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Before you start reading this article I would like to apologize for the wall of text it has become. For those who simply want to know what it is about and give me support I have made a summery of the whole thing at the end of this article.

If you take in to account that politics in the new world are almost similar to the ones in the real world it might not be a bad thing to learn about the psychology of politics. So I present to you the second article in a series about politics. After political burn-out there is now a piece on political mind-mapping.





Political Mind-mapping



The study of politics is also a study of the mind because politics is not only an abstract concept concerning influence and power it is also about different cognitive functions instantiated by our brain. Any cognitive ability, like the communicative skills we use every day, as well as our suitability to recur to moral evaluations, is strictly related to various bodily features characterizing each of us. Understanding the ways our natural constitution shapes our mind represents a knowledge that changes the manner we approach the study of social phenomena.

Mind, brain and emotion in politics:

Politics is not only something from the rational mind but also about irrational thinking. In the next analysis we will look at Charles Darwin, B.F Skinner and Sigmund Freuds and something we can call “the passionate vision of mind”.

* Darwin argued that emotion serves an adaptive function involving communication. for example: the ability to send and receive emotional signals regulates social behavior and increases the individuals chances of survival in which our survival depends on the ability to maximize reproduction and the care and welfare of others. Therefore, messages with issues about the welfare of children and our extended family are themes that will resonate emotionally with the voters. If we put that in a New World perspective I would say that messages about the welfare of our loving community would be warmly accepted by the voters because they feel nurtured.

* Skinner on the other hand learned us to understand the way humans learn by consequences through reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement behavior, which is associated with something rewarding, and punishment behavior, which is associated with something aversive or the removal of something rewarding, are reflected in much of what we do. If we look at this from a political perspective we get the following deduction: positive and negative emotions independently shape behavior, including voting behavior. So failing to shape and elicit negative associations to the opposition can be as disastrous as failing to shape and elicit positive associations to your own candidate. In other words if you can slander the candidate from the opposing side, highlight his faults, you win. If you can’t and you have not a strong case that highlights your candidate more then the other you fail.

* Freud’s role in understanding the passionate mind and relevance to the political brain centers around the idea that much of our behavior reflects the activation of emotion-laden networks of association, and activating one part of a network can spread activation to other parts of the network. All this activation instantaneously occurs outside of our awareness. Political campaigns are emotionally laden with words and images designed to provoke strong feelings which activate networks in the brain and become the avenues down which true or false political messages travel. These messages connect to the unconscious emotions of the voter in a split second and involuntarily trigger us to react passionately. This translates to voting without the use of the dispassionate brain. In other words, we do not think when voting. Hence the title of this topic => political mind-mapping

Although this psychological study is of great interest to me I will not bore you with it more then I have done already. Instead I will talk about the human nature in politics and how you can use it to make yourself a great ePolitical career in the new world.

Human Nature in Politics:

The dialogue of Psychology with Political Science:
What kind of rationality does a politician exhibit? Is he or she a creature of objective, substantive rationality; or instead, one of subjective, procedural rationality?


In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. Elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions, a marketplace filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory, in which logic plays only a supporting role. Three things determine how people vote, in this order: their feelings toward the parties and their principles, their feelings toward the candidates, and, if they haven't decided by then, their feelings toward the candidates' policy positions.
Managing positive and negative feelings should be the primary goals of any political campaign. It's fine to engage on the issues and offer specific policies. There is plenty of time for that in a campaign. But candidates should use policy positions to illustrate their principles, not the other way around.

So what should candidates remember?

* The first goal surpasses any given candidate. It needs to define the party and its principles in a way that is emotionally compelling and tells a story of what its members believe in and define the other party and its values in ways that undermine its capacity to resonate emotionally with voters. This is the first goal of any campaign because the way voters experience the party is the first influence on the way they will experience the candidate.

* The second goal of an effective campaign is to maximize positive and minimize negative feelings toward its own candidate, and to encourage the opposite set of feelings toward his or her opponent. The most important feelings are gut-level feelings, from global emotional reactions to more specific feelings. For example: “what a lovely person this candidate is and what a pretentious man the other candidate is”

* The third goal of a campaign is to manage feelings toward the candidates personal characteristics. This goal is related to the previous one, although emotional associations tend to hold more sway with voters than judgments about a candidate's particular traits. In general, the goal is to convince voters that your candidate is trustworthy, competent, empathic, and capable of strong leadership, and to raise doubts about the opposition along one or more of these dimensions.

* The fourth goal of a campaign is to manage positive and negative feelings toward the candidates policies and positions. This goal is not only fourth but a distant fourth. And it is higher still than the more "rational" goal of presenting voters with convincing arguments for a set of policy prescriptions. These arguments tend to influence behavior at the polling booth, if at all, to the extent that they generate positive or negative feelings toward the candidates.

