Think your ‘beer buddy candidate’ will represent your interests? Think again. 

Think you’d enjoy having a beer with a political candidate? If so, would it influence your vote? 

As a behavioral scientist, I started wondering about the significance of voters’ perceptions of similarity between themselves and candidates for office back in 2008, when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) selected a relative unknown, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, as his vice-presidential running mate. 

Palin was widely praised for her relatability, irrespective of her qualifications. Some voters imagined: She’s just like me, and that assessment drove them to support her. 

I was perplexed then. These days I am concerned.

Judgments of similarity are powerful in social life. We befriend people, marry people and join groups of people who are similar to us. However, because people are so complex, we can be similar to each other in countless ways. 

We can be similar in age, race or religion. We can share social or economic values. And we can drink the same beer or support the same sports team. Some kinds of similarity are more conducive to long-term relationships than others. Similarity of attitudes (for example, about money, sex and religion) is more important in the longevity of a marriage than a common interest in ice fishing or historical fiction. 

In politics, similarity can have a peculiar function.

Take the hometown advantage. Starting at least with Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaigns, a candidate’s hometown has been used to highlight or, more cynically, to invent similarities to voters. 

Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kansas) used this strategy when he ran for president in 1996. Dole was born and raised in Russell, Kansas, and he declared his candidacy there. The intended message was clear: Bob Dole is hard-working, down to earth and devoted to the United States. Just like you! Thanks to his Kansas roots, Dole portrayed himself as an average American. 

My father and his extended family were also born and raised in Russell, Kansas. So, Dole’s campaign was salient to me. Back then, I corresponded with him about issues we disagreed about, like reproductive rights. I used stories from Russell, invoking my own grandmother — whom he knew — to discuss the right to abortion, but failed to persuade him to consider the psychological and physical costs of his position. 

I played the “relatable” game. But Dole was not receptive. So, the fact that he was from the same hometown as my father was not enough similarity to earn my vote. It did not outweigh our policy differences.

Similarity-driven connection is the foundation of Donald Trump’s campaign strategy. There’s nothing novel about that. What is alarming, though, is that Trump bonds with his supporters largely over shared anger. My expertise within behavioral science is the study of emotion, and research shows when two people believe they are both feeling the same way, they imagine they are similar in many other ways as well. 

A wealthy businessman, Donald Trump is probably not angry about the tax burden for the middle class. Or the loss of manufacturing jobs in certain states. Or the price of soybeans. Searches for sources of his anger online return references to his fury over losing the 2020 election and his current legal troubles. 

But the fact that he may not even be personally angry about the things that enrage his supporters appears irrelevant. Thanks to “The Apprentice,” many voters already feel as if they know him.

When a candidate connects emotionally with voters, they wield a unique power: They can use the emotion to advance their political agenda. This strategy can take several forms. Back when there were facts that Americans agreed on, shared emotions were sometimes due to measurable problems or achievements. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) benefitted from his supporters’ collective anger about big business. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton harnessed collective optimism about the economy, with Clinton naming the feeling after his hometown of Hope, Ark. 

But emotional similarity can be artificially created and deliberately misdirected. Former Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisc.) provoked the anger of some Wisconsinites by claiming that the state’s public sector workers received an unfair allocation of resources compared to those in private business. He used that anger to enact policy. 

I conducted two national survey studies of American attitudes toward people in public sector jobs, including public school teachers, public university professors and agents in the Department of National Resources (or the equivalent in other states). 

Across the U.S., people’s admiration for public sector workers was much higher than their resentment and envy toward them. So left to their own devices, people are not necessarily angry at state employees. But creating the impression of being similarly angry and focusing voters’ attention on a plausible reason for their feelings, can advance an agenda. It worked in Wisconsin. It worked in mounting the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

So, how should similarity affect voting? Before assessing similarity at all, we should first ask if the candidate meets the minimum qualifications for political office. Given the job description for president of the United States, these include understanding the Constitution, knowing civics and American history and having a grasp of the law. 

Such qualifications often count as differences rather than similarities between candidates and voters. But that is as it should be. We hire electricians, accountants and lawyers who have the training necessary for their professions precisely when we do not. 

After the minimum qualification benchmark is met, we can move down the list to consider similarities in everything from policy to favorite baseball teams. As far as shared emotion, the fact that a candidate’s level of anger appears to match one’s own reveals little about whether they are fit for office, possess sound judgment or will improve our lives or the state of the country. All it means is that two people are angry.

Paula Niedenthal is a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she directs the Niedenthal Emotions Lab. She is the past president of the Society for Affective Science and is the author of the textbook “Psychology of Emotion” (2nd edition).