University of Canterbury study looks at trustworthiness and support of politicians

September 8, 2014

A University of Canterbury marketing study has looked at what impact the Thatcher Effect has on perceptions of trustworthiness and liking of New Zealand politicians leading up to the 2014 general election.

The Thatcher Effect was based on using images of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that had her face flipped vertically, all except for her smile.

Researchers showed that when a person’s face is flipped upside down, with the smile left in the original position, people’s minds implicitly made sense of the image.

The university’s marketing associate professor Ekant Veer has led a study at Canterbury hypothesising perceptions of liking and trustworthiness that are linked to perceptions of image or beauty in campaign photos of different politicians.

``I used the Thatcher Effect as a way of seeing how implicitly people were able to see a normal image. Those people who felt the flipped image was quite normal also showed high levels of trustworthiness and affect towards the person,’’ Associate Professor Veer says.

``While those who found the images quite affronting had the opposite effect. We surveyed nearly 1000 New Zealanders in the study. Five hundred participants were shown the Thatchered images and were asked to rate their perceptions of beauty when the image was flipped, all except the smile.

``We showed the opposite images to 500 more New Zealanders and conducted the same study. We then linked the difference between these two groups to perceptions of trustworthiness and affect from 250 North Americans who reported to know nothing about New Zealand politics, so as not to impact any political affiliation.

``We found that the politicians that showed the lowest difference between the different images also received the highest levels of trustworthiness and affect from the North American audience.

``Those with the greatest beauty or image difference reported significantly lower levels of trustworthiness. For example, Judith Collins had the highest disparity between her two images and also the lowest levels of trustworthiness, at nearly a third of John Key's trustworthiness and just under a half of David Cunliffe's.’’

This University of Canterbury research gives implications as to how some people could implicitly make associations between trustworthiness of politicians and their presentation in campaign material, such as billboards and leaflets.

When a large Thatcher Effect is shown to exist, perhaps a smile is not the best thing to be plastered over campaign material, and it could be a good reason why John Key’s smiling image on every National billboard is helping in the lead up to the election, Associate Professor Veer says.

It could also offer evidence as to why John Key is able to maintain significantly higher levels of public support as preferred Prime Minister despite the Nicky Hagar book, while David Cunliffe's mistakes with capital gains tax only further solidifies implicit perceptions of less trustworthiness.

The study gives some additional answers as to why someone like John Key is so high up the liking ratings, despite the mud-slinging at him, while David Cunliffe seems unable to sway public opinion.

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