Political Affiliation Can Be Differentiated By Appearance 262
quaith writes "It's not the way they dress, but the appearance of their face. A study published in PLoS One by Nicholas O. Rule and Nalini Ambady of Tufts University used closely cropped greyscale photos of people's faces, standardized for size. Undergrads were asked to categorize each person as either a Democrat or Republican. In the first study, students were able to differentiate Republican from Democrat senate candidates. In the second, students were able to differentiate the political affiliation of other college students. Accuracy in both studies was about 60% — not perfect, but way better than chance."
Obvious (Score:2)
This should be easy enough. Hipsters are liberal, hicks are conservative. Pretty easy to identify them from facial hair amongst other cues.
Two things Liberals HATE!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
There are two things Liberals hate!!!!!
1) Red-necks, and
2) Stereotyping
Re: (Score:2)
This should be easy enough. Hipsters are liberal, hicks are conservative. Pretty easy to identify them from facial hair amongst other cues.
There are strange boundary cases however. Like when someone becomes so hipster they're hicks [latfh.com] [Warning, NSFW] like in the Jan 21st picture on that blog. And, like the theoretical Higgs Boson, if one traverses the hick spectrum far enough right they will eventually stumble upon some sort of strange class of so-Broke-Back-Mountain-it's-hipster ... while I don't have any pictures for you the Hipsters/Hicks Research Community That Takes Money from Parents Who Are Worried about Their Youths is all abuzz with th
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Obvious? What party do these folks belong to?
http://tinyurl.com/partymember [tinyurl.com]
Can I join?
Re: (Score:2)
Obvious? What party do these folks belong to?
I can see Teddy Kennedy reaching across the aisle on this one.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
The old saw: "If you're not a liberal when you're young, you have no heart; if you're not a conservative when you're older, you have no brain." (Variants have been attributed to Winston Churchill, though there is no indication that he ever said this)
Age may not be such a bad indicator after all.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Please note that Churchill was English. Liberal and conservative are totally different over there. Liberal means anti-government intervention, conservative means the opposite. For example Margaret Thatcher called Ronald Reagan "the greatest liberal of our time". So yeah, that makes sense- if you're naive you think that markets and good faith will make everything work out ok. When you get older and wise enough to know better, you want society to step in and fix shit.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Liberal and conservative are totally different over there. Liberal means anti-government intervention, conservative means the opposite.
This more or less tracks with America. Democrats want to tax me more, Republicans want to take control of my body and tell me who I can and can't marry. I support Democrats because I oppose intrusive government.
Two types of conservative (Score:4, Interesting)
Fiscal liberals say things like "deficits don't matter" (Rummy), social liberals say things like "I have a dream".
Out of the possible combinations my personal preference is fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Yeah, that usually means more taxes but nobody ever claimed civilization was cheap.
Re: (Score:2)
And if you're a Green who realizes that political power oscillating back and forth between the conservatives and the liberals is a control system with feedback seeking balanced policy over time, then what can we make of you?
Re: (Score:2)
"What can we make of you?"
Soylent green- GREEN!
The environmentally friendly Soylent green.
Try some today.
Re: (Score:2)
And if you're a Green who realizes that political power oscillating back and forth between the conservatives and the liberals is a control system with feedback seeking balanced policy over time, then what can we make of you?
Clueless if not extremely interested in Preference Voting systems?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Nobody voted for McCain. They voted for Palin. And yes, they were urbanally challenged.
Factors Are Likeability, Trustworthiness and Age (Score:3, Interesting)
Factor 1 (46% of variance explained) consisted of high loadings on likeability (.94) and trustworthiness (.97) and low loadings on dominance (.11) and facial maturity (.14). Factor 2 (42% of variance explained) consisted of high loadings on dominance (.92) and facial maturity
My grandmother used to tell me something along the lines of what is often misattributed to Churchill [wikiquote.org]:
If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
And I would also like to point out for the college students that society (especially high school) often pigeonholes people and defines who they are on how they look. The individual sometimes has no choice and sometimes just accepts it and goes with it in order to belong. If you look older when you're young and people might instinctively treat you like a cold Republican. Always looked young and innocent? Then a warm Democrat.
