Psychology of Political Desicionmaking and Leadership

Political psychology sits at the intersection of how people actually think and how political outcomes get produced, this course treats leaders, voters, and groups as cognitive agents whose biases, ideologies, and emotional attachments shape decisions that rational-choice models can't fully explain. You'll work through frameworks for analyzing leadership styles, group dynamics, and belief formation, with a midterm, final, and a project that pushes you to apply these tools to a real case. It's a graduate elective that complements the more institutional or formal-theory side of POLS, and it's especially useful if you're heading toward research on elites, public opinion, or comparative politics.