POLSCI 240 / PSY 225: POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Lectures
- Time: M/W 10:05-11:20
- Location: Physics 130
Instructor: Chris Johnston
- Email: cdj19@duke.edu
- Office: Gross Hall 294J
- Office hours: by email appointment (please feel free to reach out - I am always happy to meet!)
Sections
- Check your schedule for date, time, location!
TA: Ryan Clifton
- Email: ryan.clifton@duke.edu
- Location: Gross Hall, 2nd floor central cubicles
- Zoom room, password: Tzjz83
- Office hours: Wed 2-3 (Zoom or in-person)
TA: Kristina Mensik
- Email: kristina.mensik@duke.edu
- Location: Gross Hall, 2nd floor central cubicles
- Zoom room
- Office hours: Thurs 4-5 (Zoom or in-person)
SUMMARY
This is an introductory course in Political Psychology. Our goal is to give you a set of basic conceptual tools to help you make sense of the political world.
We’ll cover a lot of big questions this semester, including:
- Is it rational to vote? If not, why do people do it?
- How do people answer questions about politics, and what does this say about the quality of their opinions?
- Why do some people end up “liberals” and others “conservatives”?
- Can people listen openly to alternative views and change their minds?
- What is an “identity” and how does it influence political behavior?
- What decision rules do people use when choosing among candidates?
- Is partisanship a good or bad influence on politics?
For each topic, we will consider one or more models for thinking through these and related questions. Models are simplifications of reality. But if they capture the most important moving parts, they can shed a great deal of light on even complex phenomena like political behavior.
Our goal is to study a range of simple models that have proven useful for understanding politics. Since this is a course on Political Psychology, our models will typically integrate ideas from the field of Psychology, in addition to Political Science. But we will often take “rational choice” or “economic” models as a point of departure. That is, we will often consider first what a fully rational (and perhaps omniscient) economic actor might do. We will then build on these models, as needed, to capture aspects of political behavior they cannot.
To do well in this course, you need to both read and attend (and pay attention in) lectures. Readings and lectures overlap, but they are not substitutes. I will cover a great deal of content in lecture that is not covered in that week’s readings. You should think about readings as complements to lectures. To make sure you keep up with readings, we will have weekly, in-class quizzes on Wednesdays that include material from the readings for that week (and can also contain content from Monday’s lecture). These quizzes are not intended to be difficult or tricky. Rather, they are easy points if you keep up and pay attention. Obviously, reading and attending lectures is essential to doing well on the Midterm and Final Exams.
Sections will also complement lectures and readings. Many weeks, sections will be for discussion about the week’s topic. In other weeks, you will work in small teams on a semester-long group project. In this project, you will, together as a team, design and implement your own replication study of a previously published piece of research. You will work on this project in small pieces throughout the semester, and we will hold several tutorial sections that give you skills needed to complete the project. Your team will present your work to the class in the last week of the semester.
GRADING
Final grades are determined as follows:
98-100 A+
93-97 A
90-92 A-
88-90 B+
83-87 B
80-82 B-
78-80 C+
73-77 C
70-72 C-
68-70 D+
63-67 D
60-62 D-
<60 F
Sections (20%)
Your section grade has two, equally-weighted components:
- Attendance (10%)
- Participation (10%)
Your attendance grade is 100% minus the percentage of unexcused absences from section you accumulate over the course of the semester.
Your participation grade will be determined qualitatively, based on your level of engagement with the section each week. Participation is graded on both active participation and attentiveness. If you spend section focused primarily on your laptop instead of your classmates and TA, you will receive a low participation grade.
Quizzes (12 total; 2% each, 2 dropped, for 20% total)
It is recommended to complete the week’s assigned readings prior to the start of Monday’s class.
- In weeks where sections involve discussion of readings, you are required to complete them prior to your section, so that you can participate in discussions.
- For all weeks, you are required to complete assigned readings by the start of class on Wednesday.
To ensure you keep up with readings, and complete them on time, you will have one quiz each (non-exam) week. Quizzes will cover reading assignments for that week as well as material in Monday’s lecture. They are designed to be straightforward if you have completed the reading assignment and attended (and paid attention to) lecture.
- All quizzes will take place on Wednesdays at the start of lecture.
- Each quiz will be 5 minutes long and will begin sharply at 10:05.
- There are no make-up quizzes!
- You may drop your lowest 2 scores at the end of the semester (including 0s / missed quizzes).
- The quiz questions will be provided in-class only.
- You will complete the quiz using Gradescope pre-printed bubble sheets - bring these sheets and a pen or pencil to class every Wednesday.
Before your first quiz, do the following:
- Print out (at least) 14 copies of the first page of Gradescope’s bubble sheet template, and store them in a bag, notebook, etc. that you know you will bring to class. You will use 12 for quizzes and 2 for exams.
