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When Style Obscures Substance: Visual Attention to Display Appropriateness in the 2012 Presidential Debates

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When Style Obscures Substance: Visual Attention to Display Appropriateness in the 2012 Presidential Debates Communication Monographs ISSN: 0363-7751 (Print) 1479-5787 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcmm20 When style obscures substance: Visual attention to display appropriateness in the 2012 presidential debates Zijian Harrison Gong & Erik P. Bucy To cite this article: Zijian Harrison Gong & Erik P. Bucy (2016) When style obscures substance: Visual attention to display appropriateness in the 2012 presidential debates, Communication Monographs, 83:3, 349-372, DOI: 10.1080/03637751.2015.1119868 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2015.1119868 Published online: 14 Jan 2016. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1392 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 16 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rcmm20 COMMUNICATION MONOGRAPHS, 2016 VOL. 83, NO. 3, 349–372 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2015.1119868 When style obscures substance: Visual attention to display appropriateness in the 2012 presidential debates Zijian Harrison Gonga and Erik P. Bucyb aDepartment of Communication, University of Tampa, Tampa, FL, USA; bCenter for Communication Research, College of Media and Communication, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY As with the first televised debates in 1960, the 2012 US presidential Received 3 January 2015 debates accentuated the importance of nonverbal behavior in Accepted 14 September 2015 political competition, with President Obama receiving widespread KEYWORDS criticism for his disengaged and arguably inappropriate 2012 presidential debates; communication style in the first debate. To investigate the perceptual fi political competition; impact of such nonverbal expectancy violations, this study rst nonverbal expectancy employs an experimental design to examine the consequence of violations; display inappropriate leader displays, operationalized as nonverbal behaviors appropriateness; nonverbal that are incongruent with the rhetorical setting. Theoretical behavior; eye-tracking explanations about the evaluative consequences of inappropriate leader displays are described in light of expectancy violations theory. Results of a repeated measures eye-tracking experiment find support for the prediction that inappropriate facial expressions increase visual attention on the source of violation, prompt critical scrutiny, and elicit negative evaluations. These findings are further explored with qualitative analysis of focus group responses to key moments from the first and third presidential debates. The discussion considers the broader implications of nonverbal communication in politics and how expressive leader displays serve as meaningful cues for citizens when making sense of televised political encounters. Compelling evidence has demonstrated that the nonverbal behavior of political candidates significantly affects viewer evaluations, including trait assessments, emotional responses, memory for issue information, and expressions of support (e.g., Bucy, 2011; Olivola & Todorov, 2010; Todorov, Mandisodza, Goren, & Hall, 2005). Indeed, President Obama’s performance during the first presidential debate of 2012 led the New York Times to characterize the president’s first televised encounter with Mitt Romney as “argu- ably the most dismal night of Mr. Obama’s political career,” owing to the president’s detached and dominated style (Nagourney, Parker, Rutenberg, & Zeleny, 2012). Such epi- sodes reinforce the notion that nonverbal cues provide a channel through which voters not only form impressions but also shift political support (Noller, Gallois, Hayes, & Bohle, 1988).1 Beyond assessments of relatively stable traits such as competence or attractiveness, the dynamic quality of televised leader appearances facilitates the coding and appraisal of situational trait evaluations, including the appropriateness of leader displays (Bucy, CONTACT Erik P. Bucy [email protected] © 2016 National Communication Association 350 Z. H. GONG AND E. P. BUCY 2011; Seiter & Weger, 2005). In politics, evaluations of appropriate behavior often turn on questions of social dominance, which concerns the ability to assert authority while avoid- ing signs of submission, evasion, or appeasement in the face of challenge (see Bucy & New- hagen, 1999). In the television era, effectively performing leadership requires a delicate balancing act, however, between politeness, interruption, and argumentation, especially when a rival attempts to assume the mantle of leadership through verbal assertion and aggressive debate tactics. Although leadership has been associated more