about political psychology
It’s how you really motivate and influence people.
what is political psychology?
political psychology is about the power to influence
It’s about what really motivates people interested in power and social change. The surprising truth is that most of our beliefs and actions are determined by psychological forces outside our awareness. These forces hold the key to political and social change.
the power to influence comes from the layers of influence
From the behavioral triggers hiding in plain sight to the inner workings of the psyche, we call these unconscious forces the Layers of Influence. Understanding them will help you begin to see how psychology drives politics. Scroll over the diagram to learn about each layer.
the layers of influence
How events and trends in the world affect us. Our community, culture, and place in history shape what we want and what we can achieve — not just at birth but every single day.
How circumstances and physical objects affect us. Everything from the weather to the presence of a national flag can further or hinder our ambitions.
How people influence us. When other people are around, we can’t help but conform to their expectations. That’s because our social instincts are just that powerful.
How our beliefs, feelings, and senses contribute. Our conscious minds rarely influence our choices, but are happy to rationalize and take credit for them.
These influences originate in the outside world, though most people are innately receptive to them. We’ll help you harness them for maximum effect.
These motivations live inside the psyche. We’ll show you how to trigger the ones that can help you and avoid triggering the ones that will just stand in your way.
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learn more about each layer
Collective influences come from wider community and culture. Mass psychology, generational factors, and leader-follower dynamics are all active influences in this layer. We’ll help you see the hidden patterns in current events, understand the predictable rhythms of history, and formulate strategies designed to work within the larger social, political, and historical context.
The structural factors in a situation – the rules, roles, and even the physical realities – can profoundly shape our attitudes and behaviors. Far more than any explicit message or request, the nature of an event, the size of a room, even the objects present should be designed to maximize the chances of achieving your goals. A 360-degree awareness of situational influences – both the obvious ones and the more subtle varieties – should inform any sound strategy for social and political change.
Changing people’s minds is the hardest way to change their behaviors, especially in politics. Instead, use time-honored social influence and compliance techniques to get the results you want. Social influence is all about how we respond to the actions, cues, and sometimes even the mere presence of other people — including how we behave differently in groups. People are by far the most powerful influence on people. So let us help you put the “social” back into your social movement.
Conscious awareness is by far the least influential layer of influence. That’s because the mind isn’t really in charge of our beliefs and behaviors — and is only faintly aware of what’s really causing them. The reasons people give for their opinions can give you a clue as to what’s really motivating them. But it’s a mistake to target the conscious mind directly, because reasoning only affects what people do at the margins. Instead, focus on the other layers where most of the big decisions are made.
We all bring our own personal psychological material to the table, and it shapes how we engage with the political system. The reason political and social conflicts become so contentious is that they resonate with unconscious conflicts living in the psyche. These conflicts come from our personality traits, the parenting styles we were subjected to, and our unique life experiences. Successful leadership means facing your own psychological baggage so it cannot be used against you, recognizing it in your opponents so you can exploit their most debilitating weaknesses, and understanding how it affects your supporters so you can rally them to your side.
Human beings are born hard-wired with a set of predispositions and rules of thumb that structure our judgments and decisions, especially in politics. We call these rules-of-thumb heuristics. Probably the most famous of these is called loss aversion: people strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. If you want to succeed, you need to align your strategies, tactics, and messages with the myriad of irrational but powerful decision-making heuristics.
The collective unconscious contains the images, stories, and symbols we all share. It’s a vast reservoir of archetypes that give meaning to our lives and purpose to our existence. All of the world’s greatest religious prophets, political leaders, artists, musicians, and storytellers have tapped into the collective unconscious to realize their vision, even if they weren’t directly aware of its existence. With our help, you can learn to harness the power of image, sound, and story for maximum effect.
why political psychology? because…
changing people means changing how you think about people
Political psychology has quietly transformed nearly everything we know about human nature. The problem is that far too many strategies for governing and change are based on outdated, discredited assumptions about the way people work. First Person Politics is here to fix that.
success means turning your goals into their goals
Your strategies should be based on how people actually form opinions, behave, and change. We’re here to help you recognize the central role that psychology plays in politics, and then equip you with the ideas and tools you need to reach your goals.