Foreign Policy Decision-Making The Psychological Dimension

Abstract

Abstract This chapter combines a general introduction to psychological approaches to international relations, with a particular focus on models of judgment and decision-making in foreign policy. It surveys the leading concepts, theories, findings, and methodologies associated with the major psychological approaches to foreign policy, and identifies questions that require further exploration. After an examination of the growing influence of political psychology in the IR field, the chapter turns to the beliefs and images of political leaders and the traits and prior experiences that shape them. It explores theories of information processing and belief change, including cognitive biases, motivated reasoning, and other impediments to rational Bayesian updating. The chapter then surveys a number of alternative models of decision-making. These include prospect theory – with its key concepts of reference dependence, loss aversion, and variable risk orientation – and models of intertemporal choice, temporal construal, groupthink, and crisis decision-making.