56 research outputs found
Replication Data for Banai, Laustsen, Pavela Banai & Bovan 2018 ("Presidential, but not prime minister, candidates with lower-pitched voices stand a better chance of winning the election in conservative countries")
No full textThis data set consists of the raw data for the article Banai, Laustsen, Pavela Banai & Bovan 2018. "Presidential, but not prime minister, candidates with lower-pitched voices stand a better chance of winning the election in conservative countries". Evolutionary Psychology: Forthcoming.
The data sets are available with a corresponding do-files for replication analyses in Stata. (2018-01-18
Supplementary_materials - Presidential, But Not Prime Minister, Candidates With Lower Pitched Voices Stand a Better Chance of Winning the Election in Conservative Countries
No full textSupplementary_materials for Presidential, But Not Prime Minister, Candidates With Lower Pitched Voices Stand a Better Chance of Winning the Election in Conservative Countries by Benjamin Banai, Lasse Laustsen, Irena Pavela Banai, and Kosta Bovan in Evolutionary Psychology</p
Voz y cuerpo en la poesía de Adi Keissar y Sigalit Banai
No full textAdi Keissar (1980) es autora de tres libros poéticos, pero es conocida sobre todo por ser la fundadora de ‘Ars Poetica, unas veladas poéticas en las que jóvenes poetas judíos de origen árabe (mizrahíes) recitan sus composiciones. De esta manera, Keissar da voz también a sus versos, que, con un estilo cercano a la oralidad, contribuyen a la difusión de la poesía mizrahí y de sus reivindicaciones identitarias. Otra artista, Sigalit Banai (1968), que también se reconoce en la cultura mizrahí, es autora de dos obras poéticas que recita en diversos escenarios. Como escritora y como actriz, Banai no solo da voz a sus versos, sino que les da también cuerpo: su mismo cuerpo se vuelve un instrumento de representación poética. Con este artículo se pretende ofrecer una visión de cómo las dos autoras expresan sus propias identidades, como judías y árabes (mizrahíes), centrándonos sobre todo en el papel que juegan la voz (la oralidad) y el cuerpo en sus trayectorias poéticas.Adi Keissar (1980) is the author of three books of poems but she has gained popularity for being the founder of ‘Ars Poetica, poetic gatherings in which young Jewish poets of Arab origins (Mizrahi) recite their work. In this way, Keissar also gives voice to her poems, which help to spread Mizrahi poetry and its identitarian claims, through their particular style influenced by orality. Another artist, Sigalit Banai (1968), who also understands herself as part of the Mizrahi culture, uses different stages for her poems. Author of two books of poems, and also an actress, Banai not only gives voice to her verses but provides them with a bodily dimension too: her own body becomes an instrument for poetic representation. In this paper, I aim at explaining how these two authors express their own identities, as both Jewish and Arab (Mizrahi), focusing on the role played by voice (orality) and the body in their poetic trajectories
Cross-cultural evidence that intergroup conflict heightens preferences for dominant leaders: A 25-country study
No full texthttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100007605 Aarhus Universit
Anticipated imitation in relation to participant's empathy and observed model's sex
No full textOd otkrića zrcalnih neurona u primata do danas, pokušava se odgovoriti na pitanje njihovog postojanja u mozgu čovjeka. S obzirom na razne poteškoće na putu ka njihovom direktnom otkrivanju, istraţivači nastoje doći do saznanja o povezanostima pojava koje potencijalno pronalaze svoje zajedničko biološko uporište u sustavu zrcalnih neurona. Tako su, u znanstvenoj zajednici, unutar ove teme najčešće provjeravani konstrukti imitacija i empatija, i to, u većini slučajeva, upravo njihova povezanost. Kako se pretpostavila i prediktivna funkcija imitacije, stručnjaci su opazili pojavu anticipirane imitacije, ili tendencije izvoĎenja radnje za koju se percipira da slijedi nakon promatrane radnje. Imajući na umu nalaze koji opetovano ukazuju na pozitivnu korelaciju učestalosti imitacije i empatije, te sklonost imitiranju onih koji pokazuju odreĎene sličnosti s promatračem, cilj ovog istraţivanja je bio ispitati odnos anticipirane imitacije i empatije te frekvenciju anticipirane imitacije s obzirom na poistovjećenost s promatranim modelom po spolu. Mjerenje je provedeno na Sveučilištu u Zadru, a sudjelovalo je 40 studenata (22 studentice). Prikazani su im videozapisi ţenskog i muškog modela koji čitaju priču, a pritom mreškaju nos. Tijekom gledanja videozapisa, svaki sudionik je sniman, a na kraju mjerenja ispunili su upitnik empatije. Glavna zavisna varijabla je učestalost anticipirane imitacije, koja je operacionalizirana kao češanje nosa prilikom promatranja modelovog mreškanja nosa. Rezultati ukazuju na pozitivnu povezanost empatije i učestalosti češanja nosa prilikom gledanja ţenskog modela, te pozitivnu korelaciju emocionalne empatije s ukupnim češanjem nosa i prilikom promatranja ţenskog modela. Što se tiče frekvencije češanja nosa s obzirom na spolnu kongruentnost sudionika i modela, nema razlike u čestini anticipirane imitacije.Since the discovery of primates' mirror neurons until today, there have been attempts to answer the dilemma of their existence in the human brain. Considering various difficulties regarding their direct examination, researchers are making efforts to gain knowledge about them through relations of the phenomena believed to potentially have a biological basis in the mirror neurons system. Therefore, in the scientific community, imitation and empathy were the most frequently investigated constructs regarding this topic. As the predictive function of imitation was hypothesized, experts have noticed the phenomena of anticipated imitation, a tendency to perform an action perceived to be following the observed action. Having in mind the findings which repeatedly present a positive correlation between the imitation frequency and empathy, and also the tendency to imitate those who show certain similarities to the observer, the aim of this research was to test both the relation between anticipated imitation and empathy and the incidence of anticipated imitation regarding the ability to identify oneself with the observed model by their sex. The research was conducted at University of Zadar and included 40 students (22 female). They were shown videotapes of female and male models reading a story and wrinkling their nose from time to time. While watching the videotapes, every participant was recorded, and later they filled out the empathy questionnaire. The main dependent variable is the frequency of anticipated imitation, which is operationalized as nose scratching while observing model's nose wrinkling. The results show a positive correlation between empathy and nose scratching frequency while observing the female model, a positive correlation between both emotional empathy and nose scratching in total, and of emotional empathy and nose scratching while observing the female model. Furthermore, there is no difference in anticipated imitation incidence in regards to sex congruency of participants and models
Jealousy in men and women in relation to the facial sexual dimorphism of a potential rival
