Dr. Jeremiah Sullins, assistant professor of behavioral sciences, and his research students released a study in the fall of 2015 to discover the human perception of political figures. Sullins said the study began after he became interested in finding the intersection between cognitive psychology and politics.
“When people walk into a voting booth we assume that they are making rational and logical decisions,” Sullins said. “But my research, and research coming out of psychology, show that it might not be the case.”
The research study has two overarching questions. The first bases judgment off of the candidate’s appearance and the second bases judgment off of the candidate’s linguistic style, according to Sullins. He said that after conducting experiments, it was proved that people do make snap judgments of the candidate’s appearance in under one-tenth of a second.
Sullins said there is a discrepancy between top-tier candidates and lower-tier candidates because of appearance. He said he believes that if people gave the lower-tier candidates the attention that the top-tier candidates are getting, the lower tier might have a chance of being viewed as more presidential.
Junior psychology major Taylor McCoy said she has been observant of the political runners and the images they portray.
“I think it’s natural, in a sense, to make first judgments based on appearance,” McCoy said. “I think quite a few Americans will vote for Hillary Clinton because they want a female president. Hopefully people (who) do make these snap judgments based on appearance will be willing to change their perception after they hear what the candidates have to say, but I’m afraid first impressions are very stubborn.”
Sullins said the second part of the study focused on the characteristics of the candidate’s linguistics and speech text. According to the research, Donald Trump and Clinton have strikingly similar speech features. Sullins found that they both use narrative, simple sentence structure and phrase their speeches in a way that people of all ages can understand. Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders are the exact opposite. They have little narrative, use complex phrases and are more difficult for people to understand.
Sullins said he has six undergraduate student research assistants helping him with the study. Junior psychology major Nicole Morris is one of the research assistants involved. While data collection and entry are her usual undergraduate tasks, she said she has been able to design parts of this study along with other research assistants.
“It is very much like a mentor relationship with Dr. Sullins,” Morris said. “Psychology graduate schools focus a lot on research, so this experience will be very helpful for my future.”
Sullins said he is hoping to get the information out to the public to help people better understand what they are looking for in a political figure. However, he said the research team still has final analyses to run and more to discover about the study.
“My hope is that we can get this information out there when people are actually thinking about who to vote for,” Sullins said. “I hope that they’ll take a pause and really think about what they like about the person for more than just one-tenth of a second.”
