Editorial: Credit crunch is crunch time for women
THE mark of a good leader may be etched on their face but whether he or she gets elected might depend on the state of the nation.
To see whether facial characteristics influence our choice of leader, Brian Spisak and Mark Van Vugt at the University of Kent, UK, manipulated computer images of male and female faces to make them appear more masculine or feminine.
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They asked 118 volunteers to choose one of them as a leader for different scenarios: during times of war; when peacekeeping between different groups was important; during periods of transition; to maintain stability after a natural disaster; and when there was a risk of civil war.
The researchers also altered the male and female faces to look older or younger, and then asked 145 volunteers to pick a leader given the same scenarios.
During times of war, the volunteers preferred masculine or older faces, while they picked feminine faces when inter-group peacekeeping was the priority. Interestingly, gender was irrelevant 鈥� with masculine-looking women picked over feminine-looking males during times of war, and vice versa.
鈥淭his suggests that traditional classifications of male and female are not as relevant a cue as we might think,鈥� says Spisak, who spoke at a meeting of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association in St Andrews, UK, earlier this month.
Previous studies have hinted that voters prefer masculine-looking leaders during wartime, as these types of faces are associated with dominant and decisive traits, says Alexander Todorov of Princeton University. 鈥淭he novelty here is that masculinity or femininity, which is naturally correlated with gender, still influences decisions even when unconfounded by gender.鈥�
Spisak and Van Vugt also found that youthful faces were preferred during times of transition and stability 鈥� with young females the leaders of choice.
Spisak believes that facial characteristics may have played a role in the recent US presidential elections, although other factors were also clearly involved. 鈥淥bama was an easier sell,鈥� he says. 鈥淗e was the relatively younger candidate, and he stuck with this message of change and transition. If McCain had had a stronger and more consistent message on the war, perhaps he would have stood a better chance of winning.鈥�
Editorial: Credit crunch is crunch time for women