Voters Choose Politicians by Similarity to Their Own Personality
Research examining people's perceptions of politicians suggests voters go for candidates with similar personalities to their own.
The evidence comes from studies of both American and Italian voters in recent presidential and prime ministerial elections. Perceived personality might even influence voters more than a politician's programs or policies.
The research, conducted by Professor Gian Vittorio Caprara and colleagues from the University of Rome and R. Chris Fraley at the University of Illinois, was published in the Journal of Political Psychology. It examined both American and Italian voters in Presidential and Prime Ministerial elections respectively:
- John F. Kerry versus George W. Bush in 2004: 6,094 American voters completed questionnaires on their own perceived personalities and those of the presidential candidates. The results showed that people perceived themselves as having more similar personalities to their preferred candidate.
Kerry was perceived by voters as more open-minded than Bush, and voters who voted for Kerry felt the same way about themselves. Bush was seen as particularly agreeable and conscientious although the results were less clear-cut than those for Kerry. The authors suggest Bush benefited from a 'positivity bias' because he was the incumbent. - Romano Prodi (centre-left) versus Silvio Berlusconi (centre-right) in 2006: The same personality survey of 1,675 Italian voters showed they perceived themselves as more similar to their preferred candidate.
Burlusconi was seen as more energetic and outgoing (extraverted), which is how those voting for him saw themselves. Prodi, however, was seen as more friendly and, similarly, his supporters saw themselves as more agreeable.
These findings are in line with previous studies that have found voters are, on average, less influenced by policies and programs than they are by their personal similarity to the candidates. Similarities in attitudes are particularly important in promoting liking, so that people vote for those who share similar attitudes to their own. This study extends these finding to personalities.
To social psychologists this makes perfect sense as there is a long history of research into how similarities promote liking. People are more inclined to like those who have similar values, beliefs and even share demographic variables with themselves.
How can candidates appear to be all things to all people?Of course politicians and their campaign advisors know very well that voters often choose on the basis of personality. The question for them is: how can the candidate appear to be all things to all people?
From their study the authors suggest that the most important personality characteristic for candidates to exude is agreeableness. This is because it is agreeableness that people are most likely to rate highly in themselves. If people's voting choices are really heavily swayed by perceived similarities in personality then it is agreeableness that should win out at the polls.
[Image credit: Barack Obama]
Reference
Caprara, G. V., Vecchione, M., Barbaranelli, C., & Fraley, R. C. (2007). When Likeness Goes with Liking: The Case of Political Preference. Political Psychology, 28(5), 609-632.
Labels: Political Psychology
When the Self Emerges: Is That Me in the Mirror?
To this day the 'mirror test' remains the best experiment yet developed for examining the emergence of self-concept in infants.
Top 10 child psychology study: Most people look out for number one, themselves, which makes it strange to think that there was ever a time when we had no concept of 'me'. A simple study dating from the early 70s suggests that before the age of around two years old we can't recognise ourselves in the mirror. Because of this study, and the many variations that have followed, some claim that it isn't until our second birthday that our self-concept emerges.
A smudge of rouge on the nose
In 1972 Beulah Amsterdam from the University of North Carolina published a study that has kicked-off decades of research on self-recognition (Amsterdam, 1972). The study's procedure was simple. Infants between the ages of 6 and 24 months were placed in front of a mirror after a spot of rouge had been surreptitiously put on their noses. Then their mothers pointed to the reflection in the mirror and asked the child: "Who's that?". Researchers than watched infants' behaviour.
After testing 88 infants Amsterdam could only obtain reliable data on 16 of them - infants will be infants and many didn't want to play. From these 16 infants Amsterdam found three categories of response:
- 6-12 months: it's another baby! The child behaves as though the infant in the mirror is someone else - someone they'd like to be friendly with. They display approach behaviours such as smiling and making noises.
- 13-24 months: withdrawal. The infants no longer seem particularly happy at catching their own image in the mirror. Some look a little wary while others will smile occasionally and make some noises. One interpretation of this behaviour is that the infants are acting self-consciously here (perhaps demonstrating self-concept), but it could also be a reaction to another child.
- 20-24 months onwards: it's me! From around this age infants start to clearly recognise themselves by pointing to the spot of rouge on their own noses. This strongly suggest they have realised the image is themselves and the spot of rouge is on their own nose.
Although Amsterdam's results were from a small sample size, they have subsequently been repeated with many more participants. Also, later studies with control conditions have found infants in this age-range don't touch their nose if it isn't marked with rouge. This showed that touching the nose isn't somehow a natural reaction for infants to seeing own reflection.
