Jakarta, Indonesia Sentinel — A peculiar study has emerged, testing the unusual hypothesis of whether monkeys can predict the winner of the U.S. presidential election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump simply by looking at their photos. While this may sound far-fetched, the findings present some intriguing insights.
Researchers tracked the eye movements of monkeys as they viewed hundreds of images of candidates running for Senate and gubernatorial elections across the U.S. The study found that these monkeys tended to gaze longer at the faces of losing candidates most of the time. “They detect something just from the images,” stated co-author Yaoguang Jiang, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania, as reported by Daily Mail.
Jiang and his team have studied facial preferences in monkeys for years. Previously, they conducted an experiment dubbed “monkey Tinder,” in which monkeys were shown images of other monkeys they had encountered before. They observed that these monkeys would only briefly glance at high-status males but would stare longer at lower-status males or females. The researchers suggested that this behavior might stem from the monkeys interpreting eye contact as a sign of aggression.
Curiosity led Jiang’s team to wonder if monkeys would exhibit similar behavior when presented with human faces. To test this theory, they displayed three photos of candidate pairs from various U.S. elections to three adult male monkeys while tracking their eye movements.
The results showed that the monkeys focused their attention on one candidate in each pair. When shown photos from nearly 300 Senate and gubernatorial elections from 1995 to 2008, the monkeys gazed longer at the losing candidates 54% of the time. In unclear state elections, they favored the losing candidate 58% of the time. However, in presidential elections from 2000 to 2020, the monkeys’ predictions were only accurate 50% of the time—no better than a coin toss.
Interestingly, when presented with this year’s presidential candidates, the monkeys found it to be a draw. However, they predicted that Trump’s running mate, Senator J.D. Vance (R–OH), would lose against Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D), who is running alongside Harris.
Overall, the findings suggest that candidates’ facial features might convey information related to voter preferences. The researchers hypothesize that aspects like jaw structure could play a role, indicating social dominance. The study revealed that winners tended to have a jawline that was, on average, 2% more prominent in proportion to their cheeks.
Despite these intriguing results, leading election forecasters remain skeptical of the monkeys’ predictive abilities. Allen Lichtman, a historian known for accurately predicting presidential outcomes for nearly 40 years, questioned the validity of this method. “How many upcoming elections, where the outcomes are unknown, have been predicted by this method?” he posed. “If the answer is none, then I’m done. I’m not interested anymore.”
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Gary King, a political scientist who analyzes congressional election outcomes to develop his prediction models, found the study’s correlations interesting. However, he doubted that the monkeys’ method would outperform existing predictive methods, which consider voter demographics, ideologies, previous voting patterns, and other critical factors.
As the research gains attention, it opens up a dialogue about the intersection of animal behavior and human decision-making. While the notion of monkeys predicting election outcomes may seem whimsical, it invites further exploration into how we interpret facial cues in political contexts.
(Becky)
