J'essaie de faire du copier/coller une exception, mais comme je n'ai pas vraiment la possibilité de creuser le sujet, voici un communiqué intéressant de l'Université de Genève:
Des chercheurs de l’UNIGE examinent la manipulation des émotions en politique. Produit dans le cadre de la campagne présidentielle française, le débat télévisé du 2 mai dernier entre la candidate socialiste Ségolène Royal et le candidat UMP Nicolas Sarkozy a fait couler beaucoup d'encre. Aujourd'hui, le prof. Klaus Scherer, directeur du Pôle national de recherche en Science Affectives de l'Université de Genève (UNIGE), revient sur l'expression de la «colère» de Mme Royal, en jetant un regard plus scientifique sur cet épisode et ses caractéristiques émotionnelles.
The televised debate between the French presidential candidates Ségolène Royal and Nicola Sarkozy has been watched attentively by millions in France and elsewhere. One of the highlights of the debate, commented upon copiously in the French and international media, was Mrs. Royal’s outraged reaction to Mr. Sarkozy’s suggestions about improving the schooling of the handicapped. Sarkozy commented on the incident by questioning Royal’s presidential competence with respect to maintaining equanimity whereas Royal defended her need to express righteous anger. Ever since Aristotle, who said that one needs to express one’s anger in an appropriate form when strategically necessary, even though one does not feel it, rhetoricians have advised public speakers to perfect their ability to show morally justified anger. Royal is considered, at least by her supporters, as more authentically affective than Sarkozy, who is often described as manipulative. Yet, the anger display shown by Royal in the presidential debate has been the subject of much disagreement as to whether Royal’s anger was deeply felt, as she claimed, or used strategically to motivate accusing Sarkozy of political immorality.
Modern emotion research provides us with tools that allow examining the issue scientifically. Empirical research shows with a very high degree of convergence and certainty that intensive anger experiences are expressed by a number of universal indices in the face and the voice. Individuals experiencing anger will generally crease their brows in a frown (due an innervation of the corrugator muscle) and change their speaking style and voice quality (speaking louder, with a higher pitch, and stronger energy in the higher frequencies). Some of these parameters can be consciously manipulated, as advised by rhetoric teachers since ancient times, particularly facial expressions like frowns or smiles. However, while it is relatively easy to control the facial muscles, the voice is much more difficult to manipulate in a voluntary fashion. Scientists in the University of Geneva’s Emotion Research Group (Scherer, Bänziger, and Grandjean) have been able to show in a large scale research project with over hundred speakers in three languages that voice loudness and pitch can, to some extent, be voluntarily manipulated, this is not the case for voice quality, in particular the relative energy in different frequency ranges.
Research in this area is ongoing in the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, a national center of competence in research, at the University of Geneva (Scherer, Goudbeek, Mortillaro). Researchers at the Center have analyzed Royal’s anger display in the debate to determine whether the expression suggests really felt or strategically manipulated anger, using digital voice analysis and microcoding of facial expressions. Concretely, Royal’s facial and vocal expressions before (female police officer topic) and after (immigration topic) the “handicap anger” incident were analyzed and compared with an earlier anger outbreak by Royal in a debate with Sarkozy in 1993 Université de Genève
and her speech conceding the recent presidential elections. With respect to facial expression, Royal did not show a higher level of corrugator activity (angry frown) in the anger incident compared to the control conditions; in fact, she showed extremely few movements of the muscles in the upper face, which is quite unusual as these muscles are also used for linguistic emphasis. In the voice, as shown in the figures below, there is a slight raise in intensity, pitch, and spectral flattening compared to the two less controversial topics in the debate but this is much less pronounced than in the 1993 anger incident. With respect to the issue of whether she really felt the righteous anger she verbally professed, or only strategically portrayed anger, one can conclude that there is very little evidence for strong anger in facial expression and in major voice cues that are difficult to voluntarily control. Interestingly, in her conceding speech, while maintaining a consistent smile in the face, her voice revealed a level of arousal that is characteristic for intense negative emotions.
The University of Geneva’s research team will continue to use the leading-edge tools developed by the Center to monitor the emotional states – felt or faked – expressed in political debates – in Switzerland and elsewhere.
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