揭秘为何左撇子领袖更受欢迎

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.’

想知道政坛人士什么时候是在隐瞒坏消息吗？这里有个小窍门。

一项有关身体语言的研究发现，政治领袖在传达好消息时往往喜欢用惯用手来做手势——但在传达不好的讯息时则往往喜欢用那只不常用的手。

这说明爱用右手的政客，比如尼克．克莱格，在传达好消息时会用右手，而和大卫．卡梅隆一样的“左撇子”在这种情况下则会用左手。

开展该研究的荷兰研究人员称，这一发现不仅仅能帮助选民判断他们的领袖是否在试图掩饰自己的真实本意。

惯用左手和惯用右手的领袖在手势习惯方面的差别还能解释为什么现任的很多领袖都是“左撇子”。

在美国最近六届总统中，有五位是左撇子，远超过了正常概率。

马克斯．普兰克语言心理研究院的丹尼尔．克萨恩托博士说：“自从人类进入电视时代后，出现了很多‘左撇子’领袖，其概率远远超过左撇子在人口中的比率。”

克萨恩托博士对2004年和2008年美国总统选举的最后一轮辩论进行了分析，2004年参加辩论的两名候选人约翰．特里和乔治．W．布什都惯用右手，而2008年的贝拉克．奥巴马和约翰．麦凯恩都是左撇子。

克萨恩托博士在《公共科学图书馆．综合》期刊上发表的研究报告中说，惯用左手的候选人在传达积极讯息时用左手做手势，在传达消极讯息时用右手。而惯用右手的候选人的手势习惯则正好相反。克萨恩托博士认为选民在潜意识里会注意候选人在用哪只手。

他说：“惯用右手的人会不自觉地认为‘好东西’在右边，左撇子则认为‘好东西’在左边。反之亦然。而我们从电视上看恰好又是反过来的。”

“惯用右手的人在用右手打手势时从电视里看是在左边，传达的是消极信息；而‘左撇子’从观众角度看则像是在用右手，传达的是积极信息，而普通人中有90%的人都惯用右手。”

Vocabulary:

handy: ready, available,conveniet（便于使用的；方便的）

mirror image:反像；镜像