Self-concept or just self-recognition?
Of course this study simplifies a mass of psychological complexity. Psychologists have raised all sorts of questions about what the mirror test reveals. It could be, for example, that infants just don't understand faces particularly well until they are around two years old. Perhaps, then, they develop a self-concept at a much earlier stage.
Alternatively it could be that at around two years old infants develop a solid physical or visual self-concept, but still have little mental self-concept. In this case all the test is showing is that we know what we look like; perhaps we don't develop our self-concept until much later in life.
Results are especially ambiguous because only limited tests can be carried out on children.These are just two common explanations, I'm sure you can think of more alternatives. This multitude of possibilities illustrates one of the major hurdles in child psychology: results are especially ambiguous because only limited tests can be carried out on children. Still, despite these alternatives, the mirror test has proved remarkably hardy over the years and is still used today while other tests have fallen by the wayside.
The social child
One of the reasons for its resilience is that it seems likely that self-concept might well emerge at this age from all the other things we know about children. It is from around 2 to 4 years of age that children start to display a rapid increase in their social behaviour. Being able to distinguish yourself from other people is fundamental to successful social relationships rather than simple interactions. It seems unlikely that infants would be able to build relationships with others without some limited concept of themselves.
Being able to distinguish yourself from other people is fundamental to successful social relationships.The mirror test has also been used on other animals to test their self-concept, indeed the test was originally carried out on chimpanzees by Professor Gordon Gallup a few years before Amsterdam. All the great apes 'pass' the test, along with dolphins, whales and elephants. In one recent study an 8ft mirror was placed in the elephant enclosure at New York's Bronx Zoo and the elephants had marks painted on their heads. Researchers who kept watch on the elephants' reactions saw them touch the paint marks on their own heads.
It's no coincidence that elephants, like the other animals that pass the test, have complex social systems. Basic self-recognition is key to being able to relate to others; with this knowledge infants take their first faltering steps into the social world.
[Image credit: slimninja]
Reference
Amsterdam, B. (1972). Mirror image reactions before age two. Developmental Psychobiology, 5, 297-305.
Labels: Child Psychology
Why You're a Sucker for the Impact Bias
The impact bias is our tendency to overestimate our emotional reaction to future events. Research shows that most of the time we don't feel as bad as we expect to when things go wrong. Similarly we usually don't get quite the high we expect when things go right for us. There are exceptions - such as being in a bad mood will tend to make us more realistic about future positive events - but these are far from the norm.
Studies have found that:
- Two months after a relationship finishes people are generally not as unhappy as they expect.
- Sports fans are generally not as happy as they expect when their team wins.
- Academics overestimate how happy they will be when given tenure, and also overestimate their unhappiness at being denied tenure.
This research also show that people overestimate both the initial intensity of their emotional reaction, and also how long it will go on for.
Causes of the impact bias
The impact bias is a pretty reliable finding, so why does it happen? Wilson and Gilbert (2005) find two main reasons:
- Focalism: when people think about the impact of future events they tend to forget about all the other things that are going on in their lives. In reality the one event we are imagining will likely be overshadowed by all sorts of other events that happen at the same time. We conveniently forget that the future will always contain many other events we can't predict, some positive and some negative.
- Sense-making: people have a natural tendency to rationalise what happens to them. When something bad happens we initially feel unhappy but immediately start searching for the underlying reasons. Once when we've decided on the cause(s) of this bad event, we start to feel better. For us bad events that are predictable and which submit to rational explanation are not as scary as random unexplained bad events.
Unfortunately the same process also works for positive events - when we rationalise them we reduce their impact on us (read more on this in my post on how to feel more pleasure).
Both making sense of an event as well as our tendency for focalism probably happen either completely unconsciously or at least partially unconsciously. Consequently we often don't realise we're doing it.
How can you correct for the impact bias?
Considering that these processes are probably unconscious it may be difficult. But evidence does suggest two options. When considering how a future event will affect you:
- Think about all the other events that will happen in the future; consciously widen your future focus.
- Remember that you will usually quickly rationalise any event, thereby reducing its emotional impact on you. This is good news for negative events, but less good for positive events. To feel more pleasure, do all you can to hold on to the mystery.
» This post is the first in a series on biases in our affective forecasting.
» Read more on the science of happiness.
[Image credit: only alice]
Reference
Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2005). Affective Forecasting: Knowing What to Want. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(3), 131-134.