Would be an explanation that agrees with the correlation the research drew to define the deviation from random guessing but nothing conclusive.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm a registered Independant you insensitive clod (well, I was when I was in a state that required you to claim a group to vote in primaries). I don't pick a candidate based on part affiliation.
Re:Factors Are Likeability, Trustworthiness and Ag (Score:5, Funny)
The Churchill quote only demonstrates how clever rhetoric does not an argument make.
I am often amazed at how powerful a beautiful but specious assertion can be. Sometimes it is a compelling analogy that has no actual bearing on the topic at hand. Other times (as in this Churchill case) it is a clever dichotomy that begs the question. This particular quote is a wonderful example of begging the question. It is no more possible to support conservatism with it than it is possible to literally pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
That was an analogy, wasn't it? I hope you didn't find it too beguiling.
Re:Factors Are Likeability, Trustworthiness and Ag (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh the sweet irony of that quote with the current popularity of Fox "News" :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Especially since, as has already been pointed out, the quote comes from England where "Liberal" and "Conservative" mean the opposite parties than they do in the US.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The quote refers to the old Liberal party, not the Lib Dems. The Liberals were the traditionally party of business interests (and so favoured the Commons) and the urban/suburban middle class. They supported free trade, and had the support of several protestant churches.
For comparison, the Conservatives were the party of old money (and so favoured the Lords), the rural middle and upper class, the aristocracy, and those associated with them. They were protectionist, imperialist, and were closer to the High Ch
Re: (Score:2)
There's also the neurological differences between left and right leaning people. If your neurology might lead one toward one direction it might be that trait also carried some... *gasp* physiognomic traits.
Might be neat to do this experiment again by having all the people in the pics clean shaven, wearing a plain white T, and having a neutral facial expression.
Then run it again with the people smiling. Would a smiling face skew the results?
I'd love to have a conservative to vote for (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
Give me a real conservative to vote for, someone who stays out of both my pocket book and my bedroom, someone who restores free markets, someone who slashes corporate subsidies, and someone who restores the principle of personal responsibility in areas such as drugs and medical care and I will vote for him.
Sadly, the closest to a conservative in US politics are Democrats; while fa
Geez, pick the black guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
What a dumb study. Of course you can pick a party affiliation by appearance. First off, if you always say a black guy is a Democrat, you'd be right 90% of the time, based on voting records. That would give you 60% overall correct, even if everything else was 50,50, assuming a sample set that roughly mirrors the population.
Re:Geez, pick the black guy. (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, if you RTFA, the photos of other students were all Caucasian.
So if you always said a "black guy" was a Democrat, it wouldn't have any effect on the results at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
WASP is "white Anglo-Saxon protestant". Southern and Eastern European is definitely not WASP, since they are usually neither Anglo-Saxon nor protestant.
And where are Republicans supposed to come from if not WASP, Irish, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, or black? Is the Republican party only made up of Indians, Native Americans, Chinese, and Japanese? Or what?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
WASP is "white Anglo-Saxon protestant".
Oh! I always thought that WASP was defined as "someone who gets out of the shower to pee."
Re:Geez, pick the black guy. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Geez, pick the black guy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently it's this: people with more powerful looking faces are more likely to be Republican (and are more likely to be chosen as Republican, regardless of their true affiliation), and people with warmer more friendly faces are picked to be Democratic
You should read the paper. They actually linked to the full study this time, so it's a worthy read; if you've never actually read a scientific study before, you'll realize how different real science is compared to how the press is when it reports on science.
when I work the polls I like to try and guess (Score:4, Funny)
When I work the polls each year I try to pass the time by guessing the party affiliations of my voters.
