Apparently written by someone for whom English is his second language Regardless, some very useful points. from : Political Psychology.net Political psychology and election campaigns
Many political leaders and campaign advisors say, like dreaming with an utopia, that they could win elections if only they knew how the voter decides his vote. Why not using political psychology? 2500 years of knowledge don't have anything to say about the voter? An election campaign is not played in the media or in the street, it's played in the human brain. There's the key. It's each voter's brain that receives the campaign's messages and decodes, analyzes, files, interpretates and even modifies them. That's the battlefield where all the messages from all the candidates fight. That's where they have to persuade the voter and get the vote. That's where the elector's feelings, ideas and memories are. And that's where the decision of the vote is made. The brain, if we think from a physical point of view. The mind, from the psychological field. The problem in every election campaign There's always a problem to solve. Election campaigns can be described like this: a battle in the voters brain. But the ones in charge of the campaign don't know anything about that brain. That's why we have to turn to political psychology. The voter, the candidate and political psychology In ancient Greece, about 2500 years ago, the first thoughts on psychology emergend. Those curious Greeks started to observe and analyze people's behavior, their conduct, feelings, reasoning, emotions, social relationships, fantasies... One of those philosophers, Aristotle, was the one that had more developements in this area of knowledge. Aristotle, who defined the human beign as a 'political animal'. Political came from 'polis', which related to the cities. So men were a kind of animal that cared about the issues that concern the city they lived in. For a few centuries psychology growed and developed with the help of philosophy. Centuries and centuries of knowledge. Until the last decade of the 19th century. First Wundt started the firs psychology lab, trying to apply similar methodology to the ones used in natural sciences. And then Sigmund Freud revolutionized the concept of psychology with his discovery of the unconscious. Psychology then separated from philosophy and became a science. During the 20th century psychology accumulated an amazing and little known amount of knowledge. And it developed in every direction, beign applied to literally every aspect of life. And that's when political psychology is born. Political psychology is, of course, a scientific discipline. It studies the political life focusing on the mental process of the voter. It throws some light into the parts of the brain that are activated by the political messages and the election campaigns. It studies, experiments, analyzes investigates, makes hypothesis, experiments again, observes, makes conclusions and observes again... Political psychology produces, and produces a lot. Articles, books, conferences, seminaries... And it's been doing it for a few decades now. However, the vast majority of politicians are completly unfamiliar with this, and don't know that they can find in political psychology most answers to the questions that come up on an election campaign. On the other hand, election campaigns happen all the time all over the world. There's always one going on. And politicians, publicists, consultants, journalists and strategists also produce a lot. But the ones who really know about political psychology stay in their academic fields and don't go to the political arena. Applying political psychology If the human brain is the battlefield in every election campaign, then applying political psychology's knowledge becomes a strategical element in an election. Applying political psychology to the election campaign. Tha's what it's about. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
