Facial Coding of Palin and Biden Debate
By Dan Hill | Related entries in 2008 Election, Biden, Debates, Palin, Science
Editor’s Note: Justin here. I’m very excited to welcome Dan Hill to Donklephant, author of Face Time, a book about the political candidates and how their emotions play a vital role in the campaign. He’ll be penning some editorials about the “facial coding” that went on with each candidate after every debate.
Here’s part of his bio: Dan Hill is a recognized authority on the role of emotions in consumer and employee behavior with over a decade of experience running his scientific, emotional insights consultancy: Sensory Logic, Inc. Dan has appeared on FOX NEWS, CNN, and MSNBC regarding his analysis of the 2008 Presidential Election. Press coverage of Dan and his company include The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, TIME.com, China Forbes, Entrepreneur, LA Times and Kiplinger’s.
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What’s emerging is a split Palin persona based on how she emotes during her public moments. At one end of the spectrum, disasterously, is of course the embarassing Charles Gibson and Katie Couric appearances, in which the usually high energy Palin has faltered. There was the suddenly still, lady-like Palin who politely crossed her hands across her lap while hoping for help in defining the Bush Doctrine – accompanied by an eye-brow that show up in fear.
Then with Couric, Palin resorted to wrinkling her nose in disdain and narrowing her eyebrows as she also glared at Couric.
Come debate time, that Palin went away and the Palin of the St. Paul convention speech reappeared. There were lots of natural smiles…
…and when she wrinkled her nose it often came with a wink, and a nod, as she much more vigorously and comfortably took on the Democrats.
From what she emoted as evident from her facial muscle activity – i.e., facial coding – Palin was vivacious and at ease.
But the focus group of voters I observed on behalf of a major network felt differently, finding Palin’s folksy ways too folksy, leading to much more of an emotional response to Palin (twice as much as to Biden), but the overriding emotional response was contempt, shown by the voters’ mouths curling up in a smirk.
Biden drew plenty of smirks, too (1/3rd of all the response to him were also contempt), but the single most emotive moment in the evening for him wasn’t about showing or eliciting smirks from voters. Instead, as he spoke of being a single parent after his wife’s untimely death, the corners of his mouth both tightened in resolution (anger) and drooped ever so slightly in sadness.
Otherwise, Biden varied between the very occasional electric smile…
…and a more chiding, concerned look.
His mouth drooped down and pushed out, in an expression of bitter disgust at times.
At other times, his chin would rise in a sign of anger and disgust, often accompanied by a tight mouth that signals anger.
Most common of all was his narrowing of the eyes, again a sign of anger.
In short, Biden was stern – angry and disgusted with Palin – giving evidence in non-verbal signals his feelings toward her, which was safer than either Gore’s notorious sighs of 2000 or making a condescending remark aloud.
Who was the most effective in facial coding terms? Palin, for while Biden won on the talking points dimension, on feeling points she offered more hope, more energy, more “spunk.” Remember Lou Grant telling Mary Tyler Moore: “You’ve got spunk,” and then adding: “I hate spunk.”
Well, Lou would hate Palin for sure!
This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Biden, Debates, Palin, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 6th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Palin’s wide, toothy smiles and winks remind me of the “submissive gestures” that a puppy displays to appease an alpha dog. She’s saying that, although she’s a woman seeking a position of power, we shouldn’t be afraid of her because she’s not really challenging the alpha men.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
What I found particularly distasteful is the fact that she wanted to be seen as an attack pit bull, but yet — there’s a double standard — where she’s still expecting to be treated delicately. You can’t have it both ways! If you say you’re a pit bull and qualified to stand in the ring and fight with the big boys, then you’ve got to be willing to take big boy punches. As a woman, I’m truly embarrassed that THIS is the first ‘woman’ (not withstanding Geradine Ferraro] chosen by McCain to supposedly represent me as Vice President of the United States. An airhead! What a slap in the face to ALL women! I read Joe Biden’s facial expresssions as ‘disgust and contempt’ because she actually showed such little true knowledge of the subject matter, he seemed to find it hard to even dignify her tactics!