What other areas should psychologists study to gain insight into or improve the American political process?
I think the study of values is a pretty good one. Psychologists have been studying values off and on for decades, but we’re still pretty far away from having an understanding from psychology that then filters out into the broader culture and political culture about the place of values in voting. A good example right now would be health care, where that used to be an issue that was of major concern to people who cared about poor people not having health care. Well, now we’re looking at problems for middle-class Americans who are suddenly looking at their health insurance evaporate, their rates go up, their choices go down, or they’re not being able to move from one job to the next because they have pre-existing conditions. That’s a good example of a case where people’s self-interest converges with their values, and that’s where you start to see some of these issues have greater emotional resonance with the public. Another is simply to do more work applying to politics some of the basic
