ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that political psychologists studying character assassination play the role of mediators between research in political science and psychology. The research about the psychological impact of character attacks, especially their traumatic impact, likely taps into general psychological research about the impact of traumatic and stressful events on the individual. These studies generally refer to stress and the factors contributing to stress: acute traumatic disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and the individual’s coping mechanisms in dealing with stressful or traumatic events. The chapter discusses two general types of the psychological impacts of character attacks: (1) direct and (2) indirect. In addition, coping and adjustment to the consequences of CA also can be active or passive, with many variations in between the ‘active’ and ‘passive’ alternatives on the spectrum.