"Hmm, large SUV and business suit. Republican."
"Large breasted college age chick. Democrat."
"Subaru Outback and peacenik bumper stickers. Green Party."
"Pick-up truck and AR-15. Libertarian."
It's amazing how bored you get working a 15 hour day when you only get 40 voters.... ;)
Re:when I work the polls I like to try and guess (Score:5, Funny)
Political affiliation is totally what I'd be thinking about here too.
Re:when I work the polls I like to try and guess (Score:5, Funny)
But don't join the Democratic party thinking you're going to score. Those Dem babes only date Republican jerks.
It's a Democrat thing, and if you aren't in the party you wouldn't understand. We just can't resist a guy who will cynically screw with us then break our hearts.
Re:when I work the polls I like to try and guess (Score:4, Funny)
But don't join the Democratic party thinking you're going to score. Those Dem babes only date Republican jerks.
It's a Democrat thing, and if you aren't in the party you wouldn't understand. We just can't resist a guy who will cynically screw with us then break our hearts.
Yeah...That's the sad thing about being a white liberal man. You're only attractive to other white liberal men.
Mental Pictures Of Libertarians (Score:2)
When I think of the libertarians, one of two images usually come to mind:
1. An overweight wife-swapping gun nut with lots of unkept facial hair chomping on a large turkey leg (and getting large pieces of meat stuck in the beard/mustache). In other words, someone who sort of resembles ESR.
2. A rail thin wife-swapping gun nut who's shaved off all his body hair except what's on his head and who gets all his nutrients from a liquid diet that's supposed to make him live 140 years. In other words, picture someone
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mental Pictures Of Libertarians (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. Liberals pretend they care about the poor while walking past beggars on the street without even making eye contact and consider themselves compassionate when they later complain that someone in a higher tax bracket should take care of him
That's a really insightful observation. A friend of mine is a die hard big city politically correct liberal. Amazingly enough she can't stand to make eye contact with the homeless and is afraid to venture out of her predominately white neighborhood if it means she has to cross into the dark part of town.
The last one was actually the subject of an amusing exchange between of the two of us. Earlier in the day I had noticed an African-American individual walking across the middle of a busy street against the light and nowhere near a crosswalk. I made a comment along the lines of "There goes a negative stereotype" and she jumped on me for being a "racist". Later in the evening when we were driving home I got cut off by someone and honked at them. No big deal, just my natural reaction when confronted with stupidity on the roadway. Of course she flips out and starts worrying that we are going to get shot because (and I quote) "We are white in the wrong part of town!"
So I asked her, who is the racist? The person who makes an off color joke or the person who is afraid to venture into the parts of town that don't conform with their own skin color? Needless to say, she didn't much care for that observation......
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think they are. I'm more than willing to make them at the expense of my own people. Heaven knows that most of us WASPs only got through college and landed good jobs because of Dad's golf buddies ;) Heck, some of the best stereotypes are the white trash ones.....
I honestly don't think repeating a few off color jokes and/or stereotypes make one into a racist. But then I never was a big fan of political correctness.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When I work the polls each year I try to pass the time by guessing the party affiliations of my voters.
"Large breasted college age chick. Democrat."
It's amazing how bored you get working a 15 hour day when you only get 40 voters.... ;)
That's because nobody's ever heard of a nice piece of elephant.
Re:when I work the polls I like to try and guess (Score:4, Insightful)
"Large breasted college age chick. Democrat."
So small breasted college aged chicks are republicans? That explains why they're so angry...
Re: (Score:2)
Independent/unaffiliated
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What would you give an average dressed dude driving a Jetta Turbo?
Gas or Diesel?
Re: (Score:2)
Because we have this fancy technology called "windows" in Upstate New York? Perhaps it hasn't filtered it's way down to you yet?
