预测选举花落谁家?全靠第一印象
文章来源: 文章作者: 发布时间:2006-11-11 02:00 字体: [ ]  进入论坛
(单词翻译:双击或拖选)

Then-US President Bill Clinton laughs as introductions are made in the East Room of the White House during a 2001 awards ceremony.

Listening to candidates debate may not be the best way of guessing who will win an election.

A study by two US universities found that people were better at predicting election winners solely1 on the candidates' appearance rather than hearing what they have to say.

"We found that snap decisions based on charisma2 are a good predictor of election outcomes," research co-author Daniel Benjamin of Dartmouth College said in a statement.

Moreover, co-author Jesse Shapiro of the University of Chicago said: "Hearing what they say makes you worse at predicting."

The study used 10-second long silent video clip extracts of debates from 58 gubernatorial elections between 1988 and 2002. Some 264 subjects participated in the study.

The video clips did not give the candidate's name or party affiliation3, and the segments were always of debates between two white male candidates to eliminate race and gender4 wild cards .

Based on this limited information, the volunteers were asked to guess which candidate had won. The study found that the subjects were quite good at guessing the winner.

The research, however, was unable to determine which physical attributes gave a candidate the edge.

"There is something mysterious about it," Shapiro said. "People's readings of physical attractiveness are not very predictive. It's who they think would win. It's not just who is good looking, it's something else."

With the audio on, subjects were no better at predicting an outcome, Shapiro said.

According to Benjamin, the research "may help to explain for example why experts forecasters, who are highly informed about and attentive5 to policy matters, have been found to perform no better than chance in predicting elections."

The study, however, did not predict who had the charisma to win the races in Tuesday's US legislative6 and gubernatorial elections.

如果要预测选举中哪位候选人会获胜,其实不用听他们的竞选演说。

美国两所大学所做的一项研究表明,单凭候选人的外表来预测选举结果也比听他们的演说要来得准。

研究报告的撰写者之一、达特默斯大学的丹尼尔·本杰明在一份声明中说:“我们发现,对候选人个人魅力的第一印象有助于预测选举结果。”

研究报告的另一位撰写者、芝加哥大学的耶西·夏皮罗说:“听他们的演说反倒会影响判断。”

研究人员将1988年至2002年间共58次州长竞选的辩论录像制作成10秒钟的消声视频剪辑,并邀请264名调查对象参加了实验。

视频剪辑中没有提供候选人姓名及其所属党派的信息,为了消除种族和性别方面的影响,所有片断都是两名男性白种候选人之间的辩论。

调查对象看完仅有10秒钟的消声录像,就得猜出哪位候选人获胜。结果发现,调查对象猜的都很准。

但是,这项研究并没有发现哪种外表特征对于选举获胜特别有利。

夏皮罗说:“有些东西无法解释。其实,外表也不是最关键的因素,除外表外,对候选人的直觉也很重要。”

他说,即使将录像的音频打开,也没发现对调查对象的预测有什么帮助。

本杰明说,这项研究“可以解释为什么预测专家虽然对候选人的竞选纲领了如指掌,但他们在预测选举结果时往往也是碰运气。”

然而,这项研究没有预测谁将赢得于本周二开始的中期国会选举和州长选举。

 

 

 

Vocabulary:

gubernatorial elections : 州长选举

wild card : 不确定因素

 

 



点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 solely FwGwe     
adv.仅仅,唯一地
参考例句:
  • Success should not be measured solely by educational achievement.成功与否不应只用学业成绩来衡量。
  • The town depends almost solely on the tourist trade.这座城市几乎完全靠旅游业维持。
2 charisma uX3ze     
n.(大众爱戴的)领袖气质,魅力
参考例句:
  • He has enormous charisma. He is a giant of a man.他有超凡的个人魅力,是个伟人。
  • I don't have the charisma to pull a crowd this size.我没有那么大的魅力,能吸引这么多人。
3 affiliation MKnya     
n.联系,联合
参考例句:
  • There is no affiliation between our organization and theirs,even though our names are similar.尽管两个组织的名称相似,但我们之间并没有关系。
  • The kidnappers had no affiliation with any militant group.这些绑架者与任何军事组织都没有紧密联系。
4 gender slSyD     
n.(生理上的)性,(名词、代词等的)性
参考例句:
  • French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语,所有的名词都有性。
  • Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。
5 attentive pOKyB     
adj.注意的,专心的;关心(别人)的,殷勤的
参考例句:
  • She was very attentive to her guests.她对客人招待得十分周到。
  • The speaker likes to have an attentive audience.演讲者喜欢注意力集中的听众。
6 legislative K9hzG     
n.立法机构,立法权;adj.立法的,有立法权的
参考例句:
  • Congress is the legislative branch of the U.S. government.国会是美国政府的立法部门。
  • Today's hearing was just the first step in the legislative process.今天的听证会只是展开立法程序的第一步。
TAG标签:
发表评论
请自觉遵守互联网相关的政策法规,严禁发布色情、暴力、反动的言论。
评价:
表情:
验证码:点击我更换图片