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Democrats and republicans can be differentiated from their faces
Nicholas O Rule1, Nalini Ambady
1Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, United States of America. nicholas.rule@tufts.edu
Plos One
|January 22, 2010
Summary
Political affiliation can be accurately discerned from faces, suggesting stereotypes influence perceptions. Republicans are seen as more powerful, while Democrats are perceived as warmer, guiding political categorization beyond chance.
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Political Psychology
- Facial Perception
Background:
- Facial features convey significant information, though much is ambiguous.
- While some facial cues like race and sex are obvious, others are not.
- This study explores the discernibility of political affiliation from facial cues.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if political affiliations (Democrat/Republican) can be accurately identified from faces.
- To examine the relationship between perceived facial traits and political affiliation.
- To determine if stereotypes guide political categorization from facial appearance.
Main Methods:
- Study 1: Participants identified political affiliation of U.S. Senate candidates from photos.
- Study 2: Participants identified political affiliation of college students from yearbook photos.
- Study 3: Assessed perceived traits (power, warmth) and their correlation with political affiliation.
Main Results:
- Political affiliations were accurately discerned from faces in both candidate and student studies.
- Republicans were perceived as more powerful than Democrats.
- Perceptions of power correlated with Republican identification; perceptions of warmth correlated with Democrat identification.
Conclusions:
- Facial perceptions of traits stereotypically associated with political parties guide affiliation categorization.
- These stereotype-guided categorizations are significantly more accurate than chance.
- Political affiliation can be inferred from faces based on perceived trait differences.
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