Obama And Online Dating

If I did not know that the people around me were talking about Obama, I would have guessed that I was among a group of excited fans, infatuated with a rock singer, or a movie star. In fact, when I ask Obama supporters about how they expect him to fair against other US presidents, their general answer is that he is likely to be the best president of all time (some think he will be second to JFK).

Since the emotions and excitement toward Obama seem to be those usually reserved for romantic attraction, I would like to draw on some lessons from our (Mike Norton, Jeana Frost, and I) research on the ways in which people form impressions about others in romantic settings and the pitfalls of their impressions.

What we found is that although people expect that the more they get to know another person the more they will like this person, in reality familiarity breeds contempt! As it turns out, on average, the more we learn about someone, the less we like them. Why is this the case? When we get partial information about others we tend to fill in the gaps optimistically; we assume that they are wonderful, just like us and that they share our exact values and preferences.

This may sound like a recommendation to not reveal much about ourselves and as a consequence gain more affection. However, this approach also presents a possible trap: As people learn more about us, their over-optimistic interpretation dissolves, the disappointment begins, and from then on the disappointments escalates, leading to lower and lower liking.

For example, imagine that someone writes that they like music. You assume that it is the same music you like (blues) and you immediately like this blues-music-lover. But when you learn more, you discover that in fact they like classical music, and once you encounter this one disappointing fact, everything you learn afterward is colored by that initial disappointment.

So, what does this say about Obama? In my estimation one of the charms of Obama is that we know so little about him (we definitely know less about him than about Clinton), and I assume that this lack of knowledge, coupled with our tendency to fill in the missing information in an over-optimistic way is one of the reasons for the Obama love fest. It also means that we should expect a hard and disappointing awakening as we learn more about Obama and realize that he is not the super-human we now imagine him to be.

Finally there is also a pragmatic point to all of this: How long will Obama be able to maintain this lack of knowledge about himself? If he can keep it up until the democratic nomination, he might win the nomination. But then the real question is whether he will be able to maintain the lack of knowledge around him until the general election? If he is unable to do this, if we will learn more about him between the two elections, we might fall out of love with him just before the real elections.

So I wonder, if the Obama that is a candidate for the Democratic Party nominee (largely unknown and admired), would be different from the Obama that is a candidate for the Presidency (more known and less loved.)

Comments

[fmmcfarren]

Interesting post. A little exaggerated, though no doubt some people are always infatuated with some political candidate, i have never personally experienced it.
I think it will be interesting to see how peoples opinions change. I would prefer it in a more controlled research environment, but it will be interesting.
Thanks for an honest thought provoking post.

[RedBirdy]

"So I wonder, if the Obama that is a candidate for the Democratic Party nominee (largely unknown and admired), would be different from the Obama that is a candidate for the Presidency (more known and less loved.) "


Great point. Wonder what the Hillary haters/Obamaniacs would say to that.

[Wilson33]

Great, honest post! But don't expect too much love from the HuffPost fans, they adore Obama, you can not say anything negative about the guy since that will burst their impression of him and when you start to talk truthfully about the guy, like we don't know much about him, watch out cause you are going to get a smack down.

But I agree with your post, I think it is truly rooted in reality, something that the Obamanites sorely lack.

[SamanthaJaneSalem]

One of the false perceptions floating around out there in this election is that we don't know much about Obama.

Dan Ariely writes, "In my estimation one of the charms of Obama is that we know so little about him."

Yet we know him better than we knew Bill Clinton in 1992, who hadn't written two bestselling books-- one very personal, the other a statesman's reflections on issues,values and America-- and had given a speech at a Democratic convention, yes, but a famously over-long speech which Clinton probably hoped voters had forgotten.

In 2000, most voters didn't know that George Bush had been arrested three times, once for drinking and driving. When he spoke almost gleefully about the number of criminals he had executed as governor, voters were still thinking he'd be the guy they'd most want to watch a ball game with.

Among the Obama "cultists" I know: a law library director in his sixties, a married woman with a masters degree and two kids, a former minister (no-- not that one) and a health-care industry administrator in her late fifties. They don't talk about Obama the way the writer above describes.

One interesting sociological study somebody should do is see if the shade of someone's skin in a mostly white society has any factor on the majority's perception of how mysterious, "shady" if you will, that person is. If we continually equate "black" with "bad"-- or something dark, such as the night which limits how well we see things-- maybe the white majority eventually acquires a prejudice about the openness, the bright-as-daylight character and past of people whose skin is browner.