title: Right-wing politicians prefer the emotional left.
abstract: Physiological research suggests that social attitudes, such as political beliefs, may be partly hard-wired in the brain. Conservatives have heightened sensitivity for detecting emotional faces and use emotion more effectively when campaigning. As the left face displays emotion more prominently, we examined 1538 official photographs of conservative and liberal politicians from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States for an asymmetry in posing. Across nations, conservatives were more likely than liberals to display the left cheek. In contrast, liberals were more likely to face forward than were conservatives. Emotion is important in political campaigning and as portraits influence voting decisions, conservative politicians may intuitively display the left face to convey emotion to voters.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. nicole.thomas@flinders.edu.au
authors.forename: Nicole A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Loetscher
authors.forename: Danielle
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Clode
authors.forename: Michael E R
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Nicholls
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D002170:Canada; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D006801:Humans; D011057:Politics; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States