with positive communication and reassurance, and challenges to leadership more with angry and threa- tening displays (Lanzetta, Sullivan, Masters, & McHugo, 1985), in the face of a concerted challenge by a forceful opponent, leaders are tasked with communicating reassurance by displaying an appropriate amount of combativeness themselves. For nonverbal reactions to be evaluated as appropriate, they must be compatible with the message and with the tone of the setting in which they occur (Bucy, 2011). In other words, the appropriateness of nonverbal expressions indexes the congruency between the candidate’s nonverbal expressions and immediate rhetorical context, wherein situa- tionally consistent responses are classified as appropriate and situationally inconsistent responses as inappropriate. In competitive settings, appropriate nonverbal behavior thus entails an assertive response to challenge or verbal attack. The 2012 US presidential debates accentuated the importance of appropriate nonverbal behavior in politics, as observers widely criticized President Obama for turning in a dis- engaged and lackluster performance in the first debate. Compared to Mitt Romney’s high energy level, Obama spent too much time “looking down and avoiding eye contact, even with the camera. At times he [even] winced as if his opponent was causing him indigestion, but he didn’t return fire” (Stanley, 2012, p. A22). Although not verbally inappropriate, Obama’s avoidance behavior was viewed as expressively incon- gruous with the rhetorical situation. Such incongruity led to the perception that Obama was either oblivious or unconcerned about Romney’s attacks. In earlier televised debates, such dissonant nonverbal behaviors may have gone less noticed due to the use of a single camera shot that focused on one speaker at a time (albeit with some cutaways or reaction shots), yet the ubiquitous use by all the networks in 2012 of split-screen tech- nology that features both candidates simultaneously made their expressive nonverbal reac- tions more prominent than usual. Although the influence of nonverbal expressions on trait inferences has been documented, previous studies have not fully addressed the cognitive and evaluative consequences of inap- propriate displays in political communication. Scholars typically study the effects of nonver- bal displays by isolating the visual and verbal channels of communication (see Hall, Goren, Chaiken, & Todorov, 2009;Mattesetal.,2010), rather than by considering the overall impression of an integrated audiovisual presentation. The evidence for verbal influence largely derives from contexts in which strong arguments are emphasized, such as speeches and debates. Yet with certain notable exceptions, research on debates has largely overlooked the cognitive and evaluative consequences of candidate nonverbal behavior. Departing from this lack of integration in research, our study employs a mixed-method design, including both an experimental investigation (a carefully controlled eye-tracking study) and a series of focus group discussions, to examine more holistically the conse- quences of politically inappropriate displays. Whereas our eye-tracking experiment pro- vides a precise quantitative measure of visual attention to display appropriateness, the COMMUNICATION MONOGRAPHS 351 focus group discussions pull back to explain the perceived social meaning of these find- ings, independent of the controlled experimental setting. Thus, viewer observations about key encounters during the 2012 debates are used to elaborate and explain some of the underlying dynamics that drive attention and result in cognitive resource allocation to particular nonverbal behaviors. Inappropriate displays are operationalized as nonverbal behaviors that are incongruent with the communication setting in which they occur. For Obama, particular attention is paid to evasive, lackluster, and socially submissive nonverbal behavior in juxtaposition to verbal attacks in the first debate, contrasted with his more engaged style in the third debate. For Romney, attention is paid to the efficacy of his attacks, which seemed to lose their purchase in the third debate when Obama became more assertive, as well as to the authenticity of his communication style, which was critiqued for its hurried pace and rehearsed quality—including the rigidity of his smile (see also Stewart, Bucy, & Mehu, 2015). Next, we discuss the importance of nonverbal presentation style in political competition and the concept of emotional appropriateness. Theoretical explanations about the evalua- tive consequences of inappropriate leader displays are described in light of expectancy vio- lations theory. Extending this line of inquiry, a repeated measures eye-tracking experiment is conducted to examine whether inappropriate facial expressions do indeed increase attention
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