Democrats and Republicans Can Be Differentiated from Their Faces

[struggle4progress]

Nicholas O. Rule*, Nalini Ambady
Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, United States of America

... In Study 1, perceivers were able to accurately distinguish whether U.S. Senate candidates were either Democrats or Republicans based on photos of their faces. Study 2 showed that these effects extended to Democrat and Republican college students, based on their senior yearbook photos. Study 3 then showed that these judgments were related to differences in perceived traits among the Democrat and Republican faces. Republicans were perceived as more powerful than Democrats. Moreover, as individual targets were perceived to be more powerful, they were more likely to be perceived as Republicans by others. Similarly, as individual targets were perceived to be warmer, they were more likely to be perceived as Democrats ...

Some characteristics are known to be more legible from our faces than others. For instance, visually obvious characteristics such as age, race, and sex are rapidly and readily perceived from facial appearance <3>, <9>–<10>. Yet there is also evidence that aspects of individuals that are considerably less obvious are also perceived somewhat effortlessly. For example, sexual orientation is perceived accurately, rapidly, and automatically from the face and its features <11>–<13>. The rates of accuracy in perceiving sexual orientation are not as high as those for age, race, and sex, however. Rather, characteristics such as sexual orientation and religious group membership tend to be fairly ambiguous to perceivers. Despite the perceptual ambiguity of these categories, perceivers' rates of accuracy in categorizing others along the dimensions of religion and sexual orientation are significantly greater than what would be expected from mere chance guessing <14>–<16>. Thus, even subtle differences in perceptual cues may lead to accurate perceptions.

One particularly consequential judgment is political candidates' actual electoral success based on perceivers' naïve judgments of personality traits from the candidates' faces. Several studies have found that judgments of competence and power from the faces of political candidates in Western cultures are significantly related to the candidates' margin of victory <17>–<19>. Indeed, even children's judgments of politicians' faces can predict their electoral success <20> and judgments of power and warmth from faces can predict electoral outcomes across cultures <19> ...

http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?annotationId=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fannotation%2F6a4765e1-0c6b-4c0b-b24f-27d6f32f91fc&articleURI=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008733

[dtexdem]

1. That's true: I can tell Barack Obama from Rick Perry by just looking at their faces.

And likewise I can tell Joe Biden from Michelle Bachmann.
;-)

[qb]

2. An interesting idea, but the scatter plots resemble the classic shotgun blast pattern

[Owlet]

3. What bullshit

Belongs right up there with the 'science' of phrenology.

[provis99]

8. nonsense.

Whenever a politician sidles up to my door, I have a better chance of guessing whether they are Democratic or Republican, based on what they look like and how they dress, than from anything the candidate says to me at the door.

[Igel]

9. I'll give them some credit,

not even looking at their data.

Humans like to conform. If you have a haircut that is identified with a specific subculture you'll be identified with that subculture; if you like being identified and treated in that way, you're most likely in that subculture and if you don't like being IDed/treated that way you'll probably change your hair.

In other words, things we have control over, from hair to clothes to jewelry to vocal and facial mannerisms constitute a kind of communication. We don't always have to fall in line with community expectations--I use "whinge" for "whine" and "sorted" for "figured out" even though I'm American. We usually do fall in line, however. Those least likely on other grounds to be misidentified and those who care the least for whatever reason are those least likely to bother to conform.

Young adults? They're all about conforming. They just have all convinced themselves that their step-lock conformity is actually essential non-conformity. In being one of the herd they differentiate themselves.

There's a decent body of linguistics work on the adoption of "gay" speech mannerisms by adults who move to or come to openly identify with gay communities (in SF, in Hollywood, in other places). There's also work on the manipulation (over the course of just a few months) of vowel qualities by high school students as they develope (or shift) their identities--this not involving gay/straight but things like jocks/nerds/"burn-outs".

[Kurmudgeon]

10. Indeed, like this statement "Republicans were perceived as more powerful than Democrats."

Really? So Michelle Bachmann, Dubya or Nixon etc etc were/are perceived as more powerful than FDR, JFK, or even Bill Clinton?
Too many ludicrous assumptions to take seriously.
Even the perception of Reagan has changed through the years from the kindly orator or great leader he was presented as to the doddering Alzheimer's victim Bush puppet he is known as more and more today as the blinders come off and his actions are looked at more closely.
However, I'm sure some college Republicans think they are gods walking amongst men, I met my share back in the 80s and I doubt the breed has faded away any in that time.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

4. Easy! Republicans have no lips.

[Permanut]

5. Wait, this sounds plausible...

I taught my dog to be a democrat, and he has a warm face.

[Marnie]

6. Here's what they can study next.

"For example, sexual orientation is perceived accurately, rapidly, and automatically from the face and its features.."

Assuming for the moment that this is true,and I would like to see other studies find the same results independent of this study...

If we can judge other's sexual orientation by their looks then do we not also judge ourselves the same way, since we have mirrors, by the same criteria?

Or, to be snarky, do mirrors make us queer becasue we look queer, or straight because we look straight based on a collective social judgment of what constitutes sexual orientation?

If that were true then striaghts, could be "cured" of being straight simply by altering their appearance and making them look at themselves a lot.

A study of sight impaired people's judgements would be interesting, though they may do the same thing with vocal and verbal characteristics.

Can you be a guy with a pretty limp wristed voice?

[saras]

7. They must have some secret technique...

"For example, sexual orientation is perceived accurately, rapidly, and automatically from the face and its features.."

If you could teach teenage gays how to do this, you could save them a world of hurt. My God, what a difference it would make.