No full textU domeni reproduktivnog ponašanja ljudi postoji jedna prominentna spolna razlika - muškarci iskazuju više ljubomore kada je riječ o seksualnoj nevjeri partnerice, a žene kada je riječ o emocionalnoj nevjeri partnera. Iz evolucijske perspektive, spolna razlika očituje se i u partnerskoj vrijednosti: dok je partnerska vrijednost žena u većoj mjeri određena njezinim znakovima plodnosti i fizičkoj privlačnosti, kod muškaraca je više određena znakovima posjeda i mogućnostima stjecanja i dijeljenja resursa. Stoga, žene su ljubomornije na atraktivnije suparnice, a muškarci na suparnike s većim mogućnostima stjecanja resursa. Konačno, kada je riječ o spolnom dimorfizmu, generalno su poželjniji partneri koji posjeduju karakteristike više razine spolnog dimorfizma. Cilj ovog istraživanja bio je ispitati promjene u ljubomori kod muškaraca i žena ovisno o spolu sudionika, vrsti nevjere partnera ili partnerice te spolnom dimorfizmu lica potencijalnog suparnika ili suparnice. Istraživanje je uključivalo ukupno 401 (164 muškaraca i 237 žena) sudionika rane odrasle dobi s različitih studija i zanimanja. Provelo se putem Psytoolkit-a pomoću kojeg su se prezentirale fotografije lica muškog ili ženskog prototipa u dvije verzije - muževnoj i ženstvenoj. Nadalje, vrsta nevjere simulirala se hipotetskim scenarijima. Sudionici su izvještavali o razini intenziteta doživljene ljubomore na skali od 7 stupnjeva. Rezultati pokazuju da su žene generalno izvještavale o intenzivnijoj ljubomori od muškaraca. Nadalje, dok su žene u obje situacije nevjere bile ljubomornije od muškaraca, taj efekt je ipak bio veći u situaciji emocionalne nevjere. Konačno, dok muškarci nisu pokazali promjene u intenzitetu ljubomore ovisno o razini spolnog dimorfizma lica suparnika, žene su izvještavale o značajno intenzivnijoj ljubomori kad se radilo o suparnici ženstvenog lica.In human mating behavior there is a prominent sex difference - men manifest greater jealousy when in comes to their partner's sexual infidelity, while women do the same when it comes to emotional infidelity. From an evolutionary perspective, another sex difference is observed in mate value: while women's mate value is mostly in relation to her cues of fertility and physical attractiveness, men's is determined more by cues of possession and potentials of gaining and sharing resources. Therefore, women are more jealous of attractive rivals, while men of rivals with better resource acquiring prospects. Finally, when it comes to sexual dimorphism, individuals that have characteristics of higher sexual dimorphism tend to generally be more desirable partners. The goal of this research was to examine differences in jealousy in men and women regarding participants' sex, the type of infidelity and the potential rival's facial sexual dimorphism. The study included 401 (164 male and 237 female) participants of early adult age from various colleges and professions. It was conducted via Psytoolkit where photographs of a male or female prototype face were presented in two versions - masculine and feminine. Futhermore, jealousy was assessed by using hypothetical scenarios of emotional and sexual infidelity. Participants reported the intensity of jealousy on a 7-point scale. Results showed that women generally reported more intense jealousy than men. Furthermore, while women were more jealous than men in both situations of infidelity, the sex differences were larger in the situation of emotional infidelity. Finally, while there was no difference in jealousy intensity in men in relation to the rival's facial sexual dimorphism, women reported a higher intensity of jealousy towards a rival with a feminine face
Choosing a leader based on his facial characteristics
No full textNomadski i sakupljački način života naših predaka pružao je adaptivne izazove poput traženja hrane i borbe za teritorij, a kako bi osigurali opstanak preci su razvili strategiju grupnog preživljavanja. Još jedan od izazova bio je pronaći vođu koji bi omogućio skupini da ovlada okolinom. Prema biosocijalnom kontigencijskom modelu vodstva, preferencije za visokom muževnošću lica vođe izraženije su u situacijama koje uključuju veći sukob, natjecanje i agresiju, dok se preferencije za relativno nižu muževnost lica izraženije u mirnijim, kooperativnim okruženjima. Jedna od značajki lica koja se ispituje u ovom kontekstu jest omjer širine i visine lica (eng. facial width to height ratio, fWHR) koji se mjeri kao maksimalna vodoravna udaljenost od lijeve do desne granice lica (širina) podijeljena s udaljenošću od vrha usne do najviše točke kapaka (visina). Izvorna teorijska motivacija za postuliranje veze između fWHR-a i agresivnog ili dominantnog ponašanja proizlazi iz pretpostavke da je testosteron odgovoran za razvoj muških sekundarnih spolnih osobina, poput muževnosti lica tijekom puberteta. S obzirom da viši fWHR ukazuje na dominantnost, agresivnost i muževnost, a upravo su to osobine koje se mogu povezati s preferencijom vođe u određenom kontekstu, istraživanja pokazuju da ljudi općenito preferiraju vođe koji imaju muževnija lica. Cilj ovog istraživanja bio je ispitati preferenciju vođe s obzirom na njegove karakteristike lica. U istraživanju je sudjelovalo 147 osoba koji su regrutirani preko Interneta. U prvom dijelu eksperimenta koji je kreiran u PsyToolkit programu, sudionicima se slučajnim odabirom prikazivalo osam slika osoba niskog i visokog fWHR-a. Sudionici su procjenjivali stupanj u kojem osoba izgleda kao dobar vođa. Zatim, s ciljem ispitivanja preferencije vođe u dva konteksta prezentirani su hipotetski scenariji mira i rata. Sudionicima su se istovremeno prikazivala dva lica (niskog i visokog fWHR-a) istog kandidata, a zadatak sudionika bio je procijeniti stupanj u kojem je izabrani kandidat bolji izbor za predsjednika. U ovom istraživanju dobivena je razlika u izboru općenito dobrog vođe ovisno o tome radi li se o osobi nižeg ili višeg fWHR-a, osobe niskog fWHR-a su procjenjivane kao bolje vođe u usporedbi s osobama visokog fWHR-a. Nije dobivena razlika u izboru vođe osobe nižeg ili višeg fWHR-a ovisno o situacijama rata i mira.Hunter-gatherer culture of our ancestors provided adaptive challenges such as searching for food and fighting for territory. In order to ensure survival the ancestors developed a group survival strategy. Another challenge was to find a leader who would enable the group to overcome the challenges in the environment. According to the biosocial contingency leadership model, preferences for high masculinity of a leader’s face are more pronounced in situations of greater conflict, competition and aggression, while preferences for relatively lower facial masculinity are more pronounced in calmer, cooperative environments. One of the features of the face examined in this context is the facial width to height ratio (fWHR) which is measured as the maximum horizontal distance from the left to the right face border (width) divided by the distance from the tip of the lip to highest point of the lid (height). The original theoretical motivation for postulating a link between fWHR and aggressive or dominant behavior stems from the assumption that testosterone is responsible for the development of male secondary sexual characteristics, such as facial masculinity during puberty. Given that a higher fWHR indicates dominance, aggression and masculinity, and these are precisely the traits that may be associated with a leader’s preference in a particular context, research shows that people generally prefer leaders who have more masculine faces. The aim of this research was to examine the preference of the leader with regard to his facial characteristics.The study involved 147 people recruited on the Internet. In the first part of the experiment, which was set in the PsyToolkit program, participants were randomly presented with eight images of people with low and high fWHR. Participants assessed the degree to which a person looks like a good leader. Then, in order to examine the leader's preferences in two contexts, hypothetical scenarios of peace and war were presented. Participants were presented two faces (low and high fWHR) of the same candidate at the same time, and the task of the participants was to assess the degree to which the selected candidate was a better choice for president. In this study, a difference was found in the choice of a generally good leader depending on whether it was a person with lower or higher fWHR. People with low fWHR were rated as better leaders compared to people with high fWHR. No difference was found in the choice of the leader of a person of lower or higher fWHR depending on situations of war and peace
