Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T22:44:58.509Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Candidate Confidence and Electoral Appeal: An Experimental Study of the Effect of Nonverbal Confidence on Voter Evaluations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2014

Delia Dumitrescu ,
Elisabeth Gidengil  and
Dietlind Stolle
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The nonverbal display of confidence is strongly associated with leadership and power. However, its importance for the persuasiveness of campaign messages has not been explored. How important is showing confidence for a political candidate’s ratings? How does confidence condition the effect of the quality of a candidate’s arguments? This article addresses these questions using an innovative experimental approach that makes it possible to better isolate the impact of the candidate’s nonverbal confidence and the quality of his message. While both of these aspects influence voters’ perceptions of the candidate’s electability and qualifications, the nonverbal dimension matters more when it comes to electability. This research contributes to the study of nonverbal communication in elections by expanding the focus of inquiry beyond the effect of pure emotions (happiness or anger) and facial traits.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 43 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Delia Dumitrescu is Postdoctoral Fellow in the Multidisciplinary Opinion and Democracy Research Group, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Box 711, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden ([email protected]). Elisabeth Gidengil is Hiram Mills Professor, Department of Political Science, McGill University, Room 414, Leacock Building, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T7, Canada ([email protected]). Dietlind Stolle is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, McGill University, Room 414, Leacock Building, 855 Sherbrooke Street West Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T7, Canada ([email protected]). This study received support from the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship (csdc-cecd.mcgill.ca) and from the VP Research at McGill University. We are grateful to Stuart Soroka, J. Scott Matthews and two anonymous referees for their insightful comments, and to Marc Trussler and Joe Heywood for their research assistance. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2014.16

References

Ames, Daniel R., and Flynn, Francis J.. 2007. ‘What Breaks a Leader: The Curvilinear Relation between Assertiveness and Leadership’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92(2):307–324.Google Scholar
Atkinson, Max. 2004. Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need To Know about Making Speeches & Presentations. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Awamleh, Raed, and Gardner, William L.. 1999. ‘Perceptions of Leader Charisma and Effectiveness: The Effects of Vision Content, Delivery, and Organizational Performance’. The Leadership Quarterly 10(3):345–373.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 1988. Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birch, Susan A.J., Akmal, Nazanin, and Frampton, Kristen L.. 2010. ‘Two-year olds are vigilant of others’ non-verbal cues to credibility’. Developmental Science 13(2):363–369.Google Scholar
Carli, Linda L., LaFleur, Suzanne J., and Loeber, Christopher C.. 1995. ‘Nonverbal Behavior, Gender, and Influence’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68(6):1030–1041.Google Scholar
Chong, Dennis, and Druckman, James N.. 2007. ‘Framing Public Opinion in Competitive Democracies’. American Political Science Review 101(04):637–655.Google Scholar
Collingwood, Loren, Barreto, Matt A., and Donovan, Todd. 2012. ‘Early Primaries, Viability and Changing Preferences for Presidential Candidates’. Presidential Studies Quarterly 42(2):231–255.Google Scholar
Cook, Jeff Scott. 1989. The Elements of Speechwriting and Public Speaking. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Dumitrescu, Delia. 2010. ‘Know Me, Love Me, Fear Me: The Anatomy of Candidate Poster Designs in the 2007 French Legislative Elections’. Political Communication 27(1):20–43.Google Scholar
Hall, Crystal C., Goren, Amir, Chaiken, Shelly, and Todorov, Alexander. 2009. ‘Shallow Cues with Deep Effects: Trait Judgments from Faces and Voting Decisions’. In The Political Psychology of Democratic Citizenship, edited by E. Borgida, C.M. Federico and J.L. Sullivan, 73–99. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Krauss, Robert M., Apple, William, Morency, Nancy, Wenzel, Charlotte, and Winton, Ward. 1981. ‘Verbal, Vocal, and Visible Factors in Judgments of Another’s Affect’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40(2):312–320.Google Scholar
Marsh, Kerry L., Hart-O'Rourke, Dawn M., and Julka, Deana L.. 1997. ‘The Persuasive Effects of Verbal and Nonverbal Information in a Context of Value Relevance’. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23(6):563–579.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackie, Diane M., Worth, Leila T., and Asuncion, Arlene G.. 1990. ‘Processing of Persuasive In-group Messages’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58(5):812–822.Google Scholar
McGraw, Kathleen. 2011. ‘Candidate Impressions and Evaluations’. In Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science, edited by J.N. Druckman, D.P. Green, J.H. Kuklinski and A. Lupia, 187–200. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McHugo, Gregory J., Lanzetta, John T., Sullivan, Denis G., Masters, Roger D., and Englis, Basil G.. 1985. ‘Emotional Reactions to a Political Leader’s Expressive Displays’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49(6):1513–1529.Google Scholar
Nagel, Friederike, Maurer, Marcus, and Reinemann, Carsten. 2012. ‘Is There a Visual Dominance in Political Communication? How Verbal, Visual, and Vocal Communication Shape Viewers' Impressions of Political Candidates’. Journal of Communication 62(5):833–850.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noller, Patricia. 1985. ‘Video Primacy—A Further Look’. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 9(1):28–47.Google Scholar
Northouse, Peter. G. 2007. Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Park, Hee Sun, Levine, Timothy R., Westerman, Catherine Y. Kingsley, Orfgen, Tierney, and Foregger, Sarah. 2007. ‘The Effects of Argument Quality and Involvement Type on Attitude Formation and Attitude Change: A Test of Dual-Process and Social Judgment Predictions’. Human Communication Research 33(1):81–102.Google Scholar
Pease, Andrew, and Brewer, Paul R.. 2008. ‘The Oprah Factor: The Effects of a Celebrity Endorsement in a Presidential Primary Campaign’. The International Journal of Press/Politics 13(4):386–400.Google Scholar
Rickershauser, Jill, and Aldrich, John H.. 2007. ‘“It’s the electability, stupid”− or maybe not? Electability, Substance, and Strategic Voting in Presidential Primaries’. Electoral Studies 26(2):371–380.Google Scholar
Riggio, Heidi R., and Riggio, Ronald E.. 2010. ‘Appearance-Based Trait Inferences and Voting: Evolutionary Roots and Implications for Leadership’. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 34(2):119–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, Shawn W., Bohan, Lisa, McCafferty, Patrick, and Harris, Kevin. 1986. ‘The Image and the Vote: The Effect of Candidate Presentation on Voter Preference’. American Journal of Political Science 30(1):108–127.Google Scholar
Shipman, Amanda S., and Mumford, Michael D.. 2011. ‘When Confidence is Detrimental: Influence of Overconfidence on Leadership Effectiveness’. The Leadership Quarterly 22(4):649–665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spezio, Michael L., Loesch, Laura, Gosselin, Frédéric, Mattes, Kyle, and Alvarez, R. Michael. 2012. ‘Thin-Slice Decisions Do Not Need Faces to be Predictive of Election Outcomes’. Political Psychology 33(3):331–341.Google Scholar
Stewart, Patrick A., Waller, Bridget M., and Schubert, James N.. 2009. ‘Presidential Speechmaking Style: Emotional Response to Micro-expressions of Facial Affect’. Motivation and Emotion 33(2):125–135.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Denis G., and Masters, Roger D.. 1988. ‘“Happy Warriors”: Leaders’ Facial Displays, Viewers’ Emotions, and Political Support’. American Journal of Political Science 32(2):345–368.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Dumitrescu et al Datasets

Datasets

http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/26129
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Dumitrescu Supplementary Material

Appendix

Download Dumitrescu Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 401.7 KB