Looking Back, Looking Forward: ISPP at 40 and Future Directions for Political Psychology

Abstract

The ISPP Presidential Address typically is an opportunity for the President to outline his or her research contribution and trajectory, and the publication of the Address takes the form of a research article. Given that in 2017, ISPP celebrated its 40th conference and 2018 is its 40th anniversary as an academic society, the 2017 Presidential Address and this article are focused on the state of the Society; What have we achieved? How have we changed? Where are we heading? Looking back, ISPP is a more diverse and international society than in 1978, and it is confidently fulfilling its mission. Looking forward, three areas that warrant further attention are outlined: (1) The issue of a possible decline in scientific rationalism and threat of anti‐liberalism (2) challenges with measurement and prediction of political opinion, political attitudes, and voting behavior, and (3) as a maturing field, the need to establish common theoretical frameworks that integrate current knowledge such as building a case that humans are political animals. Each direction is briefly outlined with the aim of provoking thought and stimulating discussion and debate about the future of political psychology.