Here are some recommended resources for learning more about voter psychology and political persuasion:
Here are some recommended resources for learning more about voter psychology and political persuasion:
Robert "Bob" Altemeyer was a Professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba. He did extensive research on the psychology of authoritarian personalities.
Altemeyer's book, The Authoritarians, (2006, self-published) is a fascinating and disturbing explanation of his findings. The book is available for free. You can download it as PDF here, or as EPUB here. The book is also available as an audiobook (read by the author) here. He's written a few articles that supplement the book. All are available on the web: "Postscript on the 2008 Election", "Comment on the Tea Party Movement", "Donald Trump and Authoritarian Followers", and "Why Do Trump’s Supporters Stand by Him, No Matter What?".
Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the best-selling self-help books of all time, and for good reason. It offers sound advice—much of which is validated by other resources mentioned here—on how to deal with people and win them over to your way of thinking.
Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion explains moral foundation theory and how people reason about politicals and religion. The book's Introduction is available on line, as is Chapter 7 on "The Moral Foundations of Politics".
In addition to his personal/professional website, and his academic/research homepage at NYU, Haidt contributes to several other websites. MoralFoundations.org offer resources on moral psychology in general, and moral foundation theory in particular. CivilPolitics.org, provides "evidence-based support to groups working to promote inter-group civility and mutual understanding".
YourMorals.org is a site "where you can learn about your own morality, ethics, and/or values, while also contributing to scientific research." (Your browser may display a page warning you that the site uses an older version of TLS, a security protocol. To reach YourMorals.org, you may have to enable the older TLS version by selecting an option on the warning page.) The Explore Your Morals page has numerous questionnaires that can provide you with valuable insight into your own moral intuitions. We encourage you to start with "Moral Foundations Questionnaire - Revised" (on the 2nd row in the 1st group of studies). For best results, you should take the survey before learning anything about Moral Foundation Theory.
These sites contain numerous audio and video clips in which Haidt discusses these topics. A good place to start is Haidt's TED talk, "The moral roots of liberals and conservatives". Haidt recommends this video of his appearance on Moyers and Company
Bernie Horn and Gloria Totten work for the Public Leadership Institute, a nonprofit policy and leadership center. They've written Voicing Our Values: A Message Guide for Policymakers and Advocates. It offers good advice for progressive candidates and campaign workers on how to win over voters. The fourth edition is available online (as HTML) here, and for downloading (as PDF) here. Older editions of the book offer some different content that's still worth a look. The third edition is available for downloading (as PDF) here. The second edition is available for downloading (as PDF) here.
For an quick overview of linguistic framing and its application in political persuasion, read George Lakoff's Framing the Dems.
For an more detailed introduction to framing, read Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant, 2nd edition. Text and audio excerpts from the book, along with videos of Lakoff's lectures, are available here. Chapter 1 of the 1st edition is available here. The 1st chapter of both editions is very similar, but for the rest of the book, we recommend reading the 2nd edition. However, if you have access to the 1st edition, it's still worthwhile reading.
Lakoff's The Little Blue Book (coauthored with Elisabeth Wehling) offers additional insights on reframing contemporary political issues in terms of progressive values.
In Thinking Points, Lakoff offers a deeper look into the progressive worldview. The book is available for free here.
Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, 3rd. ed. is the most recent edition of Lakoff's most comprehensive treatment of linguistics and political psychology. The book is based on an earlier paper entitled Metaphor, Morality, and Politics.
Lakoff's writes a blog at georgelakoff.com. The site hosts several videos of Lakoff's lectures and interviews, as well as some audio clips.
In The Republican Brain, Chris Mooney explains various psychological theories on why so many Republicans reject mainstream science, economics and history. It's probably the best single overview of voter psychology for progressives. The first chapter of the book is the least interesting; don't let it deter you from reading the rest of the book. He discusses the book in this video, and in this 3-part video series: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Mooney's earlier book The Republican War on Science explains how the Republican Party in general, and the George W. Bush administration, has suppressed scientific research and distorted scientific findings for political purposes. You can read Chapter 11 from the book in this excerpt. He discusses the book in this video and in this video.
You can find excerpts from or essays based on The Republican Brain, along with other articles and blog entries by Mooney at Alternet and at The Huffington Post.
Mooney wrote both a column and a blog for Mother Jones. He now writes a column on Energy and Environment for The Washington Post.
Drew Westen's The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation explains how human emotions dominate voting decisions. It also explains why political campaigns based on appeals to voters' rational self-interest are often ineffective.
Westen offers some insights from the book, along with additional analysis, in this video. He discusses "The psychology and politics of dysfunctional democracy" in this TEDx talk. Here's another lecture (in 5 parts) with more insights from his book: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V,
From 2009 through 2012, Westen wrote a blog for The Huffington Post on progressive politics and political messaging. In 2011 and 2012, he contributed a few entries to the New York Times Campaign Stops blog.