Taught by visiting professor Andrew Cockrell
PG 352 Political Psychology and Deterrence
This course explores how political psychologists explain war and peace in international relations. It begins with an examination of deterrence theory and nuclear strategy. Students then investigate cognitive and motivated biases and their effects on perceptions, beliefs, and decision-making. Finally, students build on these themes in the second half of the course by looking at a handful of key psychological theories that claim to explain foreign policy decision-making. These include analogies, prospect theory, attribution theory, and social identity theory. The learning goals of this course are: to introduce students to central theories in political psychology, use these to explain questions in international relations, and help students evaluate developments in international politics from the news.
Prerequisite: PG 103.
