Tears, Real and Fake; Tearing up the Rightwing Weepers

I came across this fascinating article about the resignation of the very naughty Republican Congressman from New York who was busted lying and trying to cheat on his wife on Craig's List.  What is it with these Republican exhibitionists anyway?  We have the shirtless Christopher Lee, the Cosmo naked centerfold Senator Scott Brown.

And we have of course the prominent public weepers on the right, for which there is no equivalent on the left, Weeper of the House John Boehner, who blubbers at the drop of a hat on cue.  This uncontrolled emotion, or at least sham emotion, from the third in line to the Presidency? (Can you imagine the criticism that she would have received if Nancy Pelosi had done that?)  And the legendary hoaxer and absolutely crazy conspiracy promoter Glenn Beck cries like a baby pretty much daily, (Beck is who other crazies on the right like Michele Bachmann claim inform the right wing majority of congress, which would explain a lot.)

Don't get me wrong; I'm enlightened enough to appreciate that it is appropriate and perfectly manly for a man to cry when the circumstances justify it.  I applaud anyone who is psychologically healthy by being in touch with their own emotions; it is a good thing. But as often as these two do it would annoy me coming from any man, woman or child, and they do it when the circumstances don't seem to justify it.  That to me smacks of manipulative, dishonest behavior.

But it seems evident to me that Boehner and Beck both cry crocodile tears, and cry them often.  I don't find a moment of their blubbering to be sincere, a completely different reaction than the one I have to the tears of honest men of any political conviction.  So it seems a perfect opportunity to test the theory of PhD candidate Leanne tenBrinke  of the Centre for the Advancement of Psychology and Law, at the University of British Columbia, published in a recent edition of Law and Human Behavior.  Here is her study, because sadly too often the media misrepresents science in their attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator, so it is worthwhile to go to the source.


The purpose of this study was to help those in the legal professions - like judges, jurors, parole officers, (and presumably law enforcement as well would benefit) - to detect insincerity and dishonesty.  Can you imagine a better tool with which to evaluate our public figures?  While former Congressman Lee did not read his own apology and resignation - which would have revealed his actual sincerity or lack of it, (no doubt with the obligatory unhappy wife forced to stand by his side in humiliation), Boehner and Beck blubber in front of the cameras all the time.  We could try out the attractively brainy tenBrinke's findings on Beck daily.

How can we try this out at home? Here's how:

Her analysis of nearly 300,000 frames of both the upper and lower face showed that participants who displayed false remorse exhibited more of the seven universal emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, and contempt) than those who were genuinely sorry.

"We found that during falsified remorse, people showed a greater range of emotional expression,” she says. “They were more likely to show anger and contempt, where as the genuine folks didn't show these kinds of emotions."

Working with Professors Stephen Porter and Brian O’Connor from the Centre for the Advancement of Psychology and Law (CAPSL) at UBC's Okanagan campus, and Sarah MacDonald from Memorial University of Newfoundland, ten Brinke's research showed that the sequence of facial emotions could also reveal important clues to deception.

"Particularly in the lower face, liars were much more likely to be what we termed as 'emotionally turbulent,'" says ten Brinke. "This means they were more likely to jump from positive to negative emotions immediately. During genuine remorse, people are more likely to return to a neutral emotion in between the extremes."

Of course, for this to really work, it would be better to have some footage of Bohener and Beck in front of the cameras telling the truth, and speaking sincerely.  Getting that footage for comparison is the hard part. But until that footage becomes available, we can still observe the lower facial expressions of Boehner and Beck, and their rather dramatic mood swings.  Good job Ms. tenBrinke (hopefully very soon Dr. tenBrinke!  I love the idea of the cross over of this kind of science into our daily poli-sci.  Lets hope we can add more research like this to our understanding of current events and political decisions.