UN MODELLO PSICOSOCIALE PER LA BUONA POLITICA: DAL BENESSERE DELL¿INDIVIDUO AL BENESSERE DELLA SOCIETÀ.

By means of psychological selection individuals engage in favorite activities, guided by the chance to live flow of consciousness, a complex and structured experience perceived as cognitively, emotionally and motivationally positive. Researchers define as good work an activity: excellent in quality, engaging for its practitioners (i.e. source of flow), ethically carried out. Promoting such characteristics in politics would prevent the crisis of representative democracy model. We interviewed 13 political experts to explore these dimensions in Italian politics. We administered a questionnaire to political activists (N=265) exploring wellbeing linked to political engagement. Study 1 points out 8 main aspects to describe good politics: effectiveness, additive mediation, dialogic leadership, long term vision, progressive competences, removal of corruption, instrumental power, horizontal communication. Interviewees describe good politicians referring to: good education, ambition, passion. Study 2 confirms the pertinence of flow to describe political engagement and the factors describing good politicians: competence, success, engagement. 4 types of political activists are described: technician (focused on competence, opposed to success, low rates of flow, high in cynicism), pragmatist (focused on success, pay attention to engagement, experience flow, low in cynicism), idealist (focused on engagement, highest rates of flow and the lowest of cynicism), cynic (focused on success, opposed to competence and engagement, medium rates of flow and the highest of cynicism). Italian politics, despite strong negative features, allows activists to experience positive engagement at local level, excluding cynics from important roles.