Critical Reply Paper on Election - Essay Example

Inserts His/her Inserts Inserts Grade (19, 07, Critical Reply Paper Introduction There has been much research on the patterns of the outcomes of elections all over the world. The significance of elections in today’s world has attracted many researchers to study the outcomes under the lens of different statistical tools. The aim of the researchers is to predict the outcomes of elections accurately and this aim is the main reason of most of the research done in this regard. The article in question is also a similar attempt as it focuses on the inferences of competence from facial appearances and its relation to the outcomes of the U.S congressional elections (Todorov et al. 2005). The results they got were better than chance as they were able to predict around 69% of the senate elections. This article will be the focus of our attention and an attempt will be made to critically evaluate the study. Critical Analysis The study is based on the idea that inferences made by people on the basis of facial expression and appearance have great value in deciding their voting behaviors. This is the main theory that is argued in the study. The article is trying to statistically prove this theory in the study. The theory is supported by psychological perspectives in the article. The theory itself is good if we consider the findings that psychology has provided during the 20th and the 21st century. Psychologically it is proven that facial expressions are very important in determining the first impression people have on the person. For this very reason in all business communication courses students are taught to maintain a keen and an attentive facial expression. Also in giving interviews facial expressions are important. So the importance of facial expressions cannot be denied. The theory has just taken the idea to a next level as they tried to predict election outcomes through it. This is not a very optimistic approach and it is certainly not a farfetched idea. When evaluating a theory it is important to consider if the theory is somewhat believable or not and if it is based on known facts or not. The theory should make sense and it should not be something unimaginable. If this is the case then certain biases may dilute the result. The theory is the basis of the research and it is present by the people who are conducting the research. They may have some bias regarding their own theory and this can affect the results of the study. This is why a theory should be bases upon facts and previous studies. In this case the theory is based upon the findings of the field of psychology so it is very appropriate. Different perspectives are also discussed in the article that can affect upon the voting behaviors of the people. These factors include party affiliation, information about the candidate and the candidate’s stance on major issues. This shows that there is not bias in the study and information of only one side is not presented, but all the factors are discussed. The hypothesis of the study says that people infer from candidate’s facial expressions his competence and this inference influence voting behaviors. The hypothesis is also not presumptuous and the introduction and the discussion before the hypothesis leads readers to the hypothesis. There seems no particular bias involved in the hypothesis as it is justified by the facts and reason. It is actually drawn by the help of knowledge of psychology as it tells a lot about human behavior. The method of collecting data is something very important in any research. The method can significantly influence upon the results. A method can also be compromised by the bias of the researcher therefore the methodology will be evaluated with great care in this article in order to reflect upon the study as a whole. In short the essence of a study is its method of collecting data from the participants. In the study participants were asked to evaluate candidates for US senate election for 2000, 2002 and 2004. Candidates of house for 2002 and 2004 were also included in the study. One thing is important to note here and that is the fact that all participant did not knew any of the candidate they were evaluating. If they did know a candidate then that pair was switched. This was done to ensure that all the evaluation was done on the basis of facial expressions only and not on the basis of prior information. The pictures of two candidates were shown to the participants and they were asked to pick one candidate who they thought was more competent. The pictures were all black in white and this was done to eradicate any racial bias of the participants. The participants were not aware of the fact that which candidate won and which lost. They were just evaluating the candidates on the basis of their facial expressions. Standard head shot photos were used so that the participants can focus on the face of the candidates. Participants did not have to rate the competence level, they just had to choose who according to them was the most competent of the two candidates. The time given to the participants was also very less (one second mostly) and in this time they had to evaluate the competence and record their response. This process of data collection was fairly logical. All the efforts were done in order to isolate any other factor except competence. The same photo size, the same head shot and the black and white pictures were very good attempts to make the research as objective as possible. The design of the research study was excellent. Also the article identifies that there may have been other factors that influence the participants in their response so they asked them to also make judgment on the different traits they can think about the candidates. This information was used to control all the factors except competence and then the results were calculated. There was also a correlation between the competence inference and margin of victory. This was found by isolating the effects of competence only the judgment of the participants. This correlation proved to be right in all sets of study conducted. This shows the validity of the results and confirms the outcomes. All these methods used were very scientific and all the work was done professionally. Researchers would have been mistaken if they had not taken into account the effects of other traits in the judgment of the participants. This made the study more objective and more scientific. The results of the study confirmed the hypothesis that was given in the beginning of the research. The study proved that voting behaviors of people are directly influenced by the inference of competence by the facial expression of the candidates. The result was very substantial so there is no doubt that the results confirmed the hypothesis. The conclusions drawn by the researchers are justified as they are based on facts and data. The subjectivity involved in the research was significant and at a glance many potential problem and issues were highlighted. But the way the study was designed and the way all the factors were isolated only to study the effects of competence was very good. Also in the end researchers have accepted that this theory of theirs may not be a scientific reality. They also accepted that there are loads of other factors that influence on the voting patterns of the people. But in the end of the study they concluded that these factors can weaken the correlation but cannot change the direction of the correlation is that the voting behavior will be directly proportional to the inference of competence as seen by the voters. The researchers could have given more time to participants to answer the question and that could have affected the result. One second is very limited time and this may have impacted the results of the study. In real life people have more time to look and choose from the candidates. This could have better explained the voting behavior. Political Implications of the Findings The political implications of the findings of the study are significant. It shows that how important it is to focus on the pictures of the candidates and how important it is to place them in a right manner. The findings also tell us the importance of marketing the candidate to the people. It is very important that majority of the voters should know the candidate and they should know about his agenda as one cannot leave his or her fate on inference of his or her competence by the voters. Proper knowledge should be provided to people and the good old fashioned way of elections should be followed. The findings related to facial expression and inference of competent may not change the whole structure of future political campaign but they will certainly add a few things to it. Works Cited Page Todorov, Alexander et al. Inferences of Competence from Faces Predict Election Outcomes. Science Magazine 10 Jun. 2010: 1623-1625. Print Read More