You can tell by their car (Score:4, Funny)
Lets play a game someone's driving a clunker and they have 80 bumper stickers on it, which way to they lean?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I said 80 bumper stickers though, 2-3 bumper stickers it does matter what they say, but past that it doesn't matter; of all the years I've been driving there was one exception and actually I saw it last week.
Re:You can tell by their car (Score:5, Insightful)
There is the hippy version, which will be some sort of beat-up Volkswagen loaded with "Coexist" stickers and vegan knicknacks and faded campaign paraphernalia either for a local green party candidate or for Nader; back when he was cool. Also likely is the presence of an "evolve" fish, a sticker supporting some candidate for local school board, and the phrase "my karma ran over your dogma".
Then there is the crazy jesus freak version, which will be some sort of beat-up American car plastered with "choose life" and "abortion stops a beating heart" stickers, along with at least one jesus fish(just a basic outline, or an outline with a cross inside if it is a moderate crazy jesus freak, a jesus fish with "truth" inside devouring a legged darwin fish if it is a militant crazy jesus freak). If the driver is male, there will probably be a "Gun control means 3 rounds to center mass" or similar sticker along with proclamations of loyalty to Limbaugh and at least one republican candidate(or a Constitution Party candidate, if the car belongs to a truly 100% USDA Prime wacko). If female, the stickers are more likely emphasize maudlin expressions of hyperemotional christian piety rather than politics.
In rare cases, you may encounter the Heavy Metal clunker, whose political leanings can be quite hard to discern. A rusting, but resplendently airbrushed, van adorned with stickers from bands that take skulls, spikes, umlauts, and succubus bikini chicks with battleaxes extremely seriously. You'll need a pretty solid knowledge of Metal to figure out the politics of the driver. Depending on the bands listed, you could be looking at a more or less apathetic individual who just likes that sort of music, or anything from an anarchist to a white power fascist. A clunker with 80 bumper stickers is a very good indicator that the driver leans hard; but you actually need to read one or two to see which way.
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking the left leaning on my description, main indication being more than 3 bumper stickers.
I've never seen a Jesus freak w/ more than 3 bumper stickers, I've live in a couple of different area's in Jesus land.
Re: (Score:2)
I suppose it is possible, though I don't have nearly the dataset I would need to confirm this rigorously, that such over the top displays are actually somewhat more common in areas where the driver perceives themselves to be surrounded by apathy or opposition rather than agreement. There isn't much point in wearing your views, whatever they are, on your slee
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Way better than chance? (Score:3)
60% versus 50%? How is that WAY better?
Re:Way better than chance? (Score:5, Informative)
60% versus 50%? How is that WAY better?
With a large enough sample size a result like this can be highly statistically significant, but still useless as a predictor.
For example, if I have 2000 marbles, half white and half black, and pull them out randomly and ask you to predict what colour each one is, if you guessed correctly 60% of the time (you got 600 white marbles correct and 600 black marbles correct) you'd be bumping up against three sigma (over 99%) odds of your results NOT being due to chance, but some incredible marble-colour-guessing gene that evolution or possibly archeobacteria had slipped you. Up the number to 20,000 marbles with 60% accuracy and you'd be a proven phenomenon, even though you utility as a marble-colour picker would be pretty much useless unless it also happened to work on a roulette wheel.
This is something that it can be hard for people outside the machine learning community to understand: an enormously significant result, statistically, can still make for a practically useless classifier.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Indeed. Or my take on it: there's a difference between statistically significant and actually significant.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The latter is a subset of the former.
Re: (Score:2)
Its dependant on your sample size.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
One suite, two suite... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You have to be careful about generalizations. They may all be amoral (or not, I don't especially care), but they happen to vote in certain predictable ways, different for each one, so by supporting a certain politician over another, you can in fact get different results. Just don't fall in love with them.
Re: (Score:2)
So Mr. Geisel was hiding social commentary in even the non-obvious spots. Neat.
