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(2014) Character assassination throughout the ages, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Political psychology can provide a useful framework for studying character assassination for at least two reasons. First, as a discipline, political psychology examines the complex interaction between the world of politics, on the one hand, and peoples experience and behavior, on the other. Because most character assassination cases involve individuals in the context of politics, political psychology can suggest empirical methods to study such cases. Second, it provides theories to explain them. Since the inception of this scholarly discipline in the 1960s, political psychologists have felt comfortable assisting historians, sociologists, and political scientists. Political psychologists borrow research methods and explanatory models from the behavioral and cognitive sciences, design their own research methods, and use them to study specific cases. Public figures, for obvious reasons, are unavailable for direct experimentation. Many of their actions, however, are on display and available for empirical analysis. Political psychologists learn from historians and then attempt to explain historical facts.
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Full citation:
Shiraev, E. (2014)., Character assassination: how political psychologists can assist historians, in M. Icks & E. Shiraev (eds.), Character assassination throughout the ages, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 15-33.
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