Snap Judgments!

3 minute read

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. How many times have we heard this maxim? Judging a book by its cover is a common folly we all fall prey to in our day to day lives. This could happen while hitting on the girl at the bar or while evaluating a candidate during a job interview. We are all well aware that despite our best efforts, we all do fall prey to our bias for looks. However, one would assume that when casting their vote people may not vote based on a candidate’s looks but rather would depend on political leanings, the candidate’s stand on relevant issues or even group think before deciding who to vote for. A recent study may shed some light on how superficial citizens may be when deciding who to vote for.

Psychologists have for years talked about our fight or flight instincts. Human beings have retained the essential evolutionary skill of distinguishing friends from foes. We tend to lean heavily on looks to form our first impressions. For example, psychologists have stated that people’s facial features (such as a broad square chin) and their smiling or frowning disposition are major indicators of how others perceive them at first glance. For example, a person with a broad square chin frowning in a room is likely to be perceived as unpleasant (rightly or wrongly).

This evolutionary tendency was tested by Professor Alexander Todorov in an experiment that he conducted on his students at the University of Chicago. He displayed photos of multiple people for a short duration (sometimes as short as a few mili seconds) and asked the students to rate them on a likability index and a competence index. The students’ responses were similar to each other across all photos for the most part. But these pictures were not random pictures. All the pictures displayed were of candidates that contested elections in the United States. When comparing data on likeability and competence from the experiment, with the eventual election result for the candidates, Professor Todorov observed that candidates who scored well on the likeability and competence index (Based purely off a brief glimpse at the picture) were the eventual winners in 70% of the cases. The results were similar when the picture sample were replicated for electoral candidates in countries like Australia, Germany and Mexico.

Professor Todorov further found that people judge competence by combining the two dimensions of strength and trustworthiness. The faces that exude competence combine a strong chin with a slight, confident appearing smile.

These findings really throw new light on how candidates may be elected. As far as the inference on how people vote, do they consider all issues or vote based on fear rhetoric (As is currently the case). Or, do they vote based on how candidates look and the visual images associated with the candidates. I leave this to the political experts to opine.