People Can Differentiate Dictators And Elected Leaders Just From Pictures

This interesting article published by Psych News Daily is by By Douglas Heingartner:

A new study has found that people can classify a photo of an unfamiliar politician as either an autocrat or a democratically-elected leader, with an accuracy of almost 70%. The participants also rated the photos of elected leaders as more attractive, likable, and trustworthy than those of the dictators.

The research paper, conducted by Canada-based researchers Miranda Giacomin, Alexander Mulligan, and Nicholas O. Rule, was published on February 4 in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Politicians’ faces influence voters

People’s faces offer many clues about their social status, personality, and political leanings. For example, even children can pick the winner of foreign elections based on quick judgments of facial photographs. People can also correctly classify US political candidates as either Republican or Democratic based on their faces. Similar results have also been found in Switzerland.

Read the full article here.