Beyond Rationality Behavioral Political Science in the 21st Century

We introduce BPS, a research paradigm which takes seriously the cognitive limitations and varied motivations of citizens and elites as they make politics happen around the world. The most important claim in this book is that a set of ideas from psychology, economics, political science and communication studies can be combined in a simple way to greatly enhance our understanding of politics. These approaches can help explain the many deviations we see in political attitudes, political decision making, and political behavior that are often predicted from the dominant, alternative approach to understanding politics: RCT. The BPS paradigm encapsulates a broad set of research programs that challenge traditional assumptions about the processes and motivations structuring political decision-making, including: (1) the role, use and influence of heuristics and cognitive biases on decision-making, 2() the effects of message framing on political attitudes, (3) institutional factors and the psychology of group-decision making in state policy formation, (4) the role of emotions in political behavior, (5) individual differences in preferences stemming from personality, values and norms, and (6) the importance of motivation and identity in information processing.