Ideasroom

Danny Osborne: Most Kiwis vote for looks

Debates, discussions, expert analysis are all very well - but the scary thing is that a good proportion of people vote for the face they like the look of.

As a political psychology lecturer, people often ask me two questions. The first question usually focuses on what it is like to give therapy to politicians. Once I explain that political psychology is not about “treating” politicians, but rather, understanding why voters support certain candidates and policies, I receive a follow-up question. Why do people vote the way they do? And I always wish I had a simple answer – but something as complicated as politics can only be explained by multiple factors.

One of the most consistent findings in political psychology is that voters are, for better or worse, less informed than your Civics instructor might hope. In fact, some estimates suggest only two percent of the population think in “ideological” terms—the “gold standard” for sophisticated reasoning about politics. Rather, most people view elections as a chance to reward or punish the party in power based on general beliefs about the current state of affairs. Or, elections are, at best, a time in which one’s favourite party has a chance to beat out “other” parties. The issues, save for one or two that may be held dear for idiosyncratic reasons, tend to fall by the wayside.

So how do voters choose if they fall short of the lofty standards set by academics? One answer is that we cut corners and use heuristics—shortcuts that help us to decide without using too much cognitive effort—to help us decide. One of the most influential heuristics in politics is party identification. It does not require an advanced degree in politics to guess the kinds of policies supported by Labour or National. And it’s a pretty safe bet that, if the Greens propose a new policy on the environment, it is going to be on the side of environmental protection. We usually do not take the extra time and effort to read the fine details of the policy. Just seeing red, blue, or green (or pick a colour) next to a policy gives us a good idea of what the policy stands for and whether we will support it.

Looks matter and people are quick to judge a book (or politician) by its cover.

Another (surprising) heuristic people use when deciding for whom to vote is a politician’s appearance. In a 2005 study led by Princeton psychologist Alexander Todorov, participants were shown a series of paired photos and asked to choose which of the two faces ‘looked’ more competent than the other. After making their selection, participants were presented with another photo pair until all pairs were seen. What the participants did not know was that the photo pairs were of actual Republicans and Democrats running against each other in congressional elections. Despite being unaware of the true purpose of the study, naïve participants chose the winning candidate over 70 percent of the time! To test the replicability of their results, the authors showed a separate group the same pairs of faces for one second. Even under these highly restrictive conditions, participants’ snap judgments of a candidate’s competence predicted 67.6 percent of the actual electoral outcomes. So it would seem that people use heuristics to vote, and facial cues offer a window to the soul.

I was recently involved in a similar study led by Will Hayward and Matt Oxner that used the faces of New Zealand politicians from the 2014 General Election to see if the results from Todorov and colleagues study in 2005 would extend beyond the US’s two-party system. To ensure no one recognised our politicians’ faces, we had participants from the US rate either how attractive, old, or competent each face appeared. We then used these data to predict the actual vote share politicians received in their electorate. Lo and behold, the more competent the face, the more likely the candidate was to win his/her electorate. In fact, given a hypothetical matchup between the most and least competent looking politician, the most competent-looking politician would be nearly 200 times more likely than the least competent-looking politician to win their electorate, all else being equal. Looks matter and people are quick to judge a book (or politician) by its cover.

We should focus on policies and choose what is best for our country (and ourselves). Ironically, the constant bombardment of information brought about by the internet and social media may make this more, not less, difficult.

But how accurate are our assessments? When it comes to our ability to infer traits based on a face, we are extremely confident, but unbearably inaccurate. A study by Professor Stephen Porter and colleagues in 2008 presented participants with pairs of faces and asked them to indicate which of the two faces was more trustworthy. What participants did not know was that they were viewing faces of Nobel Peace Prize winners and humanitarians paired with America’s Most Wanted criminals. Seems like an easy task, right? Wrong. Participants were only able to correctly identify the untrustworthy face 59 percent of the time—a rate only slightly better than chance! The heuristics we use to infer others’ traits—shortcuts we also take when deciding for whom to vote—can be terribly wrong!

If our heuristics can lead us astray, what is the solution? Without getting too pedantic, we should focus on policies and choose what is best for our country (and ourselves). Ironically, the constant bombardment of information brought about by the internet and social media may make this more, not less, difficult. Fortunately, there are a few helpful voter information tools out there that can help you decide.

My colleagues, Lisa Chant (AUT), Jennifer Lees-Marshment (University of Auckland), Jack Vowles (Victoria University) and I, as well as the good folks at Vox Pop Labs, developed Vote Compass to help users see where their views sit in relation to the positions taken by most of the parties involved in this year’s election. Although we recognise that people weigh-up many (many!) factors when deciding to support or oppose a party, Vote Compass helps users wade through the information-rich environment in order to identify which parties sit closest to them on a range of 30 different policies. Aren’t there more than 30 policies out there? Certainly. But voter information tools like Vote Compass help to distil the constant stream of information into a digestible format that focuses on the issues, which will hopefully decrease voters’ reliance on simple heuristics.

Regardless of how, or for whom, you decide to vote, only one thing truly matters on Election Day and that is that you get out and vote.

*The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of his colleagues (i.e., Lisa Chant, Will Hayward, Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Matt Oxner, and Jack Vowles), Vox Pop Labs, or the University of Auckland.