ABSTRACT
The richness of political psychology is amply illustrated in the previous chapters of this volume. Yet, as one contributor commented, there is no one basic theory associated with political psychology, no underlying paradigm that gives unity and coherence to political psychology as a Weld.1 As I assess the Weld as a whole, I would argue that it is not the lack of theory but rather the overabundance of insightful theories that blinds us to an underlying paradigm in political psychology. Such a paradigm does exist, however, and can be discerned if we review the major theories in political psychology with an eye for the common element. Doing so suggests that many important theories in political psychology rest on implicit assumptions concerning perceptions of the self and others. In this chapter I weave these tacit assumptions together into a simple paradigm for political psychology, and argue that it is the cognitive component of perspective that provides the basic underlying paradigm for political psychology.
