Psychology and International Relations
Political Science 289.12
CRN: 53560
Professor James Goldgeier
Fall 2008
Tuesdays, 3:30-6 in 1776 G. Street, room 101
Office: Hall of Government 404
Email: jimg@gwu.edu
Office Hours: Mondays 4-5, Wednesdays, 2:30-3:30 and by appointment
A growing number of international relations scholars recognize the importance of
psychological approaches to understanding world affairs. In this course, we will examine
a range of work focused on the decisions made by individuals and groups. We will look
both at work done in psychology as well as efforts by political scientists to apply those
studies to international politics. A major purpose of the course is to think broadly about
ways in which these approaches can help inform theoretical work done by realists,
liberals and constructivists.
The course depends heavily on class participation to be successful. Half of the
course grade will be based on the quality of student engagement in class discussion. The
other half will be based on a review essay that students will write (along the model of
review essays in World Politics or International Security). Students should discuss the
books they will review well in advance with Professor Goldgeier.
Readings not available in the GW databases will be posted on Blackboard. Books
that do not appear in the required readings are listed separately for future reference.
September 2. Introduction
September 9. Psychology and Rationality
Herbert Simon, "Human Nature in Politics: The Dialogue of Psychology with Political
Science," APSR 79 (1985): 293-304.
Bryan Jones, “Bounded Rationality,” Annual Review of Political Science 2 (June 1999),
pp. 297-321.
Jonathan Mercer, “Rationality and Psychology in International Politics,” International
Organization (2005).
Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon, “Why Hawks Win,” Foreign Policy, Jan/Feb
2007.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3660
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Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health,
Wealth and Happiness, chapter 1.
Keith Jensen, Joseph Call, and Michael Tomasello, “Chimpanzees Are Rational
Maximizers in an Ultimatum Game,” Science 318 (October 5, 2007), pp. 107-109.
Suggested Books for Further Reading
Joseph De Rivera, The Psychological Dimension of Foreign Policy.
Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics.
Morton Hunt, The Story of Psychology.
Daniel Robinson, An Intellectual History of Psychology.
Rose McDermott, Political Psychology in International Relations.
Philip Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?
September 16. The Role of Personality
P. Rieff, “Psychology and Politics: The Freudian Connection,” World Politics 7 (1955),
pp. 293-305.
Alexander George and Juliette George, Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A
Personality Study, intro, chapter 1 and research note.
Martha Crenshaw, “The Causes of Terrorism,” Comparative Politics 13 (1981), pp. 37999.
Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack, “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Bringing the
Statesman Back In,” International Security 25 (2001), pp. 107-46.
D.G. Winter, “Personality and Political Behavior,” In David O. Sears, Leonie Huddy and
Robert Jervis, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology (2003), pp. 110-45.
Uri Bar-Joseph and Rose McDermott, “Change the Analyst and Not the System: A
Different Approach to Intelligence Reform,” Foreign Policy Analysis 4, 2 (April 2008),
pp. 127-45.
Suggested Books for Further Reading
T. W. Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality.
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H.D. Lasswell, Power and Personality.
Fred Greenstein, Personality and Politics.
Robert Pape. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.
Jerrold Post. Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World: The Psychology of
Political Behavior.
September 23. Prospect Theory
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: an analysis of decision under
risk,” Econometrica 47 (1979), pp. 263-91.
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Choices, Values, and Frames,” American
Psychologist 39 (April 1984), pp. 341-50.
Daniel Kahneman, Jack L. Knetsch, and Richard H. Thaler, “The Endowment Effect,
Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5 (Winter 1991),
pp. 193-206.
Barbara Farnham, “Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis: Insights from Prospect Theory,”
Political Psychology 13 (June 1992), pp. 205-35.
Robert Jervis, “The Implications of Prospect Theory for Human Nature and Values,”
Political Psychology 25/2 (2004), 163-176.
Jonathan Mercer, “Prospect Theory and Political Science,” Annual Review of Political
Science 8 (June 2005), pp. 1-21.
Suggested Books for Further Reading
Barbara Farnham, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis: A Study of Political DecisionMaking.
Rose McDermott, Risk-Taking in International Politics: Prospect Theory in American
Foreign Policy.
Jeffrey Taliaferro, Balancing Risks: Great Power Intervention in the Periphery.
September 30. Rosh Hashanah. No Class
October 7. Heuristics and Biases (I)
D.J. Bem, “Self-Perception: An alternative interpretation of cognitive dissonance
phenomena,” Psychological Review, 74 (1967): 183-200.
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Richard Ned Lebow, Between Peace and War: The Nature of International Crisis (1981),
pp. 101-19.
E.E. Jones and V.A. Harris, “The Attribution of Attitudes,” Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology 3 (1967), 1–24.
Jerome L. Singer and Peter Salovey, “Organized Knowledge Structures and Personality:
Person Schemas, Self Schemas, Prototypes, and Scripts,” in Person Schemas and
Maladaptive Interpersonal Patterns, ed. Mardi J. Horowitz (1991).
