Media Release
February 7 2008
What’s in a face? In politics, maybe a win
Schoolgirls predict Super Tuesday outcome from looking at photos
Super
Tuesday results have seen Clinton and McCain clawing their way to top
spots, Romney beating Huckabee, and previous strong contenders Edward,
Giuliani and Thompson all quitting the contest.
But as the race for US Presidential nomination heats up, researchers at the University of South Australia’s Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science say the results so far are no surprise.
Institute Professor Malcolm Wright says research carried out with a team of colleagues based at the Wharton Business School, predicted the results of Super Tuesday way back in August 2007.
And the team didn’t use statistical models or expert opinion – instead they relied on snap judgments from New Zealand schoolgirls, and Australian, New Zealand and American college students.
Researchers Scott Armstrong, (University of Pennsylvania), Kesten Green (Monash University), Randy Jones (University of Central Oklahoma), and Malcolm Wright (University of South Australia) had their interest piqued by the work of Alexander Todorov and his colleagues.
“Todorov and co had found that snap judgments of competence based on color pictures of candidates’ faces did a good job of predicting congressional and senate races,” Prof Wright said.
“So the Wharton team decided to extend the test to the current US presidential election and from May through mid-August 2007 we worked with them to get ratings of competence, based on photos of the faces of the 24 potential contenders for their parties’ nomination as candidate for the 2008 presidential election.”
The young women were given color portrait photographs of the candidates and no other information.
“Because we wanted the ratings made in the absence of any other knowledge, the research team relied heavily on uni students in Australia and New Zealand and high school girls in New Zealand for their results,” he said.
“Ratings were excluded if the students recognised the candidates and therefore had any preconceived opinion of them.”
In the end, the researchers obtained between 139 and 348 ratings for each contender.
And the results were fascinating.
The Democrats were rated as more competent than the Republican field.
At 7.2 out of a possible 10, Hillary Clinton had the highest rating of any of the contenders.
Among those who are still in contention, Barack Obama was second at 6.8.
The highest ranking Republican was John McCain at 6.2 with Mitt Romney on 6.1 and Mike Huckabee on 5.3.
On the basis of appearances alone, then, the researchers predict a Clinton-McCain contest with a Clinton win.
Science reported the Armstrong, Green, Wright, and Jones findings back in early-November when the polls still had Giuliani and Thompson leading McCain for the Republican nomination.
“Essentially the research team hypothesized that the polls would move closer to the facial competence rankings as more voters found out what the candidates looked like - and so it has happened,” Prof Wight said.
“I suppose the take home message for voters is that what you see is not necessarily what you get – it may be efficient for people to choose a president on the basis of snap judgments but that is obviously no real indication of their leadership qualities – as far as we know there is no relationship between looking competent and the real thing. Voters really need to read the policies.
“But for political parties putting forward competent looking candidates is obviously strategically advantageous because it does garner support.”
Full text of the paper is available
online.
Contact for interview
-
Professor Malcolm Wright phone +61 08 8302 7640 mobile 0411 162 751email
malcolm.wright@unisa.edu.au
Media contact
- Michèle Nardelli office (08) 8302 0966 mobile 0418 823 673 email michele.nardelli@unisa.edu.au