Re: (Score:2)
Your kidding of course. Well on one level you may be right, like evolution, the principal works on everything, but the strange bedfellows might be a squirel and a squid. So the process of politics, (making comprimises to come to a concensus to get things done is the same, a messy business for sure) but what is being legistlated is very different. You would not see the Republican party trying to enact a program that would keep people from loosing their houses to businesses, or from starving or freezing to de
Hey wait (Score:4, Funny)
And I have invented a method for telling if someone is a criminal by taking various measurements of their head! I think I will call this "phrenology".
Correllation (Score:2)
Guess my affiliation (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not going to state my party affiliation. I'll just say that when I saw that this pointless study was funded by OUR TAX DOLLARS via an NSF grant, I thought, "God help us!"
Re:Guess my affiliation (Score:4, Insightful)
You bemoan a waste of the public treasury, so you could be either Republican or Libertarian. But you called out to your imaginary friend, so that narrows it: you're Republican.
RTFA (Score:3, Informative)
A cursory look at TFA indicates that both types of misclassification rates in this study are found to be in the range 40%-50% (approximately in each study). That is piss-poor. For comparison, a typical Bayesian spam filter has both misclassification rates in the 1% range, and people still complain about that.
The correct conclusion should really be that looking only at peoples' faces is a really bad way to gauge political affiliation. Slow news day, eh?
Interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)
And then it dawned on me. If there is a correlation between appearance and political leanings, how would any causal relationship work? I think the causation of politics determining appearance is the easier one to spot. Most conservatives I know seem to place more of an emphasis on appearance, while the liberals I know place more of an emphasis on ideas; feeling that ideas will stand or fall on their own merit, regardless of the appearance of the messenger. So, liberals don't see as much need for dressing up before trying to pitch their ideas.
Now, the causation from appearance to politics is a little more subtle. My suspicion is that the people who are "less beautiful" are the ones who spend more of their time on the outside of popularity. They're they people who never made the ballot for prom queen, didn't get asked to the school dance, didn't have as many romantic opportunities. They got more of a taste of what it's like to be a "have not" or to be outside of the majority. This experience, I believe, can cause them to have the increased empathy and tendency to "look out for others" that seems to characterize liberal thought.
On the other hand, the people are very attractive or physically gifted had an easier time of things. Athletic success came easier to the "natural born athletes", and the pretty or charismatic people had an easier time getting others to back their ideas or plans. Things just went a little easier for them. Because we can only experience the world through our own eyes, I can see how the "beautiful people" could believe that (as it was for them) one only needs to apply themselves to a goal and it'll work out. This could give rise to the "anybody willing to work hard will find success" mindset that we tend to see in conservatives.
FACES OF YOUR CANDIDATES (Score:5, Funny)
More CHOICE than ever before!
http://tinyurl.com/democratface [tinyurl.com]
http://tinyurl.com/republicanface [tinyurl.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
They used Temple records to find the Jews, and names, the stereotyping by feature was just something to stir up the Volk.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Next time, click both links before you post.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Critics of President Obama have called his goals socialist
Those critics are idiots since they dont know what socialist means.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Apparently you don't know what fascist or communist means. Really, you should get your education from somewhere other than Fox News.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I try to watch a broad spectrum of all the news outlets...from the two extremes (Fox vs MSNBC) to everything in between.
I dunno...let's see, under the Obama administration, the federal govt has pretty much taken ownership of multiple banks, and private businesses, and is looking to instill even more laws telling said businesses what they can and can't do..and wha
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1) Banks are taken over by the government every year since the inception of the FDIC. The FDIC promptly sells them off (to some other bank). The ownership by the FDIC is for an extremely short period of time and the sale is usually worked out before they even take control of the failing bank.
2) What are all these other private businesses he's taking over?
3) Capitalism is merely ownership of private property (look it up if you don't believe me). Nothing more. Free markets and everything else is shit that
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you kidding? This isn't ten coin flips with a 4:6 result... this was 118, and ALL the results point to an increase in probability of a successful guess. If it were up to chance, none of those samples would point in the right direction, however they all *do*.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
10% == way better! RTFS!
