#23 - Examining Partisanship, Nationalism, and Voting Behavior | Social Psychologist Dr. Huddy


#23 - Examining Partisanship, Nationalism, and Voting Behavior with Social Psychologist Dr. Huddy

#23 - Examining Partisanship, Nationalism, and Voting Behavior with Social Psychologist Dr. Huddy


IN THIS PODCAST EPISODE

Today, I’d like to share the 3rd part of a series on the psychology behind the 2020 US presidential election and the political issues that pervade the campaign airwaves. A few episodes ago, my interview with Dr. Madva dissected the role of implicit biases as an undercurrent of many social injustices, including incidents related to racism and classism. And then, my conversation with Dr. Baron was an examination of the moral judgments surrounding political issues and our decision-making process. In this interview with Dr. Leonie Huddy, we discussed the roles and trends of partisanship in politics as well as the topics of nationalism, individualism, and voting behavior.

Dr. Huddy is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University. She is co-editor of the 2nd edition of the Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, served as co-editor of the journal Political Psychology from 2005 till 2010, is past-president of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP), serves on the American National Election Studies Board of Overseers, often appears on CBS Radio as an exit poll analyst, and serves on numerous editorial boards in political science. Dr. Huddy has written extensively on social and political identities, emotions, reactions to terrorism, gender and politics, and race relations. She is the co-author (with Stanley Feldman and George Marcus) of Going to War in Iraq: When Citizens and the Press Matter published by the University of Chicago Press. Dr. Huddy was born in Australia and shared an incredible global perspective on the current US political landscape.

To learn more about Dr. Leonie Huddy and his research, check out http://you.stonybrook.edu/leonie/!


PODCAST DISCUSSION

-The difference between print and television journalism during the war in Iraq.
-How individualism affects the regulation of empathetic ability.
-Nationalist appeals and the connection to future elections worldwide.
-The difference between nationalism and patriotism.
-The social nature of partisanship and how it’s a form of tribal self-expression.
-The positive and negative consequences of political partisanship.
-What contributes to affective partisanship, and how we can diminish it.
-The role of partisan politics in our democracy.
-The underlying influences of voting behavior.
-The difference in voting behaviors between the US and other democracies.


 
 

Listen to all podcast episodes on Apple, Spotify, Overcast, Castbox, Stitcher, or on your favorite platform!

 

More “The Elements of Being” Podcast Episodes

#22 - Exploring Moral Judgment and Individual Decision-Making | Author Dr. Baron


#22 - Exploring Moral Judgment and Individual Decision-Making with Dr. Baron

#22 - Exploring Moral Judgment and Individual Decision-Making with Dr. Baron


IN THIS PODCAST EPISODE

In the spirit of the 2020 US presidential election, Dr. Jonathan Baron and I discuss moral judgment and individual decision-making in today’s episode. Dr. Baron is the founding editor of the open-access journal Judgment and Decision Making and has been on several other journals' editorial boards. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association for Psychological Science, and was the President of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making.

Dr. Baron's work has occurred primarily within the field of judgment and decision making, a multi-disciplinary area that applies psychology to problems in economics, law, business, and public policy. This field began by contrasting human decision behavior to individual decision-making and judgment theories such as probability theory and expected utility. Baron's research has extended the focus of judgment and decision making to social problems of resource allocation and ethical decisions. Among the concepts associated with his work are omission bias (the tendency for people to excuse acts of omission more easily than acts of commission) and protected values (principles on which people are unwilling to accept tradeoffs).

Dr. Baron is the author of Thinking and Deciding. The text takes a broad-based, introductory-level view of psychological decision theory, and has seen use as a textbook. He has also authored Morality and Rational Choice, Against Bioethics, and Judgment Misguided. Bio Resource: Dr. Jonathan Baron

To learn more about Dr. Jonathan Baron and his research, check out https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron/!


PODCAST DISCUSSION

-The trends of political polarization and conspiracy thinking.
-The problems of improving everyday decisions as a result of institutional issues.
-Applying general principles of decision analysis.
-The evolution of a person’s social standards.
-Omission bias in politics.
-The cost-benefit analysis of environmental policies.
-The expression of moral and moralistic values regarding the political issues of gay marriage and abortion.
-The role of empathy in the utilitarian point of view.
-The factors that affect moral judgment.


 
 

Listen to all podcast episodes on Apple, Spotify, Overcast, Castbox, Stitcher, or on your favorite platform!

 

More “The Elements of Being” Podcast Episodes

#20 - Implicit Biases: The Undercurrent of Social Injustices with Dr. Madva



IN THIS PODCAST EPISODE

Today, I explore the relationship between racism and implicit biases with Dr. Alex Madva, an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the California Center for Ethics & Policy at Cal Poly Pomona. He recently co-edited the volume, An Introduction to Implicit Bias: Knowledge, Justice, and the Social Mind with his colleague Erin Beeghly, and took the time break down systemic racism and the implicit biases that not only pervade the recent cases involving George Floyd and Kyle Rittenhouse but also steer our perception of such matters. Essentially, we are digging into the unconscious and examining how simple labels of racism may not account for the underlying complexity of these situations.

Dr. Madva’s research and teaching explore how developments in social psychology inform the philosophy of mind, philosophy of race and feminism, and applied ethics, especially prejudice and discrimination. He has written on these topics for journals including Ethics, The Journal of Applied Philosophy, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIREs): Cognitive Science, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Ergo, Mind and Language, and several more. Dr. Madva is currently co-editing another, The Movement for Black Lives: Philosophical Perspectives.

Dr. Madva has taught numerous classes on Race and Racism, Social and Political Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Feminist Philosophy of Science, Contemporary Moral Problems, Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy, and upper-division undergraduate and graduate seminars on social psychology and philosophy, including a new course he developed at CPP, The Philosophy & Science of Implicit Bias.

Dr. Madva is also actively engaged in collaborative empirical research. One ongoing project, funded by the NSF, is testing interventions to reduce achievement gaps and increase belonging for underrepresented groups at Cal Poly Pomona, in disciplines such as physics, economics, mathematics, biology, and philosophy. His published empirical research has appeared in journals, including Ratio and the International Journal of STEM Education. He is also collaborating with computer scientists, engineers, and social scientists to study the spread of misinformation and prejudice across social media, ultimately to counteract these trends. Folks, Dr. Madva, has literally written the textbook on implicit bias.

To learn more about Dr. Alex Madva and implicit biases, visit http://www.alexmadva.com/.


PODCAST DISCUSSION

-The intersection of Dr. Madva’s philosophy, psychology, and sociology studies and the evolution of his interest in implicit biases.
-Epistemic humility and the connection to the recent cases regarding police officers in the media.
-The evolutionary function of implicit biases.
-The reasons why unconscious prejudices still exist despite conscious commitments to be fair and unprejudiced.
-How to determine when implicit biases are serving our personal needs and honoring individuals outside of us appropriately.
-How to test our hidden biases.
-How to use debiasing tools, like “If-Then” Plans and the “Common-Ground Mindsets” Tool, to bridge the gap between intention and action.
-The relationship between “trusting our gut” and implicit biases.
-How ingroup-outgroup distinctions and status preferences contribute to our sets of unconscious beliefs.
-How to create structural reform with a cross-experiential approach.


 
 

Listen to all podcast episodes on Apple, Spotify, Overcast, Castbox, Stitcher, or on your favorite platform!

 

More “The Elements of Being” Podcast Episodes