Wanna know if someone is more likely to win an election?A monkey can tell you — which is kind of bananas.A study presented photos of US gubernatorial and senatorial election candidates to rhesus macaques, a type of monkey, who were able to predict the winners and losers of each election.The results revealed monkeys and humans may not be so different, at least when judging visual images alone..The monkeys spent more time looking at the losing than the winning candidates — and no, not because the losers were more fascinating to stare at.It was actually because the losers' appearance — the monkeys looked at the winners' faces less because they tended to be more masculine.And since they were more masculine — those faces tended to look more dominant.As the lead researcher, Yaoguang Jiang, explained, monkeys have a tendency to avoid spending too long looking at masculine faces, since sustained eye contact is a challenge and a sign of aggression..This reflected the voting behaviour in humans: the monkeys were able to predict not just who won the election, but the percentage of votes each candidate received."Our findings endorse the idea that voters spontaneously respond to evolutionarily conserved visual cues to physical prowess and that voting behavior is shaped, in part, by ancestral adaptations shared with nonhuman primates,” stated Jiang.But of course, dear reader, you might be wondering about the female candidates.Female candidates with a higher jaw prominence were rated as more competent and received more votes..Overall, based on masculinity cues, females were less likely to win than their male counterparts.However, voters still chose female candidates almost half of the time — 49%— suggesting that other factors go into voting decisions than masculinity cues.To avoid this monkey reasoning, Jiang urges voters "to overcome this ancient heuristic by becoming more informed on candidates and their policies.”
