"2012 Election: Where Psychology Will Meet Politics"

[David Sky]

"As it sheds the notion that people are rational pursuers of their own self-interest, society is slowly but surely reconfiguring itself. The changes usually fall below the radar of daily news. But the 2012 election may provide an exception: Already, campaigns are in a raging argument about whether and why people need government help, and how much. Which means those campaigns are focussed on the central questions of what I call post-rational research: how informed, self-aware, logical and autonomous is the average person? Republicans who answer "a lot" are defending the Rational Economic Man model of the mind. Democrats who say "not so much" are pitting research facts against this ideology. A once-academic debate is going to be political this time around."

Full essay here:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/40461