The Psychological Price of Media Bias Elisha Babad Hebrew University of Jerusalem Media bias was investigated through the effects of a TV interviewer’s preferential behavior on the image of the interviewee in the eyes of the viewers. Judges viewed a political interview with either a friendly or a hostile interviewer then rated their impressions of the interviewed politician, whose behavior was identical in all conditions. The preferential nonverbal behavior of the interviewer (controlling for recognition and comprehension of verbal content) systematically influenced viewers’ ratings of the politician. The effect consisted mainly of damage to the politician in the hostile interviewer condition. Describing the interviewee as a professor yielded a similar preferential behavior effect. A strong halo effect was identified, but it was ruled out as the mechanism accounting for the interviewer effect. Keywords: nonverbal behavior, media bias, TV interviewers, ecological validity, halo effect The present research examines whether the preferential nonver- bal (NV) behavior of a TV interviewer (friendly vs. hostile) can influence the image of his interviewee in the eyes of the viewers. In most societies, social norms prohibit manifestations of favorit- ism by holders of social power, and yet differential, or preferential, behavior is common. The study of differential behavior grew out of the research on teacher expectancies (Babad, 1993, 1998; Brophy, 1985, 1998; Harris & Rosenthal, 1985; Rosenthal, 1989). Teacher expectancies are transmitted via differential behavior, which is perceived and internalized by its targets. The “teacher’s pet” phenomenon (Babad, 1995) is an extreme example of teachers’ favoritism, and it evokes negative reactions among students (ranging up to r = .36 in 80 elementary classrooms). Weinstein (2002) concluded that teachers’ differential behavior has been the main cause of failure of underperforming populations in American education. Babad, Avni-Babad, and Rosenthal (2003) reported that students were critical of and upset with high school teachers who manifested differential behavior (correlations between teacher differentiality and indices of students’ evaluations of their teachers reaching r = -.63). In a subsequent study (Babad, 2005), students’ keen sen- sitivity to teacher differentiality was demonstrated in their ability to identify (r = .40) differential teachers (who were unknown to them) after viewing brief clips (10 s) of their NV behavior when lecturing to their entire classrooms. Similar concerns about unfair treatment and its effects on ap- plicants were investigated by Ployhart and colleagues in organi- zational settings (Ployhart & Harold, 2004; Ployhart & Ryan, 1998). People appear to have a substantial degree of tolerance for preferential treatments that are to their benefit and to be more likely to be upset when they are on the unfavored side of prefer- ential treatment. Much of the research on differential behavior has focused on NV behavior because of its irrepressible nature, its links to emo- tion, its accessibility to observers, and its speed (DePaulo, 1992). Nonverbal research is focused on the expression of affect, and differentiality (of teachers: Babad, Bernieri, & Rosenthal, 1989a, 1989b; of judges: Blanck, Rosenthal, & Cordell, 1985; Blanck, 1993; Hart, 1995; and of TV broadcasters: Friedman, DiMatteo, & Mertz, 1980; Mullen et al., 1986, and Babad, 1999) is often concentrated in the affective domain. In recent years, research on thin slices of NV behavior (e.g., on judgments after raters’ expo- sure to very brief instances of NV behavior) has become quite prevalent (Ambady, Bernieri, & Richeson, 2000; Ambady & Rosenthal, 1992). More than other public media, TV emphasizes the importance of the visual aspect. In Lewis’ (1984) words, the picture is there on the screen, and all the viewer has to do is to impose his or her inner meaning on the image and to partake of the subtle insinuations of face and body language. Attempts to influence viewers’ attitudes or behavior (by broadcasters and advertisers) are enacted not only through verbal content but also in numerous NV methods varying in their degree of subtlety. The presumed influence of the NV aspect in the Kennedy–Nixon TV debate in 1960 is well remem- bered, and much of the impact of TV advertising is based on NV components. Two American studies analyzed the differential facial expressions of news anchorpersons when they uttered the names of the two presidential candidates in the 1976 (Friedman et al., 1980) and 1984 campaigns (Mullen et al., 1986), and reported detectable differences for some anchorpersons. In NV research, media fair- ness or preference is sought in subtle nuances of emotional tone and body language rather than in verbal content. Ethical concerns about agenda setting, hidden biases and undue influence, and demands to set norms for fairness in broadcasting Elisha Babad, School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. This research was supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Elisha Babad, School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. E-mail: elisha@vms.huji.ac.il I thank Robert Rosenthal, Arie Kruglanski, Dale Miller, and David Funder for invaluable advice; John Darley for joint thinking about the idea; Moshe Alafi for professional TV help; Peter Caryl in Edinburgh and Hank Kaplowitz in New Jersey for enabling the administration; Eyal Peer for technical and statistical assistance; Moshe Inbar for his participation; and Dinah Avni-Babad for extensive help and partnership at all stages. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied Copyright 2005 by the American Psychological Association 2005, Vol. 11, No. 4, 245–255 1076-898X/05/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1076-898X.11.4.245 245 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.