Relationships Between Acoustic Characteristics of Female Voice and Self-Reported Personality Traits
No full textDosadašnja istraživanja pokazuju da ljudski glas ima
važnu ulogu u prijenosu raznih karakteristika govornika,
poput spola, dobi i tjelesne visine. Postoji i povezanost
između raznih značajki glasa i percepcije osobina
ličnosti. Primjerice, viši glas povezan je s percepcijom
femininosti, a dublji s percepcijom dominacije. Cilj ovog
istraživanja bio je ispitati odnos karakteristika glasa i
osobina ličnosti kod žena, pri čemu je pažnja
usmjerena na samoprocjene maskulinosti, femininosti,
dominacije i afilijacije. Sudjelovalo je 48 žena, čiji
je izgovor samoglasnika /a/ snimljen tri puta. Izračunom
prosječnih vrijednosti značajki glasa utvrđeno je
da visina glasa nije povezana sa samoprocjenama
osobina ličnosti. S druge strane, varijabilitet visine
glasa negativno je povezan s maskulinosti te pozitivno
s femininosti. Nadalje, shimmer je pozitivno, a omjer
harmoničnoga tona i šuma negativno povezan s
maskulinosti. Daljnje regresijske analize potvrdile
su značajan doprinos varijabiliteta visine glasa i
shimmera u predviđanju individualnih razlika u
maskulinosti. Osim interpretacije rezultata u kontekstu
nalaza ranijih istraživanja, u radu se raspravlja o
smjernicama za poboljšanje metodologije budućih
istraživanja.Previous studies have shown that human voice has an
important role in communicating different traits, by implying
speaker's sex, age, physical height, etc. Studies have also
found correlations between various vocal characteristics and
perceived personality traits. For example, there is evidence
that higher pitch is positively related to perceived femininity,
while lower pitch is related to perceived dominance. The aim
of the present study was to investigate those relationships
between voice and personality, by focusing on women's self-
-reports of masculinity, femininity, dominance and affiliation.
48 women were recorded three times during vowel /a/
production. After acoustic analysis, it was found that voice
pitch was not related to personality traits. On the contrary,
pitch variability was negatively related to masculinity, and
positively to femininity. Furthermore, shimmer was positively,
and harmonics to noise ratio negatively related to self-
-reported masculinity. Further regression analyses confirmed
contribution of pitch variability and shimmer in explaining
individual differences in masculinity. Besides the
interpretation of the results in the context of previous
findings, we discuss possible directions for future research in
order to improve research methodology
Politicians' facial masculinity and their electoral success
No full textIz perspektive evolucijske teorije vodstva odnos vođa-sljedbenik razvio se tijekom ljudske povijesti kao adaptacija usmjerena na rješavanje problema koordinacije prilikom obavljanja grupnih aktivnosti. Pretpostavlja se da će neke od pristranosti prema osobinama vođa koje su ljudskim precima signalizirale uspješno vodstvo, biti prisutne i među modernim ljudima, a ljudsko lice se pokazalo kao osobito bogat izvor društvenih informacija na temelju kojih se stvaraju dojmovi o drugima. Dosadašnja istraživanja ukazuju na to da birači više preferiraju muškarce kao vođe, da su vođe s muževnim licima preferirani ukoliko postoji prijetnja sukobom s drugom grupom, da su preferirani među politički desno orijentiranim sljedbenicima i ukoliko dolaze iz konzervativnih stranaka. U većini dosadašnjih istraživanja ovi efekti su utvrđeni pomoću eksperimentalnih nacrta te je cilj ovog istraživanja bio provjeriti jesu li opisani efekti dovoljno snažni da se manifestiraju na stvarnim političkim izborima. U predistraživanju je razvijena i validirana metoda za algoritamsko određivanje muževnosti lica na temelju razlika u antropometrijskim obilježjima muških i ženskih lica. Pokazalo se da je ovako izračunata muževnost lica visoko pozitivno povezana s procjenama muževnosti te visoko negativno povezana s procjenama ženstvenosti. U glavnom istraživanju korišteni su rezultati izbora dva kandidata s najviše osvojenih glasova u državama diljem svijeta u periodu od 2009 do 2019 godine, te fotografije njihovih lica (n = 772), globalni indeksi mira za svaku zemlju kao indikator prisutnosti sukoba (n = 654), mjera političke ideologije na nacionalnoj razini preuzeta iz svjetskog istraživanja vrijednosti (n = 346), te mjera političke ideologije stranke iz koje dolazi politički kandidat preuzeta iz projekata Manifesto (n = 184). Pokazalo se da politički kandidati s muževnim licima nisu univerzalno preferirani, ali da su preferirani na parlamentarnim izborima u zemljama s izraženim sukobima i u konzervativnim zemljama. Pored toga, birači nisu pokazali izraženije preferencije prema kandidatima s muževnim licima ukoliko dolaze iz konzervativnih stranaka. Ovdje prezentirani rezultati su većinom u skladu s evolucijskom teorijom vodstva, te joj daju potporu korištenjem istraživačkog nacrta visoke ekološke valjanosti.Introduction: According to the evolutionary leadership theory, the leader-follower relationship is an adaptation that evolved as a mechanism for facilitating coordination during group activities (Van Vugt, Hogan, et al., 2008; Van Vugt & Ahuja, 2010). Important group activities in the era of human ancestors included foraging and group hunting, maintaining intra-group relations, and maintaining relations with other groups that ranged from peaceful cohabitation to warfare (Van Vugt, Hogan, et al., 2008), and it is hypothesized that success in those activities increased fitness for both leader and followers. According to the hypothesis of evolutionary mismatch (Li et al., 2018) it is possible that modern humans are still sensitive to cues that signaled good leadership to human ancestors but are not related to the quality of leadership in modern days. Since dominant and masculine ancestral leaders had greater chances of success in group activities such as hunting and fighting, it is thought that modern humans are particularly sensitive to cues of those traits (Petersen & Laustsen, 2020). Furthermore, the human face is shown to be a rich source of information used in non-verbal communication (Little et al., 2011), and people make implicit and rapid-fast impressions of personality traits based on facial appearance (Todorov, 2017). Therefore, many evolutionary studies investigated preferences toward leaders based on the facial cues that signaled good leadership to human ancestors, and past research was largely focused on facial signals of dominance that are often operationalized through experimental manipulations of facial masculinity. It has been shown that faces perceived as leader-like are also perceived as more competent, attractive, and masculine (Little, 2014), and it has been shown that stronger men acquired higher ranks in companies (Lukaszewski et