Emotions expressed by leaders in videos predict political aggression

Abstract

Matsumoto, Hwang, and Frank [2012a. Emotions expressed in speeches by leaders of ideologically motivated groups predict aggression. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression. doi:10.1080/19434472.2012.716449] provided evidence that the verbal expression of anger, contempt, and disgust by leaders of ideologically motivated groups when talking about their archrival opponent outgroups is associated with subsequent political aggression. That study was limited in two ways, first because it only analyzed emotions expressed in text, and second because it analyzed only text excerpts that directly mentioned the outgroups. In this study, we remedied both limitations by analyzing emotions nonverbally expressed by leaders in videos, and by comparing both outgroup and non-outgroup mentions. Leaders of groups that eventually committed acts of aggression expressed significantly more anger, contempt, and disgust when talking about their archrival opponent outgroups than when not talking, whereas there was no such difference for acts of resistance. These findings reinforced the potentially important role of anger, contempt, and disgust in the escalation to political aggression.

Keywords:

• emotion
• expression
• political aggression
• anger
• contempt
• disgust

Acknowledgements

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This report was prepared with the support of research grant FA9550-10-1-0544 from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Notes on contributors

David Matsumoto is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Culture and Emotion Research Laboratory at San Francisco State University, where he has been since 1989. He is also Director of Humintell, LLC, a company that provides research, consultation, and training on nonverbal behavioral analysis and cross-cultural adaptation. He has studied culture, emotion, social interaction and communication for over 30 years and has worked extensively with government law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Hyisung C. Hwang is a Research Scientist at Humintell, and Adjunct Assistant Faculty at San Francisco State University. Her research interests are in emotion, nonverbal behaviors, and culture. She is an expert in the conduct of research examining facial expressions and other nonverbal behaviors, and has authored or co-authored numerous scientific articles and book chapters on nonverbal behavior, facial expressions, and culture.

Mark G. Frank, Ph.D., is a professor and director of the Communication Science Center at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. His research interests are in emotion and deception, and he has worked and consulted extensively with government law enforcement and intelligence agencies in counterterrorism-related activities.