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Voters Swayed By Candidates Who Share Their Looks
iandoh writes "Stanford researchers have found that voters are subconsciously swayed by candidates who share their facial features. In three experiments, researchers at the Virtual Human Interaction Lab worked with cheap, easy-to-use computer software to morph pictures of about 600 test subjects with photos of politicians. And they kept coming up with the same results: For the would-be voters who weren't very familiar with the candidates or in perfect lockstep with their positions or political parties, the facial similarity was enough to clinch their votes."
I work for a company, that is run mostly by women, but the thing is that all the women that work there, they ALL Look like clones. Or they get hired because they look like the owners, as to give them the comfort in what "looks familiar" or to the fact the women, mimic the looks ...no, they all just look so similar makes me thinks it is more common than we think.
I shall stand on the 'butt-ugly' platform. I'm a certain winner based on this research.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
...why Cowboy Neal gets all the votes in the slashdot polls.
To all the people tagging this "correlation is not causation," do you even know what you're talking about? This was a randomized experiment.
I'm not saying this is a perfect study -- there might be plenty of other things wrong with it. But the phrase "correlation is not causation" has an actual meaning. It is not just a synonym for "I had a kneejerk reaction to dislike this study but I can't say why."
Frankly, I kind of doubt it. But you never know...
That may be happening because the headline's misleading (as usual); it should be
/. wouldn't get as many "Um, wha??" clicks, and the more cynical of us would tag the story "noshitsherlock" ;-)
Undecided Voters Swayed by Candidates Who Share Their Looks
But then,
Hey -- There's your idea for a social experiment!
No wonder politicans are two-faced - they're trying to double their votes.
I've wondered for a while if part of what makes white voters more likely to accept Obama as the first black president is the fact that, despite his dark skin color, he has very European facial features. Andrew Sullivan has recently been posting pictures of Obama's (white) grandfather, to whom the presidential candidate bears a striking resemblance.
Obviously, it's impossible to give a truly satisfying answer to such a counterfactual, but I can't help but suspect that if Obama had more stereotypically African features---you know what I mean---that he would not be in the position he is in now.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
"correlation is not causation" is one of the most overused mantras of slashdot users who want to be more skeptical than thou. Yes it's true that correlation does not always equal causation, but causation does tend to result in correlation.
It's been shown that people are more attracted to people with similar facial features when choosing mates, it makes some sense that people would feel better about choosing a leader with similar facial features for the same biological reasons.
Now I'm not saying that this hypothesis is clearly true, just that we don't have to jump all over it.
It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."
Barack Obama looks exactly like his grandfather, Stanley Dunham, except Barack's skin is darker and his hair curlier.
Obama is half "Black" and half "White". He's been called "Black" so many times, it's only fair to call him "White". Especially because he looks just like his White family.
--
make install -not war
correlation is not caucasian?
The usage of the original phrase really bothers me.
While correlation does not prove causation, it sure does imply causation. It's probably about as close to the definition of imply that I can come up with. The only way I can see the phrase making sense is to use the logic definition of suggest as a logically necessary consequence. Then the original usage may have held a meaning of While causation implies correlation, correlation does not imply causation, basically saying if there is causation, then correlation will follow. So finding correlations is extremely useful, but picking out the root cause of the correlation can be quite difficult, especially when there are multiple factors in play all feeding back on each other.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Before you get demoralized, have you seen Mrs. Kucinich?
Come to think of it, that might explain why there's always a "CowboyNeal" option in the polls...
Yes it's true that correlation does not always equal causation, but causation does tend to result in correlation.
err. it's a bit more than "tend to result in"
If causation, then correlation.
or equivalently...
If no correlation, than no causation.
I totally agree. Every single scientific article reporting "A linked with B" gets this ridiculous tag. Almost no scientist every says "A causes B" because they obviously already understand that correlation does not imply correlation. However, correlation also does not imply "not causation." Any reputable scientist and journal will report results of the form "Here is the data. A appears to be statistically linked with B. Here are several hypotheses as to why, however these are speculative and require further study."
Furthermore, causality is something that a lot of very smart statisticians do spend a lot of time studying. It's not inconceivable that in the future people will be able to make concrete statistical statements about causality with confidence intervals and the works. What will the mantra be then?
Anyway, correlation's not *that* good of a measure of (interesting and nonlinear) dependence between (non-Gaussian) variables anyway. Mutual information is the ticket.
Ok, done with my rant.
Nonperiodic Central Trajectory
People tend to like people who are similar to themselves. The old saw "birds of a feather" bit actually rings true a fair amount of the time.
Of course, there's no guarantee that the person who looks vaguely similar to me actually DOES share my views, but if I have no other information to go with, then it's probably a better indicator of who to go with than a coin toss.
Genetics and life experience work together to shape our looks, and those two things also shape our attitudes and actions.
The best explanation is though that despite the great efforts we go through to try and train it out of people, all other things being equal they still prefer in-groups to out-groups. The root of this likely comes from things such as kin selection and the generally tribal nature of early man.
Mass confusion here! Doing the usual reading of comments under the assumption of a male writer (this is Slashdot, afterall) I wondered what female boss would hire a guy specifically for his long hair... it wasn't until I got to the comment about panty hose that I figured out you were a bank robber and not a computer scientist!
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