This course focuses on politics at the level of the individual--the development and expression of political attitudes. This is not to say that individuals accomplish this on their own. As politics is concerned with public matters, socialization and public opinion are social processes and involve others. Hence, one of our major tasks will be in identifying these significant others and evaluating their relative importance in the process.

We will be initially concerned with the individual's early childhood development. This will encompass theories of cognitive psychology, personality, and moral development, and their applications to the political world. This approach will be continued through adolescence and youth and will focus on such socializing agents as the family, school, and peer group.

This early development may form the potential for the individual's role as a citizen, but it has become increasingly clear that substantial development can take place through adulthood. That is, socialization is a life-long process. One socializing agent which affects all ages is the mass media. Popular writers have commented on the "selling" of presidents, indicating substantial media power, whereas some studies have argued that the mass media actually have a minimal effect on public opinion. We will attempt to shed some light on this question.