al., 2016), therefore facial masculinity might be the universal cue in leader preferences. Furthermore, it has been shown that preferences for leaders with dominant and masculine faces increase when the followers' group is under threat of physical conflict with other groups, which indicates that social conflict moderates preferences for masculine leaders (Banai et al., 2022; Laustsen & Petersen, 2015; Little et al., 2007), and that the effect of facial masculinity was more important signal then the biological sex (Ferguson et al., 2019; Spisak, Dekker, et al., 2012). While the perception of the risk of social conflict may relate to current societal conditions, it might also be reflected through the personality trait of political ideology, where conservatives are more likely to perceive the world as more threatening and competitive (Duckitt & Sibley, 2010). Political ideology was tested as a moderator of preferences for leaders with masculine faces, and there is substantial experimental evidence that conservative followers prefer masculine and dominant leaders (Banai et al., 2022; Laustsen, 2017; Laustsen & Petersen, 2015). Furthermore, experimental research indicates that followers prefer leaders whose stances are congruent to their facial appearance (e.g., masculine-looking leaders sending a conservative message (Spisak, Homan, et al., 2012)), which might be an ally-finding mechanism (Pietraszewski et al., 2015). The aforementioned effects of preferences towards masculine-looking leaders were obtained using an experimental research design, which mostly included mock elections in which participants chose a leader between computer-generated or manipulated face images. While consistent replications of these effects speak of their validity, it is unknown if these effects are pronounced enough to impact real-world leader selection outcomes. To address this issue current research is focused on testing evolutionary hypotheses on preferences towards leaders’ facial masculinity using highly ecologically valid research design, and real-world outcomes of leader selection processes. To achieve this goal, this research was conducted on the sample of political election results, facial photographs of real politicians, macro-level estimates of conflict and political ideology, as well as politicians’ ideological positions, and facial masculinity was determined using a novel method of algorithmic image processing. Research aims and hypotheses: The aim of the current study is to investigate the relationship between politicians’ facial masculinity and real-world political elections outcomes. H1: Since more masculine faces are perceived as more dominant it is expected that masculinelooking politicians will have a greater success in political elections. H2: Since it has been shown that contextual information moderates the relationship between facial masculinity and followers’ preferences, it is expected that masculine-looking politicians will be preferred in countries with ongoing conflict and that feminine-looking politicians will be preferred in conflict-free countries. H3: Since it has been shown that conservative voters more often see the world as a dangerous and threatening place, it is expected that masculine-looking politicians will be preferred in conservative countries whereas feminine-looking politicians will be preferred in liberal countries. H4. Since it has been shown that followers show preferences towards congruence between leaders’ physical appearance and their stances, it is expected that masculine-looking politicians will be preferred if they are nominated by conservative parties, and that feminine-looking politicians will be preferred if they are nominated by liberal parties. Preliminary study: The preliminary study was conducted to construct and validate the algorithmic method for assessing facial masculinity. This approach combines computer vision for determining facial landmarks (standardized points that define anatomical features of a face) and predictive modeling to establish an algorithmic function that will be used for the estimation of facial masculinity of politicians’ faces in the main research. Method: Sample of faces. In the preliminary study, Chicago Face Database (CFD) (Ma et al., 2015) was used as a sample of human faces. It consists of 586 standardized photographs of males and females of different ethnicities. Each photograph contains two additional sets of information that were used in this study. First, it contains a set of anthropometric measurements: nose width, lip thickness, average eyes height, average eyes width, pupil-upper lip length (left and right), lower lip-chin length, eye shape (average eye height divided by average eye width) and facial width to height ratio. Second, the CFD contains subjective ratings for each face in the dataset. Each face was evaluated by multiple naïve respondents on the attributions of age, gender, race, masculinity, femininity, baby facedness, attractiveness, trustworthiness, how unusual it is, and then if it expresses emotions of happiness, sadness, disgust, surprise, or fear. Estimating facial landmarks. Facial landmarks were estimated using Face++, a commercial computer vision software aimed at facial recognition used in previous psychological research (Kosinski, 2017). The facial landmarks feature was used to map 83 facial landmarks to images of faces from CFD. These landmarks map faces for attributes of face shape (19 landmarks), eye shape (10 landmarks for each eye), eyebrows (8 landmarks for each eyebrow), mouth (18 landmarks), and nose (10 landmarks). The facial recognition algorithm analyses facial images and returns a data frame consisting of x- and y-coordinates for each image. These coordinates were estimated for each face in the CFD and used as inputs for further analysis. Results: Validation of algorithmic landmarks accuracy. To validate the accuracy of computer vision facial landmarks estimation correlations between computer-based and human-based anthropometric measures were calculated. First, Euclidean distances between computer-generated landmarks were calculated to reflect anthropometric measures of faces included in the CFD provided by human participants. Second, Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated for each corresponding measure between computerand human-generated estimates, for the total sample of faces and for each ethnic group separately. Results showed that correlations between all human- and computer-generated measures were statistically significant, positive, and high, with the lowest correlation being 0.74. Furthermore, no systematic differences in correlations calculated for subsamples of different ethnicities were found, indicating that the estimation of facial landmarks performs comparatively well for faces of different ethnicities. These results indicate that Face++ Facial landmarks feature estimates facial landmarks comparably well to human participants. Validation of algorithmic masculinity estimation method. In the first step of constructing a method for algorithmic facial masculinity estimation geometric-morphometric (GMM) analysis was applied. GMM is a multivariate method for analyzing the two-or three-dimensional representations of shapes (Adams & Otárola-Castillo, 2013). In the first step, Generalized Procrustes analysis was conducted to standardize images of faces on their position in space, size, and rotation in two-dimensional space. The result of this analysis is Procrustes coordinates that are suitable for multivariate statistical analyses. In the second step, a Principal components analysis was applied