Political psychology is an exciting field because it is directly and immediately relevant to current events. This feature of the field is also a drawback as it can unintentionally limit the knowledge of the field to current events and prevent the development of generalizable knowledge. We discuss how using representative samples, representative political systems, and representative stimuli can help political psychology develop a more comprehensive political psychology with knowledge that is both generalizable and relevant. Can countries balance nationalism and multiculturalism? When do facts matter? One of the key reasons students choose careers in political psychology is because of their desire to understand why politics is the way it is and maybe even make the political world a better and more humane place. When the world gives political questions, it jumpstarts political psychology. Undoubtedly, the current and chaotic political climate will inspire a generation of Political psychology's challenge is to channel the motivation generously provided by current events into new and exciting studies that advance (political) psychological theory and reveal generalizable knowledge. This is a real challenge. Although understanding the roots of opposition to bussing and why people oppose foreclosure assistance were timely questions, it is not clear that the message from these studies will generalize and help us make predictions in new settings. For example, symbolic politics, more so than self-interest, underlies opposition to bussing (Sears et al., 1979), but we do not know if this is an effect specific to bussing, specific to racial policies in modern (~post-Civil Rights legislation) American From the Political Here and Now to Generalizable Knowledge 4 politics, or a finding that is expected to hold for all racial policies in the United States and throughout the world. To be clear: It might, but the evidence on bussing does not speak to this question.
PublicIt is worthwhile to think about why it is unclear if findings aimed at understanding specific (and often at the time, current) political events are generalizable knowledge. We highlight three key reasons.