Gaze-following is a pivotal
social behaviour that, although largely automatic, is permeable to high-order
variables like political affiliation.
A few years ago we reported that the gaze
of Italian right-wing voters was selectively captured by the gaze of their
leader Silvio Berlusconi. This effect was particularly evident in voters who
saw themselves as similar to Berlusconi. Two years later, we were able to run
the present follow-up study because Berlusconi's popularity had drastically
dropped due to sex and political scandals, and he resigned from office.
In a
representative subsample of our original group, we investigated whether
perceived similarity and gaze-following reflected Berlusconi's loss in
popularity. We were also able to test the same hypothesis in an independent
group of right-wing voters when their leader, Renata Polverini, resigned as
Governor of 'Regione Lazio' due to political scandals.
Our results show that
the leaders' fall in popularity paralleled the reduction of their gaze's
attracting power, as well as the decrease in similarity perceived by their
voters. The less similar right-wing voters felt to their leader, the less they
followed his/her gaze.
Thus, the present experimental findings suggest that
gaze-following can be modulated by complex situational and dispositional
factors such as leader's popularity and voter-leader perceived similarity.
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By: Porciello G1,2, Liuzza MT3,4, Minio-Paluello I3,4, Caprara GV3, Aglioti SM5,6.
- 1Department of Psychology, Sapienza, University of Rome, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185, Rome, Italy. giuseppina.porciello@uniroma1.it.
- 2Social and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, IRCCS, Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy. giuseppina.porciello@uniroma1.it.
- 3Department of Psychology, Sapienza, University of Rome, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185, Rome, Italy.
- 4Social and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, IRCCS, Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy.
- 5Department of Psychology, Sapienza, University of Rome, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185, Rome, Italy. salvatoremaria.aglioti@uniroma1.it.
- 6Social and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, IRCCS, Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy. salvatoremaria.aglioti@uniroma1.it.
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