Re:Better than chance? (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, the Republican candidate is usually the one with a blue suit jacket with American Flag pin, white shirt and tie. Often they have the jacket slung over their shoulder and their sleeves rolled up.
The Democratic candidate, of course, is the one with a blue suit jacket with American Flag pin, white shirt and tie. Look for them carrying their jacket slung over their shoulder with their sleeves rolled up.
Then there's hair. Republicans either have naturally good hair, or they overcompensate so much that their hair looks like a mutated doughboy helmet. They never have beards. The Democrats on the other hand either have obviously elaborate and expensive haircuts, although many of them just have naturally good hair. Key point: they're always clean shaven.
Now as to actual policies -- don't get me started on that.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why I support the Unix Sysadmin Party.
Did you know that after Lincoln worked through Euclid's elements on his own? After his electoral defeat for the House of Representatives, he decided his thinking needed sharpening. Clearly, the USP is the true heir to this man.
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't expect you to have read the article, but at least read the summary.
A study published in PLoS One by Nicholas O. Rule and Nalini Ambady of Tufts University used closely cropped greyscale photos of people's faces, standardized for size.
The article explained further:
Each photo was cropped to the extremes of the targets' heads (top of head, bottom of chin, sides of hair or ears), converted to grayscale, and standardized for size. To avoid race-based stereotypes, racial minority candidates were excluded from the study.
In the first study, they took photos from politicians websites and eliminated any responses that recognized said politicians. In the second study, they took random photos of college seniors from 2000-2008 and no participants recognized any of the photos.
So no, the way in which individuals carried themselves or their dress should not have had much affect, if any, on the way the photos were categorized.
Re: (Score:2)
Right next to the "I don't understand statistics and won't bother to read their methodology" tag.
Re: (Score:2)
Out in the tag dorms, taking a nap and waiting for a story where it might actually be relevant.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hey buddy,
We've turned -another- century since then, so what did Germany do with their Healthcare in the 2000s?
Re: (Score:2)
Same socialized healthcare system since 1889, mediocre care after you get old enough you can't afford private healthcare anymore. However I wasn't commenting so much on the healthcare system pro and cons, but that eugenics really can't go anywhere without it, and eugenics really belongs a hundred years behind us. I should have phrased that the turn of last century. It doesn't matter if your black, asian, have a meat face, or are pretty, there's really no reason to categorize anyone based on appearances,
Re: (Score:2)
When the progressives nationalized healthcare system started going up in smoke I assumed eugenics wouldn't stand a chance of coming back, because if you can't force "healthcare" on people then what good is sorting them out by appearance. I'm not sure where this is going unless they truly feel they can get the socialized healthcare (circa germany turn of the century) fully implemented.
Appearance for political stance
Head bumps for intelligence
eyebrows for demeanor
nose shape for whether you should be humanely euthanized.
We've seen this movie before.
Completely wrong conclusion. This study would be an indicator of facial expression, tension, stress level, and other subtle cues. My guess from experience is that the Reps were more likely to have tension/anger lines, and the Dems were more likely to have silly smiles.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course every party thinks the other party is angrier. Truth is when you get to the ends of both parties there is a lot of anger. I would however say that discontentment is more on the democrats side, because conservatism is more about staying the same, or returning to better times whereas liberalism is about correcting grave injustices right?
Who would be more discontent, the person who wants to change things, or the person who wants them to stay the same? I guess it depends on if things are changing o
Re: (Score:2)
Need to watch the hand doing the gesturing too. Democrats tend to cup the hand while Republicans tend to have a closed hand (not as tight as a fist) with the thumb sticking up.
Re: (Score:2)
And politicians are an edge case - the youngest current senator is a 40-year old Republican and the oldest senator is a 92-year-old Democrat. Senators (and indeed all national politicians) as a class ar