to Procrustes coordinates to reduce the dimensionality of the data. The parallel analysis indicated that 14 components should be retained, and this solution explained 90% of the variance in Procrustes coordinates. In the third step, a linear discrimination analysis was used to create a function for determining the masculinity index. The dataset on 586 faces was split into a training dataset used to train the predictive model (2/3 of data), and into a validation dataset used to validate the model’s accuracy (1/3 of data). Results on 14 components calculated in previous steps were used as predictors in the linear discrimination analysis (LDA), to predict the biological sex of the person on the image. A total of 5 models were estimated to examine if the accuracy of the model trained on faces of all ethnicities performs similarly to models trained on each ethnicity separately. The accuracy of models was evaluated on the validation set and showed that all models had ~80% accuracy. This result indicated that models had sufficiently high accuracy and that the model built on the total sample of faces performed similarly well as models built separately on different ethnic samples. This indicates that facial sexual dimorphism features are universal among humans of different ethnicities and that the model built on the overall sample is suitable for usage in further analyses since it does not capture less information than ethnic-specific models. Next, the masculinity index was calculated for each face from the CFD by applying the discriminant function from the LDA to results on components representing facial shape. The masculinity index was validated by calculating its’ correlation with subjective measures of facial masculinity and femininity provided in the CFD. Results showed that the correlation between the masculinity index and subjective measure of facial masculinity is statistically significant, positive, and high, whereas the correlation between the masculinity index and subjective femininity is statistically significant, negative, and high. Conclusion: The preliminary study showed that a) facial recognition software produces facial landmarks like human participants, b) the LDA model predicted the biological sex of a person on an image with high accuracy, c) the masculinity index calculated on the basis of discriminant function showed high positive relationship with the subjective measure of masculinity and high negative relationship with the subjective measure of femininity. Main research: Method: Sample of political elections. The data on the results of political elections was acquired from www.electionguide.org in the timeframe of January 1st, 2009, to December 31st, 2019. Acquired data included the results of two candidates that won the most votes (election winner vs. loser), for presidential and parliamentary elections, held in countries where leaders are chosen via direct democracy. Female candidates were excluded since they constituted less than 10% of the total sample. The final sample included the results of 407 elections and 814 candidates. Sample of politicians’ facial images. Politicians’ face images were obtained via the Google Images search engine. Three images were obtained for each candidate. The final sample consisted of 772 politicians that competed in 195 presidential and 191 parliamentary elections across 155 countries in the world. Facial masculinity. An R script was developed for the automated calculation of facial masculinity. First, images of politicians’ faces were sent to Face++ API and facial landmarks coordinates were downloaded. Generalized Procrustes analysis was applied to facial landmarks coordinates. Then, components estimated in preliminary research were calculated from Procrustes coordinates. Lastly, discriminant function scores were applied to calculate the index of facial masculinity. The national level of conflict. The level of conflict in countries in which the elections were held was estimated via Global Peace Index (GPI). This is a measure developed by the Institute for Economics and Peace and is calculated based on 23 parameters that indicate the presence of conflict, armament, or military presence in each country. Indices were collected for years corresponding to the year in which a country held an election in the sample used here. GPI was collected for a total of 327 elections, providing electoral context for runs of 654 candidates. The national level of political ideology. National political ideology was operationalized via a question on political ideology from the World Values Survey (WVS). For each election, the closest time point of VWS wave was selected, and raw data on political ideology were averaged to represent a national measure. National-level ideology was estimated for a total of 173 elections. Candidates’ political ideology. Candidate’s political ideology was estimated using a dataset from the Manifesto project, which systematically analyses political parties’ manifestos, and reports on party-level political ideology. This information was obtained for 92 parliamentary elections. Control variables. The type of political elections and incumbency were used in regression models as control variables. Results: All hypotheses were tested using linear regression models for a percentage of votes as the continuous dependent variable, and binary logistic regression models for election outcome as the binary dependent variable. For each hypothesis, a model that tests the hypothesis was applied, and afterward, it was re-run by including control variables: incumbency as a covariate and election type as a moderator. H1 was tested using politicians’ facial masculinity as the predictor. H2 was tested by the interaction terms of facial masculinity and national-level conflict. H3 was tested by the interaction terms of politicians’ facial masculinity and national ideology. H4 was tested by interaction terms of politicians’ facial masculinity and their political party’s ideology. All models were estimated with robust standard errors clustered at the election level. Results showed that voters did not show increased preferences for politicians with masculine faces in general, neither on presidential nor parliamentary elections, which is a result that does not support H1. Next, political candidates with masculine faces had a greater chance of winning the parliamentary elections in countries with levels of conflict, a result that supports H2. However, this effect was not shown for presidential elections, and candidates with feminine faces did not have greater chances of winning the elections in countries with low levels of conflict. Furthermore, political candidates with masculine faces had greater chances of winning the parliamentary elections in conservative countries, a finding that supports H3. This effect was not present during presidential elections, and feminine-looking candidates did not stand a better chance in liberal countries. Lastly, the candidate’s political ideology did not moderate the relationship between facial masculinity and election outcome, which is a finding that does not support H4. Discussion: The results presented here are mostly in line with expectations stemming from the evolutionary leadership theory. While facial masculinity was not shown to be a universally preferred trait, this might also have a theoretical explanation. Leadership among human ancestors is thought to be contextual and contingent, and facial masculinity seems not to be the cue to universal leadership ability, such as perceived competence. Furthermore, selecting a masculine and dominant