Angry Söder, sad Scholz, anxious Baerbock?
Study provides "emotional profile" of top politicians
Created: 02/21/2022 10:34 am
By: Andreas Schmid
Annalena Baerbock (Greens) together with Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU).
An artificial intelligence analyzed the language of the two.
© Wolfgang Kumm/dpa
With the help of artificial intelligence, a study developed an "emotional profile" of politicians.
While Chancellor Scholz sounds sad, Markus Söder looks angry.
Munich - How do Germany's leading politicians speak?
What linguistic features do they use in their speeches?
And how do the words of Olaf Scholz, Markus Söder & Co. work?
A recent study puts the countless press conferences of top politicians in a new light.
Study on the tone of voice in politics: anger as the most dominant emotion
With the help of artificial intelligence software, the education portal Preply analyzed the votes of politicians.
This results in an “emotional profile”, as the authors
explain to
Merkur.de .
The most dominant emotion in the speeches is anger (58 percent), followed by joy (20 percent) and neutrality (13 percent), as well as fear (nine percent) and sadness (one percent).
If you differentiate between politicians, it is noticeable that, according to the study, men are more angry in their speeches, while women mostly sound happy.
In contrast, male politicians sound more neutral and less anxious.
"Emotional profile" of politicians: Söder angry, Scholz sad
In each category there is also a "winner", a politician who scores well above the average scores.
Markus Söder sounds the most angry among the top politicians selected by the study directors.
The CSU boss had recently chosen clear words several times, for example at his Corona press conferences, in which he railed against the federal government's pandemic policy.
According to the study, SPD leader Lars Klingbeil, Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) also act in a comparatively angry manner.
According to the study results, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) sounds by far the saddest, followed by Health Minister Karl Lauterbach.
Rhetoric expert Ortwin Lämke recently attested to Scholz's
"refreshingly boring" style compared to
Merkur.de .
"He exudes calm yet is wide awake and weighs his words very carefully even as he formulates an answer.
You can almost watch him doing speaking, as we call it.
The way he stares into space in front of him for long periods of time reveals that.”
The "winners" in each category.
Gerhard Schröder was included because the authors of the study wanted to include three chancellors.
The SPD politician stands out with a neutral voice.
© Preply
"Emotional profile" of politicians: Merkel happy, Baerbock anxious
Meanwhile, the linguistic appearances of Scholz's predecessor Angela Merkel (CDU) are the happiest.
According to the AI analysis, the ex-chancellor radiates the most joy, followed by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) is the most emotional politician, but she also sounds the most anxious in her speeches.
It is important to note that the artificial intelligence only analyzed the voice of the politicians.
The content of the individual statements - and thus of course the core political business - is not examined.
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About the study:
The education portal Preply selected a total of 16 German politicians on the basis of opinion polls by the INSA research institute.
One public speech was analyzed for each politician, each lasting a total of 18 minutes.
With the help of the AI tool Vokaturi, a software for recognizing emotions, the human voice of the politicians was examined.
The politicians examined
: Angela Merkel, Ursula von der Leyen, Friedrich Merz, Sahra Wagenknecht, Karl Lauterbach, Armin Laschet, Annalena Baerbock, Jens Spahn, Christian Lindner, Robert Habeck, Peter Tschentscher, Lars Klingbeil, Dorothee Bär, Markus Söder, Olaf Scholz , Gerhard Schröder.