Labels: Affective Forecasting
How to Feel More Pleasure: Crank up the Mystery
We naturally like to try and figure out other people's motivations; using rationality to reduce uncertainty helps us make sense of the world. The problem is that sober and logical reflection seems to kill the pleasure and romance of a moment. Sometimes it's better to be kept in the dark, better to just marvel at the unexpected bounty that has come our way. Truly not knowing can mean intrigue and excitement. Don't try to make sense of it, just enjoy it!
But is there any evidence for the idea that mystery increases pleasure? University of Virginia social psychologist Professor Timothy D. Wilson and colleagues have applied some cool rationality to all this romance and mystery nonsense and discovered there just might be some truth to it. Here's what they did.
A $1 present
"We like to promote Random Acts of Kindness! Have a nice day!"Experimenters set out across campus to the library armed with two types of cards, both with dollar coins attached to them (Wilson, Centerbar, Kermer & Gilbert, 2005). These two types of cards were almost identical: both had a big smiley face at the top, and next to it was written "This is for you!". Underneath there was some text saying: "The Smile Society, A Student/Community Secular Alliance. We like to promote Random Acts of Kindness! Have a nice day!". On the other card the only difference was that the statements had matching questions of "Who are we?" and "Why do we do this?".
So both cards had pretty much the same information on them, but one also had corresponding questions. A preliminary study confirmed that people saw the cards with the questions as providing a better logical explanation of the unexpected gift, whereas without the questions the gift was more mysterious.
They randomly chose people sitting in the library and gave them one of the two cards with the $1 attached. Then, under the guise of carrying out a different study a short time later, they got a measure of their mood.
The results showed that those who were less certain about why they'd been given a gift remained happier than those who were more certain. So it does seem that mystery prolongs the pleasure.
Different situations
The experimenters followed up with two further tests of the idea in different circumstances. In one participants watched an uplifting film based on a true story. They were then given two passages to read about what had happened to the person after the film. These were both positive but differed slightly in their details. One group was told which was the true story, the other group was kept in the dark. Again, the uncertain group were in a more positive mood for longer after seeing the film.
Those who were uncertain which of the six had praised them were happier with their positive feedback for longer.In the second situation participants thought they were involved in a study about other people's impression of them online. After interacting with six different people they were given positive feedback about the impression they had made. In one group participants were told specifically which of the six people had given them feedback, whereas in the other group they weren't. As in the previous two studies those who were more uncertain were happier with their positive feedback for longer.
The explanation
It might seem strange that increased uncertainty can maximise pleasure in these situations because uncertainty is often associated with anxiety. People automatically do their best to avoid uncertainty - it is how we cope with negative emotional events. Research shows that when people are exposed to traumatic events, the sooner they 'make sense' of what has happened, the sooner the negative emotion is reduced and they recover.
We try to reduce our uncertainty by explaining positive events and thereby reduce the amount of positive emotion we feel.Exactly the same process seems to operate for positive emotions. We try to reduce our uncertainty by explaining positive events and thereby reduce the amount of positive emotion we feel. It's an unfortunate consequence of an adaptive process that normally helps us recover from traumatic and upsetting events.
So, the next time you give someone an unexpected gift and they ask why, just smile mysteriously and let them enjoy the moment for a little longer. Sometimes explanations really do kill the magic.
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[Image credit: amortize]
References
Wilson, T. D., Centerbar, D. B., Kermer, D. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2005). The pleasures of uncertainty: Prolonging positive moods in ways people do not anticipate. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(1), 521.
Labels: Happiness
Educational Resources from Uniview Worldwide
Teachers know that even with the best lesson plans it can sometimes be hard to keep students engaged. Use of multimedia resources, though, can provide variety and stimulation to the discussion by injecting life into theoretical and abstract ideas.
Popular choices for psychology teachers are classic documentaries such as Dr Philip Zimbardo's Quiet Rage, which includes archival footage of the original 1973 Stanford Prison Study. Watching this video is guaranteed to capture interest and provoke discussion on the power of the situation as well as ethical issues in psychological experimentation.
Uniview is the only UK distributor of footage from many classic psychology studies. As well as the documentary of the Stanford Prison Study, they have videos on John Bowlby, Albert Bandura, Jean Piaget and many more.
Uniview produce their own resources including their Psychology Live series. This includes DVDs covering areas such as attention, memory, perception and cognitive development (you can view sample clips on their website). They have also produced a 'Train your Brain' interactive CD-ROM with Cara Flanagan which teaches study skills, revision methods and exam techniques.
Uniview don't just cover psychology, they also sell multimedia materials for:
- Social studies
- Science & Sport Studies
- PSHE & Citizenship
- Health & Social Care
- Professional Development
You can keep up to date with Uniview and their products by signing up for their termly e-newsletter which includes special offers.