leader might be a costly decision for followers, if they use the position of power to direct group resources toward themselves and their allies. However, the tests for H2 and H3 are in line with evolutionary-driven expectations. The results indicate that masculine-looking politicians are favored in the presence of conflict, and among conservative voters. These results give strong and ecologically valid support to the prior experimental findings. However, it is unclear at this stage why those hypotheses were confirmed only for parliamentary elections, and further research should be done to address potential different decision-making mechanisms for different election types. Lastly, the congruence between politicians’ facial masculinity and their political ideology was not shown to be favored during elections. Here the explanation might be methodological – the sample for testing this hypothesis was by far the smallest in this study. The second explanation might be the potential pre-selection of candidates during the intra-party elections, which is also a topic for future studies. The presented results contribute to applying evolutionary leadership theory to a real-world context. Voters’ relying on uninformative and shallow cues, such as physical appearance, might seem to present a threat to modern democracy which is thought to work best if the voters’ decision is based on thorough and deliberate analysis of political candidates’ traits and prospects. However, research on voting behavior might benefit from getting familiar with human nature and getting a more complete overview of hypothesized evolved preferences, before marking them as irrational
Politicians' facial masculinity and their electoral success
No full textIz perspektive evolucijske teorije vodstva odnos vođa-sljedbenik razvio se tijekom ljudske povijesti kao adaptacija usmjerena na rješavanje problema koordinacije prilikom obavljanja grupnih aktivnosti. Pretpostavlja se da će neke od pristranosti prema osobinama vođa koje su ljudskim precima signalizirale uspješno vodstvo, biti prisutne i među modernim ljudima, a ljudsko lice se pokazalo kao osobito bogat izvor društvenih informacija na temelju kojih se stvaraju dojmovi o drugima. Dosadašnja istraživanja ukazuju na to da birači više preferiraju muškarce kao vođe, da su vođe s muževnim licima preferirani ukoliko postoji prijetnja sukobom s drugom grupom, da su preferirani među politički desno orijentiranim sljedbenicima i ukoliko dolaze iz konzervativnih stranaka. U većini dosadašnjih istraživanja ovi efekti su utvrđeni pomoću eksperimentalnih nacrta te je cilj ovog istraživanja bio provjeriti jesu li opisani efekti dovoljno snažni da se manifestiraju na stvarnim političkim izborima. U predistraživanju je razvijena i validirana metoda za algoritamsko određivanje muževnosti lica na temelju razlika u antropometrijskim obilježjima muških i ženskih lica. Pokazalo se da je ovako izračunata muževnost lica visoko pozitivno povezana s procjenama muževnosti te visoko negativno povezana s procjenama ženstvenosti. U glavnom istraživanju korišteni su rezultati izbora dva kandidata s najviše osvojenih glasova u državama diljem svijeta u periodu od 2009 do 2019 godine, te fotografije njihovih lica (n = 772), globalni indeksi mira za svaku zemlju kao indikator prisutnosti sukoba (n = 654), mjera političke ideologije na nacionalnoj razini preuzeta iz svjetskog istraživanja vrijednosti (n = 346), te mjera političke ideologije stranke iz koje dolazi politički kandidat preuzeta iz projekata Manifesto (n = 184). Pokazalo se da politički kandidati s muževnim licima nisu univerzalno preferirani, ali da su preferirani na parlamentarnim izborima u zemljama s izraženim sukobima i u konzervativnim zemljama. Pored toga, birači nisu pokazali izraženije preferencije prema kandidatima s muževnim licima ukoliko dolaze iz konzervativnih stranaka. Ovdje prezentirani rezultati su većinom u skladu s evolucijskom teorijom vodstva, te joj daju potporu korištenjem istraživačkog nacrta visoke ekološke valjanosti.Introduction: According to the evolutionary leadership theory, the leader-follower relationship is an adaptation that evolved as a mechanism for facilitating coordination during group activities (Van Vugt, Hogan, et al., 2008; Van Vugt & Ahuja, 2010). Important group activities in the era of human ancestors included foraging and group hunting, maintaining intra-group relations, and maintaining relations with other groups that ranged from peaceful cohabitation to warfare (Van Vugt, Hogan, et al., 2008), and it is hypothesized that success in those activities increased fitness for both leader and followers. According to the hypothesis of evolutionary mismatch (Li et al., 2018) it is possible that modern humans are still sensitive to cues that signaled good leadership to human ancestors but are not related to the quality of leadership in modern days. Since dominant and masculine ancestral leaders had greater chances of success in group activities such as hunting and fighting, it is thought that modern humans are particularly sensitive to cues of those traits (Petersen & Laustsen, 2020). Furthermore, the human face is shown to be a rich source of information used in non-verbal communication (Little et al., 2011), and people make implicit and rapid-fast impressions of personality traits based on facial appearance (Todorov, 2017). Therefore, many evolutionary studies investigated preferences toward leaders based on the facial cues that signaled good leadership to human ancestors, and past research was largely focused on facial signals of dominance that are often operationalized through experimental manipulations of facial masculinity. It has been shown that faces perceived as leader-like are also perceived as more competent, attractive, and masculine (Little, 2014), and it has been shown that stronger men acquired higher ranks in companies (Lukaszewski et al., 2016), therefore facial masculinity might be the universal cue in leader preferences. Furthermore, it has been shown that preferences for leaders with dominant and masculine faces increase when the followers' group is under threat of physical conflict with other groups, which indicates that social conflict moderates preferences for masculine leaders (Banai et al., 2022; Laustsen & Petersen, 2015; Little et al., 2007), and that the effect of facial masculinity was more important signal then the biological sex (Ferguson et al., 2019; Spisak, Dekker, et al., 2012). While the perception of the risk of social conflict may relate to current societal conditions, it might also be reflected through the personality trait of political ideology, where conservatives are more likely to perceive the world as more threatening and competitive (Duckitt & Sibley, 2010). Political ideology was tested as a moderator of preferences for leaders with masculine faces, and there is substantial experimental evidence that conservative followers prefer masculine and dominant leaders (Banai et al., 2022; Laustsen, 2017; Laustsen & Petersen, 2015). Furthermore, experimental research indicates that followers prefer leaders whose stances are congruent to their facial appearance (e.g., masculine-looking leaders sending a conservative message (Spisak, Homan, et al., 2012)), which might be an ally-finding mechanism (Pietraszewski et al., 2015). The aforementioned effects of preferences towards masculine-looking leaders were obtained using an experimental research design, which mostly included mock elections in which participants chose a leader between computer-generated or manipulated face images. While consistent replications