Early political psychology explained human behavior through deterministic theories like Marxism, psychoanalysis, and behaviorism

Evidence

The first reading is by William J.McGuire of Yale University, and it describes three eras of cooperation between psychology and political science throughout the 20th century. During the personality and culture era of the 1940s and 1950s, most researchers were environmental determinists who stressed nature over nurture in seeking to explain human behavior. Prevailing theories included Marxism, psychoanalysis, and stimulusresponse behaviorism, and political psychologists struggled to understand the origins of fascism in the shadow of World War II. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 277

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the authoritarian personality research of Adorno et al., a major strand in the reader’s political psychology knowledge. — connects to: B.F. Skinner extrapolated laboratory animal behavior into grand theories of social organization — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1147; Early-century concepts like cathexis and ego defense anticipated implicit attitudes — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 270