Exploring the Possibility Space of Ideological Change

Speaker: Matto Mildenberger
Title: Exploring the Possibility Space of Ideological Change
Date: Thursday, March 29th, 2012
Category: Seminar

Matto Mildenberger, PhD Candidate at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (Yale University), summarizes recent political science and psychology literature on ideology with the broad aim of informing research on ideological change. The review will cover four topics. First, it will contextualize recent developments in the psychological study of ideology. Second, it will review current classification of ideologies according to their psychological and political content, interrogating the number of dimensions necessary to fully categorize political attitudes. Third, it will summarize individual-level determinants of ideological attachment, including genetic, physiological, cognitive, social, and political considerations. Finally, it will bring these different literatures together to discuss current theories of ideological change and persistence.