Obama's Tears

The President's emotions seem authentic, though regulated, in gun control speech

Originally published in Psychology Today

Though I’ve worked on a TV show (Fox’s Lie to Me) and trained visual effects artists, I’m primarily a scientist and educator who stays away from commenting on public figures—especially politicians.

Sometimes, however, people make such preposterous claims that I feel compelled to take a look at the video-byte in question. A case in point is a press conference earlier this month at which President Obama announced a new executive action on gun control. It was an emotional speech. He was choked up. He cried. This was an uncharacteristically rich display of emotions from a man who is typically a pillar of composure (he’s cried in public before, and it has always caused a stir).

The pundits went at it. Some voiced admiration for the President’s emotional vulnerability in a truly difficult moment. Others accused The President of the United States of putting onions near his eyes to stimulate tearing. I decided to watch the video closely to see what a scientific look at his behavior might reveal. Was it an act? Was it authentic? Were there onions up President Obama’s sleeve?

Most of the 45-minute press conference contained little remarkable behavior. What sparked controversy started about 30 minutes in, when the President talked about recent mass shootings. He’d just segued from the protection of second amendment rights to reminding the audience of how many people lost their “right to worship safely and freely” in shootings at a Charleston, South Carolina, church and elsewhere. In a pause in speech, Obama clenched his jaw (which can be a sign of controlled anger) and showed very subtle lower face signs of sadness (e.g., his lip corners pulled down). He raised his voice, which often occurs with anger but can also be used deliberately for emphasis.

The President talked about the lost lives of college students in Santa Barbara and first graders in Newtown, and his eyes filled with tears. President Obama’s face showed clear signs of sadness in the both the upper face (notably, the inner portion of the eyebrows were pulled up in center and were pulled together) and the lower face (lip corners pulled down, chin pushed up). In another instance, the President mentioned “families who never thought they would have a life taken from gun violence,” after which he stopped talking, leaned on his hand, showed signs of trying to regulate lower face movement (more on this later), showed facial signs of sadness, and cried.

From a scientific viewpoint, President Obama’s emotional displays seem authentic. The facial signs of emotion displayed reflect the morphology of known emotional expressions, including actions that are hard to perform voluntarily, such as the inner brow movements of sadness (Ekman, Roper & Hager, 1980). Furthermore, the expressions of emotion appeared to be fairly smooth and symmetrical—two hallmarks of spontaneous expression displays compared to deliberate actions (Schmidt 2006, 2009). I noticed vocal changes that seemed consistent with the facial changes, which is one way genuine emotion differs from deliberately posed affect (Ekman, 2001). For instance, Obama’s vocal pitch increased, volume decreased, and rate of speech slowed while he discussed Newtown. Pitch increases with emotional arousal and the voice gets quieter and slower with sadness (Banse & Scherer, 1996).

What might be most remarkable about the President’s behavior in this press conference is not the signs of emotion in his face, but rather his efforts to regulate them. President Obama used many facial controls, or actions that anatomically diminish the appearance of other actions. He appeared to be fighting emotion expression rather than trying to accentuate it. During pauses throughout this emotional speech, the President engaged in several lower face actions to manage his face. For example, right after mentioning Columbine, Obama’s jaw clenched and he pressed and puckered his lips, moving them to one side quickly, and then back to neutral—all actions that reveal attempts to control lower face expressions.

When the President struggled to compose himself and said how “mad” he felt when thinking about Newtown, he briefly displayed signs of anger in his tense eyes, lowered brow and louder voice. Mostly, however, he showed sadness. When Obama did bring his finger to his eyes (the action that some pundits say reflect when he put something in his to stimulate tears), he was wiping away the tears that had been coming for some time.

I didn’t see any onions.

References

Ekman, P. (2001). Telling lies: Clues to deceit in the marketplace, politics, and marriage. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

Ekman, P., Roper, G., & Hager, J. C. (1980). Deliberate facial movement. Child Development, 51, 886-891.

Schmidt, K.L., Ambadar, Z., Cohn, J.F., & Reed, L.I. (2006). Movement differences between deliberate and spontaneous facial expressions: Zygomaticus major action in smiling. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 30, 37-52.

Schmidt, K.L., Bhattacharya, S., & Denlinger, R. (2009). Comparison of deliberate and spontaneous facial movement in smiles and eyebrow raises. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 33, 35–45.