The Need for Power and the Power of Need: An Ecological Approach for Political Psychology. Issue 1 (February 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bou Zeineddine, Fouad; Pratto, Felicia
• Is Part Of: Political psychology. Volume 38:Issue 1(2017:Feb.)supplement 1
• Page Start: 3
• Page End: 35
• Publication Date: 2017-02
• Subjects: power -- political ecology -- human needs -- consilience -- repeated assemblies; Political psychology -- Periodicals; Political sociology -- Periodicals; 320.019
• DOI: 10.1111/pops.12389
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0162-895X

Abstract

Abstract : We argue that political psychology would benefit from an ecological approach to complement other approaches. After detailing what adopting an ecological approach would entail, we provide examples of how this can enrich political psychological questions. We exemplify this by using the notion of repeated assemblies (Caporael, 1997 ) to illustrate several political psychological problem‐concepts. We then detail an ecological approach to understanding political psychology through the ecological and dynamic features of two organizing principles, human power and need, called power basis theory (Pratto, 2015 ). This provides a means to understand the behavior of individuals and collectives, as well as a means to understand how political ecologies at any level serve or fail to serve ecologies at either level. We suggest that ecological theories such as power basis enable political psychology to ask ambitious and novel questions that complement the state of the field today.