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Psychology in Political and Economic Systems Lab

The Psychology in Political & Economic Systems (PIPES) Lab contributes to emerging efforts in the behavioral sciences to examine how forces at the societal level, such as political polarization, market integration, and economic inequality both reflect and shape individual psychological functioning. The work of the PIPES Lab draws on theories and methods from social and political psychology, behavioral ecology, and related natural and social sciences, to investigate why people think, vote, and behave the way they do, shedding light on the subjective consequences of social policies and societal change.

The lab’s multi-pronged research program examines how psychological processes are shaped by and influence societal conditions. It is organized along three work streams, each currently containing five broad projects:

  1. Poverty, Inequality, and Decision-Making: Using lab and survey experiments and large-scale panel and cross-national datasets, we explore how the challenges of scarcity and instability in material and social resources, in addition to wider societal conditions such as extreme economic inequality, affect how people think and behave.

  2. Foundations of Political Ideology and Behavior: Drawing on evolutionary, anthropological, historical, and political insights, we explore the origins of our political preferences, moving beyond left-right ideology to investigate the core relational templates that people apply to intergroup relations in their societies. We use cross-national surveys, panel surveys, administrative registry data, experiments, and multivariate behavioral genetic analyses to delineate the evolutionary and socioecological foundations of ideology and political behavior.

  3. Political Economy in Psychological Perspective: This emergent stream of research aims to bridge the gap between the fields of social psychology and political economy, drawing on a historical, comparative, and institutionalist lens to understand social behavior in societal contexts, and to consider the psychological viability of differing ‘varieties’ of capitalism. We are currently applying this to understand the impact of market thinking on personal and social life; in addition to the role of notions of solidarity and the common good, versus anomie and resentment, in shaping responses to changing economic landscapes in which certain groups and regions are left behind.