Dr Pavlos Vasilopoulos
Senior Lecturer

Profile

Biography

I am a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of York. Prior to joining York in September 2019, I was a researcher and lecturer at Sciences Po Paris. 

My research focuses on the psychological processes that underlie the political behaviour of mass publics from a dual perspective. On the one hand, it focuses on how voters' personality traits are associated with their political choices, while on the other it seeks to understand the role that individual emotions play on political decision-making.

My work has appeared in a number of peer-reviewed journals including Political Psychology; West European Politics; Party Politics; Environmental Politics; Acta Politica and South European Society and Politics, among others.

You can find more information on my work on my website , my Google scholar profile or my Twitter profile.

Research

Overview

My research focuses on the psychological substrates of political behaviour from two perspectives.

First, it investigates the role that emotional reactions play in the formation of political attitudes and vote choices in a comparative perspective. I am particularly interested in how fear and anger stemming from different types of threats shape political attitudes and vote choices across contexts.

Second, it explores how citizens' personality traits and other psychological characteristics such as authoritarianism or social dominance are associated with political choices, with an emphasis on how contextual and individual characteristics jointly shape political behaviour.

I am very interested in supervising PhD students on topics of political psychology, political geography, and electoral behaviour using quantitative methods.

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Introduction to Democratic Politics POL00002C
• Political Participation and Democracry POL00041H
• Political Enquiry in Politics POL00050I

External activities

Memberships

Associate researcher at the Center of Political Research at Sciences Po