of these effects speak of their validity, it is unknown if these effects are pronounced enough to impact real-world leader selection outcomes. To address this issue current research is focused on testing evolutionary hypotheses on preferences towards leaders’ facial masculinity using highly ecologically valid research design, and real-world outcomes of leader selection processes. To achieve this goal, this research was conducted on the sample of political election results, facial photographs of real politicians, macro-level estimates of conflict and political ideology, as well as politicians’ ideological positions, and facial masculinity was determined using a novel method of algorithmic image processing. Research aims and hypotheses: The aim of the current study is to investigate the relationship between politicians’ facial masculinity and real-world political elections outcomes. H1: Since more masculine faces are perceived as more dominant it is expected that masculinelooking politicians will have a greater success in political elections. H2: Since it has been shown that contextual information moderates the relationship between facial masculinity and followers’ preferences, it is expected that masculine-looking politicians will be preferred in countries with ongoing conflict and that feminine-looking politicians will be preferred in conflict-free countries. H3: Since it has been shown that conservative voters more often see the world as a dangerous and threatening place, it is expected that masculine-looking politicians will be preferred in conservative countries whereas feminine-looking politicians will be preferred in liberal countries. H4. Since it has been shown that followers show preferences towards congruence between leaders’ physical appearance and their stances, it is expected that masculine-looking politicians will be preferred if they are nominated by conservative parties, and that feminine-looking politicians will be preferred if they are nominated by liberal parties. Preliminary study: The preliminary study was conducted to construct and validate the algorithmic method for assessing facial masculinity. This approach combines computer vision for determining facial landmarks (standardized points that define anatomical features of a face) and predictive modeling to establish an algorithmic function that will be used for the estimation of facial masculinity of politicians’ faces in the main research. Method: Sample of faces. In the preliminary study, Chicago Face Database (CFD) (Ma et al., 2015) was used as a sample of human faces. It consists of 586 standardized photographs of males and females of different ethnicities. Each photograph contains two additional sets of information that were used in this study. First, it contains a set of anthropometric measurements: nose width, lip thickness, average eyes height, average eyes width, pupil-upper lip length (left and right), lower lip-chin length, eye shape (average eye height divided by average eye width) and facial width to height ratio. Second, the CFD contains subjective ratings for each face in the dataset. Each face was evaluated by multiple naïve respondents on the attributions of age, gender, race, masculinity, femininity, baby facedness, attractiveness, trustworthiness, how unusual it is, and then if it expresses emotions of happiness, sadness, disgust, surprise, or fear. Estimating facial landmarks. Facial landmarks were estimated using Face++, a commercial computer vision software aimed at facial recognition used in previous psychological research (Kosinski, 2017). The facial landmarks feature was used to map 83 facial landmarks to images of faces from CFD. These landmarks map faces for attributes of face shape (19 landmarks), eye shape (10 landmarks for each eye), eyebrows (8 landmarks for each eyebrow), mouth (18 landmarks), and nose (10 landmarks). The facial recognition algorithm analyses facial images and returns a data frame consisting of x- and y-coordinates for each image. These coordinates were estimated for each face in the CFD and used as inputs for further analysis. Results: Validation of algorithmic landmarks accuracy. To validate the accuracy of computer vision facial landmarks estimation correlations between computer-based and human-based anthropometric measures were calculated. First, Euclidean distances between computer-generated landmarks were calculated to reflect anthropometric measures of faces included in the CFD provided by human participants. Second, Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated for each corresponding measure between computerand human-generated estimates, for the total sample of faces and for each ethnic group separately. Results showed that correlations between all human- and computer-generated measures were statistically significant, positive, and high, with the lowest correlation being 0.74. Furthermore, no systematic differences in correlations calculated for subsamples of different ethnicities were found, indicating that the estimation of facial landmarks performs comparatively well for faces of different ethnicities. These results indicate that Face++ Facial landmarks feature estimates facial landmarks comparably well to human participants. Validation of algorithmic masculinity estimation method. In the first step of constructing a method for algorithmic facial masculinity estimation geometric-morphometric (GMM) analysis was applied. GMM is a multivariate method for analyzing the two-or three-dimensional representations of shapes (Adams & Otárola-Castillo, 2013). In the first step, Generalized Procrustes analysis was conducted to standardize images of faces on their position in space, size, and rotation in two-dimensional space. The result of this analysis is Procrustes coordinates that are suitable for multivariate statistical analyses. In the second step, a Principal components analysis was applied to Procrustes coordinates to reduce the dimensionality of the data. The parallel analysis indicated that 14 components should be retained, and this solution explained 90% of the variance in Procrustes coordinates. In the third step, a linear discrimination analysis was used to create a function for determining the masculinity index. The dataset on 586 faces was split into a training dataset used to train the predictive model (2/3 of data), and into a validation dataset used to validate the model’s accuracy (1/3 of data). Results on 14 components calculated in previous steps were used as predictors in the linear discrimination analysis (LDA), to predict the biological sex of the person on the image. A total of 5 models were estimated to examine if the accuracy of the model trained on faces of all ethnicities performs similarly to models trained on each ethnicity separately. The accuracy of models was evaluated on the validation set and showed that all models had ~80% accuracy. This result indicated that models had sufficiently high accuracy and that the model built on the total sample of faces performed similarly well as models built separately on different ethnic samples. This indicates that facial sexual dimorphism features are universal among humans of different ethnicities and that the model built on the overall sample is suitable for usage in further analyses since it does not capture less information than ethnic-specific models. Next, the masculinity index was calculated for each face from the CFD by applying the discriminant function from the LDA to results on components representing facial shape. The masculinity index was validated by calculating its’ correlation with subjective