Some wonder about the timing of this medical record disclosure–saying only a narcissist would leak his medical records at a time like this–shouldn’t we have heard about this when he was running for President? Our friend Charli Morris (a self-described “loyal Democrat”) tells us that the up-close view of this trial from her North Carolina home is not a pretty picture.

John Edwards took a short cut on the long slide from from “golden boy” to “most contemptible”.  Not unlike Newt Gingrich, he had an affair with a woman during his wife’s convalescence from cancer, and is now suffering the complications of having to deal with the stunningly insensitive abandonment. It’s  the ultimate challenge to pretrial publicity. While recent research would say that older jurors might be better for John Edwards, it’s hard to believe that jury selection will be that simple in his case. There are too many wrinkles and caveats and too many negative opinions.

While Gingrich prevailed among the Christian evangelical voters in the South Carolina Republican primary with claims that it was an error of the past brought on by excessive devotion to work(!), Edwards has much bigger problems.  Edwards’ betrayal was relatively recent, with a wife who has consistently been more popular than he is, who died after having been in recovery at the time that the scandal was made public.  While potential jurors may say they are able to be fair, it’s hard to see how most people can put the media information aside completely and offer a verdict based on facts alone.

It’s part of what makes voir dire such a constantly changing puzzle. Everyone tries to find an edge. Whether that edge is assessing social anxiety from Facebook profiles or some other strategy–we all look for clues in the arena of the not easily observed that will lead to a better jury selection. It’s our guess that the Edwards’ defense team is doing extensive pretrial research to identify trial themes, case narratives, and juror experiences that work for them and not against them.

Fernandez, K., Levinson, C., & Rodebaugh, T. (2012). Profiling: Predicting Social Anxiety From Facebook Profiles Social Psychological and Personality Science DOI: 10.1177/1948550611434967

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But according to some new research, we might want to think again! As it happens, asymmetry occurs in-utero as a result of stress. Scientists say higher symmetry is a sign of genetic fitness. When they see asymmetry between the right and left sides of the body, scientists say those fetuses were less able to develop symmetrically in the presence of those in-utero stressors. Poor babies!

Leadership researchers talk about transactional versus transformational leaders. Many of them prefer the transformational style of leadership but we’ve seen terrific examples of both among trial lawyers.

A transactional leader is very precise and linear. Communication styles are likely factual, detail oriented, chronological and thorough. They invite you to think and consider the evidence without telling you what you should conclude, and their style of persuasion is very subtle. You are drawn to the transactional leader because they are clear, straightforward, and trustworthy. One of our very successful long-term clients has this style and jurors love it.

A transformational leader is charismatic. Communication styles are more emotive even though they may also be factual and thorough. You are drawn to the transformational leader because of their intensity, passion, and commitment to their cause. The transformational leader is able to inspire followers to put aside self-interest for the good of the group. Another of our very successful long-term clients has this style and jurors love it.

In this study, researchers looked at stereotypes of symmetrical people and asymmetrical people. Symmetrical people are seen as better looking, healthier, more intelligent and more dominant. They are the classic alphas. The asymmetrical person “has to develop more positive social skills to compensate for these perceived shortcomings.”

Then, they measured leadership style via self-report questionnaires and actual small team leadership observation over the course of 22 weeks when groups were required to complete a computer simulation task. They also measured participant earlobes, wrist widths, and finger lengths and assigned scores for overall symmetry to each participant.

What they found is interesting.

Highly asymmetrical people saw themselves as having higher [self-reported] leadership abilities. They saw themselves as more able to intuit others’ feelings and needs and as more able to inspire others.

And this was confirmed as a reality via group performance. The more asymmetrical the leader, the better the team performed (about 20% better on average).

The researchers think that if you’re born with asymmetries you likely focus on developing more “people skills” to overcome perceptions that you are unattractive or not very intelligent. It’s an intriguing idea. Perhaps it is also that people with asymmetry are more interesting looking–and the longer eye gaze from others as they assess the asymmetry leads to development of skills to sustain others’ interest.

Regardless of the reason, it’s a good visual to look for as we select jurors. Crooked ears and signs of social intelligence sparkling in those too far apart eyes? Now there’s a jury leader! [If you’d like to check your own facial symmetry, [for scientific purposes] visit this website.

Senior, C., Martin, R., Thomas, G., Topakas, A., West, M., & M. Yeats, R. (2011). Developmental stability and leadership effectiveness The Leadership Quarterly DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.08.005

Senior C, Martin R, West M, & Yeats RM (2011). How earlobes can signify leadership potential. Harvard Business Review, 89 (11) PMID: 22111428

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Researchers obtained photos of Republican and Democrat political candidates and removed any highly recognizable candidates from the array. The photos were simple head shots. They replaced the backgrounds with a plain gray background so that contextual cues were not available. They displayed only Republican or Democrat candidates in 256 elections and asked half the participants to identify (in a computer presented format) which candidate they thought was Democrat (thus, by default, identifying the other as Republican). They asked the other half of the participants to identify which candidate they thought was Republican (thus, by default, identifying the other as Democrat).

When they discovered participants tended to identify female or non-Caucasian candidates as Democrat, they performed an analysis of the entire sample as well as one in which they only included candidates who were both white males.

The results were disturbingly accurate. Republican or Republican-leaning participants were more accurate in identifying the candidates’ political affiliation. There was no particular bias for or against facial appearance among the Democrat or Democrat-leaning participants. The researchers concluded that conservative voters are more influenced by political facial stereotypes than are liberal voters.

To be certain, they also checked facial competence [whether participants thought the person appeared competent], attractiveness, and the sense of the candidates‘ honesty and dependability. All of these were based on their attributions to a photograph. None of these perceived traits or qualities correlated with the participants identification of the photo to a political party. When they compared “permanent facial characteristics” (like bone structure) with “transitory features” (such as facial expression, eye gaze direction or head tilt)–again, the effect seemed to be related to something permanent in facial features.

So no one can tell us just “what a Republican looks like” but Republican voters can “see it”. Seriously? We know this happens with religious affiliation where others can identify whether you are or are not a Mormon. But political affiliation? Our take is that they are responding to a sense of familiarity with leaders they prefer. The one with whom they most closely connect. The one that is most like them. It is a human inclination that we have written about before, and it appears to resonate with voters as well as jurors.

Olivola, C., Sussman, A., Tsetsos, K., Kang, O., & Todorov, A. (2012). Republicans Prefer Republican-Looking Leaders: Political Facial Stereotypes Predict Candidate Electoral Success Among Right-Leaning Voters Social Psychological and Personality Science DOI: 10.1177/1948550611432770

Image is one of the stimuli used in the actual study. Who’s the Republican?

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