. B., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2015). Constituents of political cognition: Race, party politics, and the alliance detection system. Cognition, 140, pp. 24–39. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2015.03.007 [même article qu’à la séance sur la catégorisation raciale]
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Williams, K. E. G., Sng, O., & Neuberg, S. L. (2015). Ecology-driven stereotypes override race stereotypes. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Vol. 113, Issue 2, pp. 310–315). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1519401113
Further readings 7
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Boon-Falleur, M., Grandin, A., Baumard, N. et al. Leveraging social cognition to promote effective climate change mitigation. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 332–338 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01312-w
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Boyer, P. (2018). Minds make societies: How cognition explains the world humans create. Yale University Press.
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Boyer, P., & Petersen, M. (2018). Folk-economic beliefs: An evolutionary cognitive model. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 41, E158. doi:10.1017/S0140525X17001960
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Haidt. (2012). The Righteous Mind. Pantheon/Random House
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Lees, J., Cikara, M. Inaccurate group meta-perceptions drive negative out-group attributions in competitive contexts. Nat Hum Behav 4, 279–286 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0766-4
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Marie, A., Petersen, M.B. (2022), Political conspiracy theories as tools for mobilization and signaling, Current Opinion in Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101440.
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Marie. A. (2025). Speech repression and threat narratives in politics: social goals and cognitive foundations. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Open access: https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.70089
Teaching units
| Unit no. | Unit type | Teaching units | Teachers | Number of hours | Credits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 59157 | Cours séminaire | Politics and the mind | Antoine Victor MARIE | 24 | 5 |
Teachers
- Antoine Victor MARIE
In the curricula
- Bachelor, Programme d'échange, semestre 4, seminaires - 25/26COLLÈGE UNIVERSITAIRE - CAMPUS PARIS
- Bachelor, semestre 4, 25/26 : cours séminairesCOLLÈGE UNIVERSITAIRE - CAMPUS PARIS
Contacts and resources
- Contact
- NICOULEAU Svetlana