measures of facial masculinity and femininity provided in the CFD. Results showed that the correlation between the masculinity index and subjective measure of facial masculinity is statistically significant, positive, and high, whereas the correlation between the masculinity index and subjective femininity is statistically significant, negative, and high. Conclusion: The preliminary study showed that a) facial recognition software produces facial landmarks like human participants, b) the LDA model predicted the biological sex of a person on an image with high accuracy, c) the masculinity index calculated on the basis of discriminant function showed high positive relationship with the subjective measure of masculinity and high negative relationship with the subjective measure of femininity. Main research: Method: Sample of political elections. The data on the results of political elections was acquired from www.electionguide.org in the timeframe of January 1st, 2009, to December 31st, 2019. Acquired data included the results of two candidates that won the most votes (election winner vs. loser), for presidential and parliamentary elections, held in countries where leaders are chosen via direct democracy. Female candidates were excluded since they constituted less than 10% of the total sample. The final sample included the results of 407 elections and 814 candidates. Sample of politicians’ facial images. Politicians’ face images were obtained via the Google Images search engine. Three images were obtained for each candidate. The final sample consisted of 772 politicians that competed in 195 presidential and 191 parliamentary elections across 155 countries in the world. Facial masculinity. An R script was developed for the automated calculation of facial masculinity. First, images of politicians’ faces were sent to Face++ API and facial landmarks coordinates were downloaded. Generalized Procrustes analysis was applied to facial landmarks coordinates. Then, components estimated in preliminary research were calculated from Procrustes coordinates. Lastly, discriminant function scores were applied to calculate the index of facial masculinity. The national level of conflict. The level of conflict in countries in which the elections were held was estimated via Global Peace Index (GPI). This is a measure developed by the Institute for Economics and Peace and is calculated based on 23 parameters that indicate the presence of conflict, armament, or military presence in each country. Indices were collected for years corresponding to the year in which a country held an election in the sample used here. GPI was collected for a total of 327 elections, providing electoral context for runs of 654 candidates. The national level of political ideology. National political ideology was operationalized via a question on political ideology from the World Values Survey (WVS). For each election, the closest time point of VWS wave was selected, and raw data on political ideology were averaged to represent a national measure. National-level ideology was estimated for a total of 173 elections. Candidates’ political ideology. Candidate’s political ideology was estimated using a dataset from the Manifesto project, which systematically analyses political parties’ manifestos, and reports on party-level political ideology. This information was obtained for 92 parliamentary elections. Control variables. The type of political elections and incumbency were used in regression models as control variables. Results: All hypotheses were tested using linear regression models for a percentage of votes as the continuous dependent variable, and binary logistic regression models for election outcome as the binary dependent variable. For each hypothesis, a model that tests the hypothesis was applied, and afterward, it was re-run by including control variables: incumbency as a covariate and election type as a moderator. H1 was tested using politicians’ facial masculinity as the predictor. H2 was tested by the interaction terms of facial masculinity and national-level conflict. H3 was tested by the interaction terms of politicians’ facial masculinity and national ideology. H4 was tested by interaction terms of politicians’ facial masculinity and their political party’s ideology. All models were estimated with robust standard errors clustered at the election level. Results showed that voters did not show increased preferences for politicians with masculine faces in general, neither on presidential nor parliamentary elections, which is a result that does not support H1. Next, political candidates with masculine faces had a greater chance of winning the parliamentary elections in countries with levels of conflict, a result that supports H2. However, this effect was not shown for presidential elections, and candidates with feminine faces did not have greater chances of winning the elections in countries with low levels of conflict. Furthermore, political candidates with masculine faces had greater chances of winning the parliamentary elections in conservative countries, a finding that supports H3. This effect was not present during presidential elections, and feminine-looking candidates did not stand a better chance in liberal countries. Lastly, the candidate’s political ideology did not moderate the relationship between facial masculinity and election outcome, which is a finding that does not support H4. Discussion: The results presented here are mostly in line with expectations stemming from the evolutionary leadership theory. While facial masculinity was not shown to be a universally preferred trait, this might also have a theoretical explanation. Leadership among human ancestors is thought to be contextual and contingent, and facial masculinity seems not to be the cue to universal leadership ability, such as perceived competence. Furthermore, selecting a masculine and dominant leader might be a costly decision for followers, if they use the position of power to direct group resources toward themselves and their allies. However, the tests for H2 and H3 are in line with evolutionary-driven expectations. The results indicate that masculine-looking politicians are favored in the presence of conflict, and among conservative voters. These results give strong and ecologically valid support to the prior experimental findings. However, it is unclear at this stage why those hypotheses were confirmed only for parliamentary elections, and further research should be done to address potential different decision-making mechanisms for different election types. Lastly, the congruence between politicians’ facial masculinity and their political ideology was not shown to be favored during elections. Here the explanation might be methodological – the sample for testing this hypothesis was by far the smallest in this study. The second explanation might be the potential pre-selection of candidates during the intra-party elections, which is also a topic for future studies. The presented results contribute to applying evolutionary leadership theory to a real-world context. Voters’ relying on uninformative and shallow cues, such as physical appearance, might seem to present a threat to modern democracy which is thought to work best if the voters’ decision is based on thorough and deliberate analysis of political candidates’ traits and prospects. However, research on voting behavior might benefit from getting familiar with human nature and getting a more complete overview of hypothesized evolved preferences, before marking them as irrational
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