Susan T. Fiske, “Social Cognition and Social Perception,” Annual Review of Psychology
(1993).
Deborah Welch Larson, “The Role of Belief Systems and Schemas in Foreign Policy
Decision-Making,” Political Psychology 15, 1 (March 1994), pp. 17-33.
Suggested Books for Further Reading
Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance.
Gerd Gigerenzer et. al., Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart.
October 14. Heuristics and Biases (II)
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. “Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and
biases,” Science 185/4157 (1974): 1124-31.
E. Jones, “The Rocky Road from Acts to Dispositions,” American Psychologist 34 (1979),
pp. 107-117.
Amos Tversky and Thomas Gilovich, “The cold facts about the ‘hot hand’ in basketball,”
Chance 2 (1989): 16-21.
D. Gilbert and PS Malone, “Correspondence Bias,” Psychological Bulletin 117 (1995),
pp. 21-38.
Stuart J. Kaufman, “Symbolic Politics or Rational Choice? Testing Theories of Extreme
Ethnic Violence,” International Security 30/4 (Spring 2006), 45-86.
Philip E. Tetlock, “Theory-Driven Reasoning about Possible Pasts and Probable Futures:
Are We Prisoners of Our Preconceptions?” American Journal of Political Science 43
(1999), pp. 335-66.
Suggested Books for Further Reading
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Alexander George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of
Information and Advice.
Deborah Larson, Origins of Containment: A Psychological Explanation.
Stuart Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War.
Dominic D.P. Johnson and Dominic Tierney, Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and
Defeat in War.
October 21. Learning from the Past
Yaacov Vertzberger "Foreign Policy Decision-makers as Practical-Intuitive Historians:
Applied History and its Shortcomings," International Studies Quarterly 30 (1986), pp.
223-247.
Daniel Reiter “Learning, Realism, and Alliances: The weight of the shadow of the past,”
World Politics 46 (1994), pp. 490-526.
Jack Levy. “Learning and Foreign Policy: Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield.”
International Organization, 48/2 (1994) pp. 279–312.
Daniel Byman, “Strategic Surprise and the September 11 Attacks,” Annual Review of
Political Science 8 (2005): 145-170.
James Wirtz, “Responding to Surprise,” Annual Review of Political Science (2006).
R.K. Hermann and J.K. Choi, “From Prediction to Learning: Opening Experts’ Minds to
Unfolding History,” International Security 31 (2007), pp. 132-61.
Suggested Books for Further Reading
Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision.
John Steinbruner, The Cybernetic Theory of Decision.
Yuen Foong Khong. Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the
Vietnam Decisions of 1965.
Daniel Reiter, Crucible of Beliefs: Learning, Alliances and World Wars.
Andrew Bennett, Condemned to Repetition? The Rise, Fall and Reprise of Soviet-Russian
Military Interventionism, 1973-1996.
James Wirtz, The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War
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David Patrick Houghton, US Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis
James Goldgeier, Leadership Style and Soviet Foreign Policy
October 28. Identity
Muzafer Sherif, “Experiments in Group Conflict,” Scientific American 195, 5 (1956), pp.
54-58.
Henri Tajfel, “Experiments in Intergroup Discrimination,” Scientific American 223, 5
(1970), pp. 96-102.
Jonathan Mercer, “Anarchy and Identity,” International Organization (1995)
Rupert Brown, “Social Identity Theory: past achievements, current problems and future
challenges,” European Journal of Social Psychology 30/6 (2000): 745-778.
Leonie Huddy, “Contrasting Theoretical Approaches to Intergroup Relations,” Political
Psychology 2004.
Peter Gries, “Social psychology and the identity-conflict debate: Is a 'China threat'
inevitable?” EJIR 11/2 (2005), 235-265.
M. Shamir and T. Sagiv Schifter, “Conflict, identity, and tolerance: Israel in the Al-Aqsa
Intifada,” Political Psychology 27, 4 (August 2006): 569-595.
James Gibson, “Do Strong Group Identities Fuel Intolerance? Evidence From the South
African Case,” Political Psychology 27/5 (Oct 2006), pp. 665-705.
Suggested Books for Further Reading:
Henri Tajfel, Social Identity in Intergroup Relations.
M. Sherif. Group Conflict and Cooperation: Their Social Psychology.
S. Worchel and L.W. Austin, eds., Psychology of Intergroup Relations.
November 4. Emotion
Melissa Finucane, Ali Alhakami, Paul Slovic and Peter M. Johnson, “The Affect
Heuristic in Judgments of Risks and Benefits,” Journal of Behavioral Decisionmaking
(2000) at
http://www-abc.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/users/r20/finucane00_the_affect_heuristic.pdf
Rose McDermott, “Feeling of Rationality: The Meaning of Neuroscientific
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Advances for Political Science,” Perspective on Politics (Dec 2004): 691-706.
