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Around the 1960s, political psychology was developed as a field of knowledge that attempted to interrelate scientific psychology and political phenomena. However, social and academic conditions are very different today. More and more, political psychology is becoming a protagonist, as much in the internal context of psychology as in the external context of its relations with the social world. Thus, political psychology can now be seen as a resource relating psychological knowledge to social practice, and relating psychological processes to social action. Political psychology is the interface that puts psychology and society in contact. The development of political psychology in Spain provides an example of this alternative view of the field.

While scholars in political science, social psychology, and mass communications have made notable contributions to understanding democratic citizenship, they concentrate on very different dimensions of citizenship. The current volume challenges this fragmentary pattern of inquiry, and adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of citizenship that offers new insights and integrates previously disparate research agendas. It also suggests the possibility of informed interventions aimed at meeting new challenges faced by citizens in modern democracies. The volume is organized around five

Alternative theories—"social mobilization" and "urban anomie"— predict different relationships between urbanism and political involvement, i.e., that urbanism stimulates, or that urbanism alienates individuals. (Dahl has predicted a curvilinear association.) This study examines these theories using the 1968 Michigan S.R.C. election survey. Three methodological tools are employed— formulating a causal model among political psychological variables, distinguishing size of polity from size of urban area, and using path analysis—to answer three questions: the effect of urbanism, the effect of polity size, and the effect of their interaction. Overall, the results show little independent association be-tween the urban variables and involvement. Trends indicate that largeness may have slight mobilizing effects even though it also slightly reduces sense of political efficacy, and that the mobilization is a shift in involvement from local to national politics. A partial replication is obtained in the Almond and Verba data.

This article is a contribution toward the task of constructing a distinctive political psychology and social theory of celebrity. The article begins by noting some recent approaches to the analysis of mass communications in political theory, and moves to consider what these theories mean for the conceptual analysis of celebrity. A substantive example of the political construction of celebrity is given in a case study of the ex‐Beatle, John Lennon—specifically, the social drama surrounding his death in 1980. A number of issues, ranging from the denial of death in modernity to the multiplex modes of cultural remembering, are discussed as they relate to celebrity.

"What shapes political behavior more: the situations in which individuals find themselves, or the internal psychological makeup--beliefs, values, and so on--of those individuals? This is perhaps the leading division within the psychological study of politics today. Political Psychology: Situations, Individuals, and Cases, 2nd edition, provides a concise, readable, and conceptually organized introduction to the topic of political psychology by examining this very question. Using this situationism--dispositionism framework--which roughly parallels the concerns of social and cognitive psychology--this book focuses on such key explanatory mechanisms as behaviorism, obedience, personality, groupthink, cognition, affect, emotion, and neuroscience to explore topics ranging from voting behavior and racism to terrorism and international relations. The new edition includes a new chapter on the psychology of the media and communication. Houghton has also updated the text to analyze recent political events such as the 2012 election, and to include up-and-coming research in the areas of neuroscience, behavioral economics, and more. Students and instructors will both benefit from the inclusion of new suggested readings, PowerPoints, and test banks available on the book's companion website."--