A student who successfully completes this course:
1a) describes basic theories proposed in political psychology, such as system justification, authoritarian personality, social identity, modern racism theory or realistic conflict theory.
1b) distinguishes between how the different theories explain similar outcomes through different mechanisms.
1c) applies the distinction between psychological political science versus political psychology to evaluate the weekly readings throughout the course.
2a) illustrates the theoretical or empirical findings by examples from Turkey in his/her weekly reaction paper.
2b) explains daily political behaviors from a psychological standpoint (besides the "rational decision maker" assumption frequently employed in political science)
2c) analyzes current political issues (e.g., war, conflict, collective violence, racism) through the perspective of political psychology to judge its shortcomings and contributions.
3a) proposes 3 research ideas
3b) criticizes and comments on other students research ideas
3c) effectively communicates and presents these ideas during class time within 10-15 minutes.
4a) writes 10 critical reflections on current (and classical) readings in the area of political psychology
4b) points out limitations in the literature in terms of methods, subject matter, or other cultural biases that may limit their applicability