The Power of Smiling. How Politicians’ Displays of Happiness Affect Viewers’ Gaze Behavior and Political Judgments

Abstract

It is a common assumption that facial expressions of politicians, such as a smile, are powerful tools to draw attention and evoke positive impressions. However, previous research has not fully linked politicians’ nonverbal behavior, viewers’ visual attention and their political impression formation. To address this gap, the research presented in this chapter uses a multi-method design to explore the role of a politician’s smiling for viewers’ judgments about him. More precisely, a laboratory study examined the visual attention (eye-tracking; n = 122) and spontaneous judgments of viewers (continuous response measurement; n = 125) while the participants were exposed to an excerpt of a German local televised debate. Moreover, half of the participants viewed the video in a full audiovisual version while the other half watched a video-only version.