Sam Parr describes the 1992 debate moment when Bill Clinton won over a struggling voter by asking her name and showing empathy, while George H. W. Bush checked his watch. A study found viewers could predict the election outcome from body language alone, but not from audio.
The election in '92, it was between George Bush Senior and it was Bill Clinton. And there's this famous debate. A lot of like political folks say this is when George Bush Senior lost to this up-and-coming guy. This young lady in the crowd was asking a question about a very everyday thing, like, I can't afford groceries. While she's asking the question, George Bush Senior, he looked at his watch like that. Now look at Bill Clinton. He grabs the mic. What did you say your name was? Can you tell me about your background? What do you do for work? So hard to hear what you're going through. I'm so sorry. A decade later, they did this test. They got rid of the audio and they just showed you the body body language of the two people, and then this other test you could only listen to the audio. The people who only watched the video and didn't hear the audio could predict exactly what happened to the outcome, whereas the people who only listened to the audio, they couldn't exactly tell what happened. And so the idea being is that body language and seeing with your eyes communicates significantly more than just audio.