- Make sure you have a pen or pencil in a bag, notebook, etc. that you know you will bring to class.
- Make a plan to be in class on-time, every time! There are no make-up quizzes.
Exams (2 total; 20% each, for 40% total)
You will take 2 exams this semester.
- Neither exam is cumulative - each will cover only half of the course.
- The Midterm Exam will cover weeks 1-7. The final will cover weeks 8-15.
- Both exams will be taken in-person using pen and paper.
- They will be a combination of multiple choice, short answer, and short essay questions. You need to bring a Gradescope bubble sheet to each exam for the multiple choice, and two (just in case) blue books for short answers.
- If you have an accommodation that affects your exams, please let us know well before the exam.
Final Project (20%)
You will work in groups of 4-6 people. Your task is to design, conduct, and analyze a survey or survey experiment on a topic of interest to you in the field of political psychology. In the last week of semester, you will present your project to the class.
You are required to “check-in” on your progress throughout the semester. You will also have several opportunities to use time in sections to make progress and to ask questions of your TAs (your groups will be assigned within sections to facilitate this). We are also happy to meet with you outside of class, as needed.
The major deadlines are provided below. A more detailed description of project requirements is provided at the Group Project page.
The project sequence is as follows:
Pick a topic in political psychology that is of interest to your group (due 1/31 at 5pm).
Review existing research on that topic (due 2/14 at 5pm).
Choose 1 of the studies you read to replicate (due 2/21 at 5pm).
Design your study in Qualtrics (due 3/7 at 5pm).
We (Johnston and TAs) will collect data for your survey over Spring Break.
Conduct the replication tests required for your study, and present these in professional-looking tables or figures (as needed) (due 4/4 at 5pm).
You will turn your project into a slide deck (due 4/18 at 5pm) to present to the class during the last week of the semester.
Project grades will equally weight individual and group performance.
Group performance will be evaluated based on the timeliness and quality of all all submitted portions of the project, as described above.
Individual performance will be graded on (when relevant):
- Quantity and quality of participation in group project activities.
- On-time submission and quality of work for annotated bibliography (the 3 articles you will read for your group).
- Preparation and quality of presentation of your portion of the slide deck.
SCHEDULE
All lectures will be posted online prior to their respective class. You should feel free to download them and take notes as we go.
Week 1: Course Introduction
Mon Jan 6
- NO CLASS
Wed Jan 8
- Look over syllabus
Sections
- NO SECTIONS!
Week 2: Rationality and Political Participation
Mon Jan 13
What is rationality? What might it imply about voting?
- Read Shepsle, pp. 13-18
- Read Aytaç and Stokes, Chapter 2
Wed Jan 15
The calculus of voting; psychological theories of turnout
- In-class quiz
Sections
- Small group introductions
- Discuss how to conduct literature review and acceptable journals
Week 3: Rationality and Political Participation (cont.)
Mon Jan 20
NO CLASS
- Read Caplan, Chapters 4 & 5
Wed Jan 22
Rational irrationality; instrumental vs expressive behavior
- In-class quiz
Sections
- Discuss Caplan
Week 4: Attitudes, Non-Attitudes and Constraint
Mon Jan 27
Belief systems & constraint; non-attitudes & measurement error
- Read Kinder & Kalmoe, Chapter 1
- Read Zaller, Chapters 2-3
Wed Jan 29
Constructionist theories of attitudes; RAS model
- In-class quiz
Sections
- Discuss Kinder & Kalmoe
Week 5: Values and Ideology
Mon Feb 3
NO CLASS MEETING TODAY!!!
