University-led research finds politicians can influence voters with facial expressions
New research led by Aston University’s Dr Carl Senior has found that the type of smile used by a political leader can influence voters to support them and their political agenda.
There are many different types of smile, and the researchers, which also included Professor Patrick Stewart from the University of Arkansas, US, Professor Erik Bucy from Texas Tech University, US, and Professor Nick Lee from Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, UK, focused on two in particular – the ‘reward’ smile and the ‘affiliative’ smile.
They used videos from political leaders from the 2019 UK general election, which was won by the Conservative party, then led by Boris Johnson. The Labour party, then led by Jeremy Corbyn, came second. Jo Swinson was the leader of the third-placed Liberal Democrat party.
The ‘reward’ smile is the genuine, or felt smile, associated with joy and enthusiasm. It is the smile most likely to be contagious with onlookers, and has been linked to higher levels of trust.
The ‘affiliative’ smile, meanwhile, communicates approachability, acknowledgement, and appeasement. It is associated with an affinity towards the onlooker and is thought to be important for developing cooperative relationships.
The researchers selected volunteers professing to be supporters of each of the three main parties and showed them the same video footage of the three leaders – Johnson, Corbyn and Swinson – before and after the 2019 election. The team assessed the emotional response to the different smiles for the candidates, whether positive (happiness and affinity) or negative (anger and distress).
When shown footage of election winner Johnson’s affiliative smile after the election, people in all groups showed an increase in happiness and affinity compared to when they were shown the footage before the election.
Supporters of the losing parties showed an overall decrease in the negative effect. It was only this affiliative smile which was found to act as a mechanism to align voter feelings and behaviour to the dominant, or winning, political message.
The reward smile did not have the same effect. Supporters of Labour showed an increased level of anger and distress when viewing Johnson’s reward smile after the election compared to before it.
Previous work by various researchers has shown that observers judge leadership traits and behaviour, or a lack thereof, from non-verbal cues such as facial expressions. However, there has, until now, been little research outside the US on the effect of facial displays on voter behaviour.
Dr Senior said: “The human smile can convey both rewarding and affiliative social intent and thus has significant utility in politics, where the ability to bond with and reassure voters is vital to electoral success.
“We are in an unprecedented year as there are numerous elections scheduled to take place across several continents. The outcome of these campaigns will have a significant impact on millions of people across vast geopolitical regions. Given that almost all politicians involved in these election campaigns will make full use of broadcast media to reach voters, it is crucial to understand the effectiveness of their non-verbal displays in shifting voting preference.”
