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."
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.
One suite, two suite... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Better than chance? (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:correlation is not causation (Score:1, Insightful)
Where's the "correlation is not causation" tag?
It's not there for a reason. This is a study about correlation, doesn't speak to causation. "Correlation != causation" would be redundant, if you RTFO.
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: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: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.
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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 far from perfect conservatives, they do better in terms of liberties and fiscal responsibility. Republicans, on the other hand, restrict liberties, want a nanny state, are fiscally irresponsible, and waste even more money than the Democrats on their corporate buddies; Republicans, sadly, are even less conservative than Democrats.
Re:Obvious (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.
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Re:If Obama is not a local or state socialist (Score:3, Insightful)
Critics of President Obama have called his goals socialist
Those critics are idiots since they dont know what socialist means.
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......
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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: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.
Re:If Obama is not a local or state socialist (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 what they can and cannot pay.
That certainly doesn't sound much like Capitalism to me...
Re:Two types of conservative (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, actually, he has a point. It would be more conservative to reduce spending to control living within your means then to take from other productive citizens to achieve the same goals. Granted this wouldn't always be possible but it's not very fiscally conservative if your recklessly spending your income either.
Balancing your budget by limiting spending would be more conservative if it's possible. It won't always be possible but the US government does a lot of spending outside it's constitutional allowed/allotted areas which could could be cut in order to avoid raising taxes.