- Read Feldman
Wed Feb 5
Values, personality, & ideology
- In-class quiz
Sections
- How to pick a replication study
- Group brainstorming
Week 6: Belief Updating and Persuasion
Mon Feb 10
Bayesian updating; conditions for persuasion
- Read Lupia & McCubbins, Chapter 3
- Read Galef, Chapters 1-3
Wed Feb 12
Motivated reasoning and disagreement
- In-class quiz
Sections
- Discuss Galef
Week 10: SPRING BREAK - NO CLASS
Week 11: Expected Utility and Spatial Theory
Mon Mar 17
Expected utility; proximity models
- Read Angner, pp. 137-138
- Read Merrill & Grofman, Chapter 2
Wed Mar 19
Directional and discounting models; ideology and choice
- In-class quiz
Sections
- Posit Cloud, R, R Studio tutorial
Week 12: Risk and Time Preferences
Mon Mar 24
Utility and risk aversion; prospect theory
- Read Angner, pp. 142-144
- Read Kahneman, Chapter 26
- Read Angner, pp. 182-183, 188-189, 192-195
Wed Mar 26
Exponential and hyperbolic discounting
- In-class quiz
Sections
- Time to work on final project in your groups
Week 13: Retrospective Voting
Mon Mar 31
Logics of retrospective voting
- Read Achen & Bartels, Chapters 4 & 6
Wed Apr 2
Biases in retrospective voting
- In-class quiz
Sections
- Discuss Achen & Bartels, retrospective voting
Week 14: Partisanship
Mon Apr 7
Why parties; parties in the electorate
- Read Green et al., Chapter 1
- Read Huddy et al., pp. 1-5 (up to “Empirical Strategy”)
Wed Apr 9
Theories of partisanship
- In-class quiz
Sections
- Discuss the nature of partisanship
Week 15: Bounded Rationality
Mon Apr 14
Bounded rationality; heuristic decision strategies
- Read Gigerenzer & Gaissmeier
Wed Apr 16
Heuristics in political choice
- In-class quiz
Sections
- Time to work in groups on final presentation
Week 16: Presentations
Mon Apr 21
GROUP PRESENTATIONS
- NO READINGS
Wed Apr 23
GROUP PRESENTATIONS
- NO QUIZ
Sections
- NO SECTIONS THIS WEEK!!!
POLICIES
Communication and Course Information
All communication for this course will operate through Canvas.
- You will turn in all assignments through the course Assignments section.
- You should verify that you are receiving emails through Canvas.
- Your course grades can be found in the “Grades” section.
Duke Community Standard
All students must adhere to the Duke Community Standard (DCS). Duke University has high expectations for students’ scholarship and conduct. In accepting admission, students subscribe to and are governed by the rules and regulations of the university, which are outlined in the Duke Community Standard.
Regardless of course delivery format, it is the responsibility of all students to understand and follow all Duke policies, including academic integrity (e.g., completing one’s own work, following proper citation of sources, adhering to guidance around group work projects, and more). Ignoring these requirements is a violation of the Duke Community Standard. Any questions or concerns regarding academic integrity can be directed to the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards.
Large Language Models (“LLMs”, e.g., ChatGPT)
LLMs are useful tools when learning to code, and you should feel free to consult them when working on your analyses for your group project. But do be careful: if you just copy and paste code without understanding and testing it, you may end up with a poor result, and won’t learn much from this part of the assignment (which would be shame).
The best strategy is to try your best to solve your problem without asking an LLM for help. Only consult an LLM if you are completely stuck. It is better, at first, to Google your question and read posts on sites like Stack Overflow, or consult one of us (you will have time in sections with help from TAs). This will help you to learn. If you just copy and paste from ChatGPT, even if the code works, you won’t have learned anything.
Do not use an LLM to write text for your presentations. These should all be written by you. More generally, you should know that ChatGPT has been known to generate text that could be considered plagiarism.
The upshot: feel free to use LLMs as “tech support” for your coding work, but leave it aside when writing your presentations!
If you have any questions or concerns about this, feel free to reach out to us, and we can talk about it.
Academic Accommodations
If you are a student with a disability and need accommodations for this class, it is your responsibility to register with the Student Disability Access Office (SDAO) and provide them with documentation of your disability. SDAO will work with you to determine what accommodations are appropriate for your situation.
Please note that accommodations are not retroactive and disability accommodations cannot be provided until a Faculty Accommodation Letter has been given to me. Please contact SDAO for more information: SDAO or Access Duke.
Missed Course Work Policy
Standard Duke policies on missed course work apply. Missed course work is officially accommodated in three circumstances: (1) Illness or other extraordinary personal circumstance, (2) Religious observance, and (3) Varsity athletic participation.
Short-term illness will be accommodated by means of the short-term illness incapacitation form. This form cannot be used for exam days.
- Long-term medical issues and/or extraordinary personal circumstances are handled in consultation with the relevant academic dean. If the latter applies to you, please speak with your dean and we will work together to accommodate you.
Missed work related to religious observance will be accommodated by means of the religious observance notification form, which must be submitted no later than one week prior to the date of the holiday.
Missed work due to participation in varsity athletic competition is accommodated by means of the notification of varsity athletic participation form, which must be submitted no later than one week prior to the date of the participation.
Class Discussion
Adapted from Duke Learning Innovation, here are some ways each of us can contribute to making class discussions engaging and educational, while treating each other with respect:
- Allow everyone a chance to speak.
- Listen respectfully and actively.
- Criticize ideas, not individuals.
- Commit to learning from those with whom you disagree.
- Avoid inflammatory language.
- Avoid assumptions about others, especially based on their perceived social group.
We will try our best to embody and foster these values. Please tell me if you think we have fallen short in any way – I will always be open to, and appreciative of, such criticism.