Richard Ned Lebow, “Reason, Emotion and Cooperation,” International Politics, Vol. 42,
2005.
Andrew A.G. Ross, “Coming in from the Cold: Constructivism and Emotions,” European
Journal of International Relations 12/2 (2006), pp. 197Paul Saurette, “You dissin me? Humiliation and post 9/11 global politics,” Review of
International Studies 32 (2006), 495-522
Roland Bleiker and Emma Hutchison, “Fear No More: Emotions and World Politics,”
Review of International Studies 34, 1 (2008).
Suggested Books for Further Reading:
Jon Elster, Alchemies of the Mind: Rationality and the Emotions.
Robert Frank, Passions Without Reason: The Strategic Role of Emotions.
Jacques Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions and
Foreign Policy.
Stephen P. Rosen. War and Human Nature.
November 11. Evolutionary Psychology
Leda Cosmides, John Tooby and Jerome Barkow, “Evolutionary Psychology and
Conceptual Integration” in Barkow et al., The Adapted Mind (New York: Oxford, 1992).
D.S.A. Bell and P.K. MacDonald, “Correspondence: Start the Evolution Without Us,”
International Security 26 (2001), pp. 187-94.
Paul W. Andrews, “The Psychology of Social Chess and the Evolution of Attribution
Mechanisms: Explaining the Fundamental Attribution Error,” Evolution and Human
Behavior 22 (2001).
John Orbell, Tomonori Morikawa, Jason Hartwig, James Hanley and Nicholas Allen, “A
Machiavellian Intelligence as a Basis for the Evolution of Cooperative Dispositions,”
American Political Science Review (February 2004).
John Alford and John Hibbing “The Origin of Politics: An Evolutionary Theory of
Political Behavior,” Perspectives on Politics (December 2004).
Jim Sidanius & Robert Kurzban, “Evolutionary Approaches to Political Psychology” in
the Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, 2004.
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Suggested Books for Further Reading:
Stephen Pinker, How the Mind Works.
David Buss, Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind.
Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby, The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary
Psychology and the Generation of Culture.
November 18. Experimental and Behavioral Economics
Matthew Rabin, “Psychology and Economics,” Journal of Economic Literature
36 (1998), pp. 11-46.
Ernst Fehr and K. Schmidt, “A Theory of Fairness, Competition and Cooperation,”
Quarterly Journal of Economics 114 (1999): pp. 817-68.
Richard Thaler, “From Homo Economicus to Homo Sapiens,” Journal of Economic
Perspectives 14 (2000): 133-41.
Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher (23 October 2003), “The Nature of Human
Altruism,”Nature, 425: 785-791 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature02043)
Colin F. Camerer and Ernst Fehr, “When Does "Economic Man" Dominate Social
Behavior?” Science 6 (January 2006): Vol. 311. no. 5757, pp. 47 - 52 (http://
dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1110600)
Suggested Books for Further Reading:
J. H. Kagel and A.E. Roth, The Handbook of Experimental Economics.
Colin Camerer, Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction.
Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein and Matthew Rabin, Advances in Behavioral
Economics.
November 25. The Problem of Overconfidence
Dale Griffin & Amos Tversky (1992), “The Weighing of Evidence and the Determinants
of Confidence,” Cognitive Psychology 24: 411-435.
Daniel Gilbert, Elizabeth Pinel, Timothy Wilson, Stephen Blumberg and Thalia Wheatley
(1998), “Immune Neglect: A Source of Durability Bias in Affective Forecasting,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 617-638.
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Justin Kruger & David Dunning (1999), “Unskilled and Unaware of it: How Difficulties
in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 77, 6, 1121-1134.
Richard Wrangham (1999), “Is Military Incompetence Adaptive?” Evolution and Human
Behavior 20: 3-17.
Dominic D.P. Johnson, Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive
Illusions (2004), Chapters 1-2.
Suggested Books for Further Reading:
Philip Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment.
December 2. Building Psychological Approaches into the IR Mainstream
Charles Kupchan, The Vulnerability of Empire, Chapters 1, 8.
Janice Gross Stein, “An Agenda for Political Psychology: Alexander George as Architect,
Engineer, and Community Builder,” Political Psychology 15, 1 (March 1994), pp. 1-15.
Alastair Ian Johnston, “Thinking About Strategic Culture,” International Security 19, 4
(Spring 1995).
Margaret G. Hermann and Charles W. Kegley, Jr., “Rethinking Democracy and
International Peace: Perspectives from Political Psychology,” ISQ 39, 4 (December 1995),
pp. 511-33.
James Goldgeier and Philip Tetlock, “Psychological Approaches Complement – Rather
than Contradict – International Relations Theories,” in Oxford Handbook of International
Relations, edited by Chris Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal, Forthcoming.
Suggested Books for Further Reading:
Rose McDermott. Political Psychology in International Relations.
December 9. Make-Up. Concluding Thoughts.
Review Essay Due.
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