Example:

Today ESO is determent to stand for it’s believes that there must be solidarity amongst our citizens in order to preserve our great eNation. This is an opportunity for every British citizen and a responsibility for every British citizen. ESO is determent to re-awake the great sense of our great British society. Solidarity - Responsibility - Community. These are the values that made eUK strong. These are the values of the ESO. These are the values that must guide us into the future.
Today, eUK is moving forward with the strong presidential leadership it deserves. The economy is stronger and government is more efficient. Education of newcomers is better, our environment is friendlier and our armies do a great job. There is more opportunity in the country, more responsibility for eUK, and more possibilities in the new world.
I have a simple philosophy that I tried to follow for the duration of my time spend in eUk: Do what creates opportunity for all, what reinforces responsibility from all of us, and what will help us build a community where everybody has got a role to play and a place at the table. Compared to what used to be, we're clearly better off. We've got more newbies, the fall out rates have declined and the community in a whole is stronger. We're putting XK more strenght in ongoing battles.


The first paragraph promises to address the countries interests,opportunity and their values, including values more often associated with responsibility. The second paragraph draws its emotional power from its literary style. Presenting the words solidarity, responsibility, and community as sentences in their own right literally forces the reader to "speak" these words as they would be delivered in oratory—punctuating each one with significance.
The next paragraph describes the basis for the claim that the ESO CP candidate can deliver on these promises. It begins with an appeal to emotion, wedding voters' interests with quintessentially all solid eUK values, and then follows with an authoritative presentation of what this candidate has already accomplished.

What a voter needs to know before casting a vote.

What a voter needs to know most in deciding whether to vote for one candidate or the other are four things, roughly in this order:

*First, do they share the values that matter most to me, and do they care about people like me?

*Second, can I trust them to represent me faithfully?

*Third, do they have the personal qualities that lead me to believe they'll do right by my values and interests, such as integrity, leadership, and competence?

*And fourth, if there's an issue that really matters to me , what's their stand on it, and can I trust them to think about it and make decisions which I would probably make if I had all the information they'll have as my elected representative? values and interests, such as integrity, leadership, and competence?

And those turn out to be just the questions voters do ask when casting their ballots, and in just that order.










Political Mind-mapping

1) The study of politics is also a study of the mind because politics is not only an abstract concept concerning influence and power it is also about different cognitive functions instantiated by our brain.

2) Politics is not only something from the rational mind but also about irrational thinking.

* Darwin argued that emotion serves an adaptive function involving communication. => If we put that in a New World perspective I would say that messages about the welfare of our loving community would be warmly accepted by the voters because they feel nurtured.
* Skinner on the other hand learned us to understand the way humans learn by consequences through reinforcement and punishment. => In other words if you can slander the candidate from the opposing side, highlight his faults, you win. If you can’t and you have not a strong case that highlights your candidate more then the other you fail.
* Freud’s role in understanding the passionate mind and relevance to the political brain centers around the idea that much of our behavior reflects the activation of emotion-laden networks of association, and activating one part of a network can spread activation to other parts of the network.=> In other words, we do not think when voting. Hence the title of this topic => political mind-mapping

Human Nature in Politics:

What kind of rationality does a politician exhibit? Is he or she a creature of objective, substantive rationality; or instead, one of subjective, procedural rationality?

* Elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions, a marketplace filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory, in which logic plays only a supporting role.
* Managing positive and negative feelings should be the primary goals of any political campaign. It's fine to engage on the issues and offer specific policies.

So what should candidates remember?

*The first goal surpasses any given candidate. It needs to define the party and its principles in a way that is emotionally compelling and tells a story of what its members believe in and define the other party and its values in ways that undermine its capacity to resonate emotionally with voters.
*The second goal of an effective campaign is to maximize positive and minimize negative feelings toward its own candidate, and to encourage the opposite set of feelings toward his or her opponent.
*The third goal of a campaign is to manage feelings toward the candidates personal characteristics.
*The fourth goal of a campaign is to manage positive and negative feelings toward the candidates policies and positions.

What a voter needs to know before casting a vote.

*First, do they share the values that matter most to me, and do they care about people like me?
*Second, can I trust them to represent me faithfully?
*Third, do they have the personal qualities that lead me to believe they'll do right by my values and interests, such as integrity, leadership, and competence?
*And fourth, if there's an issue that really matters to me , what's their stand on it, and can I trust them to think about it and make decisions which I would probably make if I had all the information they'll have as my elected representative? values and interests, such as integrity, leadership, and competence?



~Mittekemuis