» Find out more at Uniview Worldwide.
Labels: Paid Review
How Children Learn the Earth Isn't Flat
A classic study of childhood learning suggests true understanding comes from letting go of established preconceptions.
Top 10 child psychology study: Imagine the revelations we all once absorbed: humans are descended from apes, numbers can be usefully replaced by letters to solve problems and the Earth is (near-enough) a sphere which rotates around the sun. Despite their momentous importance for our understanding of everything around us, these facts can seem relatively trivial now, just as they were all in a day's work when we learnt them back in school.
What mental processes take us from mere rote learning to genuine understanding?However obvious these ideas might seem now, there was once a time when we just didn't get it, a time when maths was just numbers, humans were a species apart and the Earth was flat. How children revise their understanding of the world is one of the most fascinating areas of child psychology. But it is not just relevant to children; we all have to take on new concepts from time-to-time - even though they may not be as profound as the origin of the species.
It's tempting to think that learning is largely about memory - especially since in the bad old days of education learning was largely accomplished by rote. Of course fully appreciating complex ideas is about more than just memory, it's about understanding. But what mental processes take us from mere rote learning to genuine understanding?
We create, and then test, mental models of the way the world works in order to build up our understanding.A classic child psychology study carried out by Professors Stella Vosniadou and William Brewer provides a central insight into how we reach genuine understanding. They used a cognitive psychological theory called 'mental models' which suggests we create, and then test, mental models of the way the world works in order to build up our understanding. This theory implies there might be a series of intermediate points where we have some grasp of a concept, but it isn't yet complete. It's these intermediate mental models that Vosniadou and Brewer wanted to look at for evidence of understanding in progress.
What shape is the Earth?
For their study Vosniadou and Brewer (1991) interviewed sixty children who were between 6 and 11-years-old. Each was asked 48 questions, starting with the relatively innocuous: "What shape is the Earth?", and then moving on to more probing questions designed to reveal the mental model of the Earth they were using.
While most of the children started off well by representing the Earth as a circle, it soon became clear to the researchers that children had all kinds of different mental models. When asked what would happen if you kept walking and walking for ages and ages, many replied that you would fall off, which was surprising given that they thought the Earth was a sphere. Some even said you would fall off onto another planet. Others said that while the Earth was round we live on a flat surface inside it.
At first the answers seemed rather haphazard and inconsistent, as though children were just making them up. But then, with further questioning, a clear pattern of responses began to emerge (brackets contain the number of children displaying this mental model):
- Rectangular Earth: thought the Earth was a flat rectangle which you could fall off (1/60).
- Disc Earth: thought the Earth was a flat disc which you could fall off (1/60).
- Dual Earth: thought that one 'Earth' is flat which we are standing on and there is another 'Earth' in the sky that is round. Their answers revealed they saw the planet as flat when asked about 'the ground', but round when asked about 'the Earth' (8/60).
- Hollow sphere: thought we live inside the Earth on a flat area (12/60).
- Flattened sphere: thought that the Earth was a flattened sphere so that there were areas on the top (and the bottom) where people could live (4/60).
- Sphere: the amount of children demonstrating the conventional view steadily increased across the age ranges examined (23/60).
- Mixed models: the rest of the children either did not give consistent answers or models could not be constructed for them (11/60).
The fact that four-fifths of the children could be fitted into clearly defined categories shows how we are likely to construct the same types of mental models as each other, both accurate and inaccurate.
Understanding in progress
These results show the mind working to come to terms with a brand new concept that is fundamentally alien to the senses. Our everyday experience suggests the Earth must be flat, otherwise, as gravity pulls us down, we'd slide off it. This is our first 'mental model' of the Earth. Then we are taught the Earth is approximately spherical and we try to update our original model but, it appears, for a period we get stuck in between.
It's these intermediate mental models that point to how we try to make sense of new concepts by first trying to integrate them into our current understanding in some way. The hollow sphere and the dual Earth models that children adopted are two examples of this. Both are ways of trying to hold both the flat Earth and spherical Earth models at the same time.
What was holding back the children's learning was their presupposition, coming from everyday experience, that the Earth is flat. Until they let go of this old way of looking at the Earth, they can't fully embrace a new view; they can only create an ugly, if occasionally ingenious, compromise. Established presuppositions from personal experience are powerful factors which are difficult to let go of, even when contradictory evidence is staring us right in the face. Sometimes real understanding is less about learning new concepts than letting go of old ones.
