揭祕爲何左撇子領袖更受歡迎
If you want to know when a politician is burying bad news, here is a handy hint.
A study of body language has found leaders tend to signal good news by pointing with their dominant hand – but gesture gloomy tidings with their weaker hand.
It means a right-handed politician, such as Nick Clegg, will wave his right hand when passing on positive news, while a left-hander – such as David Cameron – will gesture with his left.
The Dutch researchers say the discovery does not just help voters tell if their politicians are trying to disguise their meaning.
They say the difference in the way left and right-handed leaders gesture could also explain the unlikely number of left-handers in office.
Five out of six of the most recent presidents of America have been southpaws, far exceeding chance, they said.
Dr Daniel Casasanto of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics said: ‘Since the dawn of the television era, we have had many, many more left-handers in presidential office than we should expect according to their prevalence in the population.
Dr Casasanto analysed the final debates of the US presidential elections in 2004, which involved two right-handers John Kerry, and George W Bush, and in 2008 with two left-handers Barack Obama and John McCain.
The left-handed candidates used left hand gestures when making positive statements – and right hand gestures when being negative. The opposite pattern was found in right-handed candidates, he reports in the journal PLoS One. He believes voters subconsciously note which hand their leaders are using.
He said: ‘Right-handers automatically think “good stuff” is on the right, and “lefties” think “good stuff” is on the left, And vice versa. When we see someone on television that is a mirror image.
‘A “rightie” gesturing with his right hand appears on our bad side of TV. While a left-hander appears to be putting things in a much more positive light for the 90% of viewers who are right-handed.’
想知道政壇人士什麼時候是在隱瞞壞消息嗎？這裏有個小竅門。
一項有關身體語言的研究發現，政治領袖在傳達好消息時往往喜歡用慣用手來做手勢——但在傳達不好的訊息時則往往喜歡用那隻不常用的手。
這說明愛用右手的政客，比如尼克•克萊格，在傳達好消息時會用右手，而和大衛•卡梅隆一樣的“左撇子”在這種情況下則會用左手。
開展該研究的荷蘭研究人員稱，這一發現不僅僅能幫助選民判斷他們的領袖是否在試圖掩飾自己的真實本意。
慣用左手和慣用右手的領袖在手勢習慣方面的差別還能解釋爲什麼現任的很多領袖都是“左撇子”。
在美國最近六屆總統中，有五位是左撇子，遠超過了正常概率。
馬克斯•普蘭克語言心理研究院的丹尼爾•克薩恩託博士說：“自從人類進入電視時代後，出現了很多‘左撇子’領袖，其概率遠遠超過左撇子在人口中的比率。”
克薩恩託博士對2004年和2008年美國總統選舉的最後一輪辯論進行了分析，2004年參加辯論的兩名候選人約翰•特里和喬治•W•布什都慣用右手，而2008年的貝拉克•奧巴馬和約翰•麥凱恩都是左撇子。
克薩恩託博士在《公共科學圖書館•綜合》期刊上發表的研究報告中說，慣用左手的候選人在傳達積極訊息時用左手做手勢，在傳達消極訊息時用右手。而慣用右手的候選人的手勢習慣則正好相反。克薩恩託博士認爲選民在潛意識裏會注意候選人在用哪隻手。
他說：“慣用右手的人會不自覺地認爲‘好東西’在右邊，左撇子則認爲‘好東西’在左邊。反之亦然。而我們從電視上看恰好又是反過來的。”
“慣用右手的人在用右手打手勢時從電視裏看是在左邊，傳達的是消極信息；而‘左撇子’從觀衆角度看則像是在用右手，傳達的是積極信息，而普通人中有90%的人都慣用右手。”
Vocabulary:
handy: ready, available,conveniet（便於使用的；方便的）
mirror image:反像；鏡像