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[Image credit: MAPPA MUNDI in JEAN MANSEL La Fleur des Histoires. Valenciennes, 1459-1463, manoscritto, penna, inchiostro e colori su pergamena, 30 X 22 cm (carta). Bruxelles, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, MS. 9231, fol. 281v. Mappa attribuita a Simom Marmion]
References
Vosniadou, S., & Brewer, W. F. (1992). Mental Models of the Earth: A Study of Conceptual Change in Childhood. Cognitive Psychology, 24(4), 535-85.
Labels: Child Psychology
Can Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Access the Unconscious?
Reading psychoanalyst Darian Leader's new book about depression, The New Black, I was transfixed by his attack on Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT). CBT is now the psychological treatment-du-jour for depression both in the US, the UK and elsewhere. Randomised controlled studies show it is effective and is a treatment that can be delivered in a relatively limited time.
Leader, however, argues CBT is superficial:
"CBT sees people's symptoms as the outcome of faulty learning. With proper re-education, they can correct their behaviour and bring it closer to the desired norm. In itself, CBT is a form of conditioning that aims at mental hygiene. It has no place for the realities of sexuality or violence that lie at the heart of human life. These are seen as anomalies or learning errors rather than as primary and fundamental types.
[...]
[CBT is] a superficial treatment [that] cannot access unconscious complexes and drives. What it can do is provide results on paper that keep NHS managers happy. It comes equipped with its own evaluative tests and questionnaires, which tend to give very positive results."
Although there is a lot to take issue with here, there is some truth to Leader's argument. For example CBT does have its roots in learning theory and behaviourism and so it does rely on tackling depression through relearning different correspondences between thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Where we part company is when Leader claims that CBT cannot access unconscious complexes and drives. This is exactly the sort of criticism that would be expected from a psychoanalyst as unconscious complexes and drives are their stock in trade.
Psychologists have found it remarkably easy to influence our unconscious processes with relatively minor stimuli.While this may only be a small point en route to a grander thesis about depression, unfortunately this statement reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about unconscious processes. In study after study psychologists have found it remarkably easy to influence our unconscious processes with relatively minor stimuli. Whether we realise it or not our unconscious is continually being affected by things we see, hear, feel, touch and think. If a smiley emoticon on a computer screen can access our unconscious processes then CBT can as well.
To argue otherwise probably indicates a radically different understanding of the unconscious than my own. This was too much for me and soon after reading this section I put the book down, never to return.
So, to find out what the rest of the book was like I turned to the reviews. Lisa Appignanesi, whose previous books include Freud's Women, gives it a thumbs up in The Independent:
"Leader has grown into a fine writer, one who can untangle the complexities of the great psychoanalytic thinkers - Freud, Klein and the notoriously difficult Lacan - and turn them into the more common sense that the English language demands, while dipping into contemporary culture, high and low. Depression, he argues, is not just a set of pre-ordained symptoms, but as "multiple and varied as those who are told they suffer from it"."
Jenny Diski, however, writing in The Sunday Times is not convinced, and one of her reasons is not dissimilar to my own:
"But why, other than that we are culturally steeped in it, and Leader clearly believes it to be axiomatic, should we accept Freud's view of the unconscious processes, and the psychoanalytic theory that stems from it? Some people have felt better after seeing analysts (or other talk therapists) over extended periods, but Leader's consulting-room anecdotes offer nothing more than his presumption about what it is that works in analysis."
Perhaps, though this book holds some interest for those who are steeped in psychoanalysis?
"Leader has nothing particularly original to say about depression. The bulk of the book depends on Freud's view of depression in the 1917 essay Mourning and Melancholia, and later interpretations by Abraham, Klein and Lacan."
So maybe not. And from what I read of the book I'd encourage you to believe Jenny Diski.
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Labels: Book Reviews
Forget Rich Lists, Read the 'Happy List'
As an antidote to 'rich lists', the Independent on Sunday has produced a 'Happy List':
The full 'happy list', including, "profiles of 100 people who make Britain a better and a happier place to live" is here.
"The Wealth List, Power List, Influence List, Celebrity List... almost every week some publication or other is worshipping at the shrine of the wealthy and famous. Today, 'The Sunday Times' produces its famous Rich List, an entire magazine devoted to the moneyed. About time, then, we thought, that someone produced an antidote. So here it is: the Happy List, celebrating those Britons who have given back, enhanced the lives of others and realised that in an acquisitive society there's a crying need for values other than mere materialism."
The full 'happy list', including, "profiles of 100 people who make Britain a better and a happier place to live" is here.
Labels: Happiness