Key points
- Going back to the Reagan presidency, US voters have supported various celebrities for elected positions.
- While celebrities may have what it takes to succeed in elected office, they may not as well.
- Based on an evolutionary perspective, it is noteworthy that celebrity was not a thing for most of our history.
- The tendency to think that celebrities’ public images can replace actual expertise is highly concerning.
Here are some celebrities who have emerged as elected leaders in the United States:
- Ronald Reagan, actor—Governor of California and President of the United States
- Jesse the Body Ventura, professional wrestler—Governor of Minnesota
- Arnold Schwarzenegger, body builder and actor—Governor of California
- Al Franken, actor/comedian—US Senator representing Minnesota
Donald Trump, reality TV star/business person
Aside from the quizzical fact that Minnesota and California—wildly different states from each other—seem particularly prone toward electing officials who have backgrounds in the field of entertainment (now there’s a research question for you!), the fact that several officials in some of the highest offices in the nation have backgrounds in the entertainment industry should give anyone pause
Running a Government Is Not Something That Just Anyone Can Do
While government and political science are not my field of expertise, like many of us, I took a course or two on government and history back in the day. I remember an AP US History course with Mr. Raby in about 1987. This course was no joke. The details of the three branches of government, the nuts and bolts of the US Constitution, the historical reasons for things like the electoral college, historical relations between the US and other nations around the world, etc., were not exactly common knowledge—not by a long shot.
There is a reason that people who work in specialized fields have educational and work-related backgroundsin those fields. I don’t want my airplane pilot to have the experience of having played a pilot in the movies. I don’t want the person building my house to be someone who played a contractor on a TV show. And I don’t want my surgeon to be someone who got the job simply by having played a surgeon on TV
To think that educational background and expertise are not relevant for taking on a position as an elected official is simply naive. So why do so many of us seem to think that actors with no background in government are suitable for some of the highest elected positions in the nation?
Why Do We Think That Celebrities Match the Characters That They Play?
Two critical psychological concepts that shed light on this issue include evolutionary mismatch (see Geher & Wedberg, 2022) and dispositionist bias (see Ross & Nisbett, 1991). Evolutionary mismatch, broadly, refers to situations in which an organism’s current environment is mismatched from the ancestral environments that surrounded that organism’s evolutionary history. For most of human evolution, actors on TV shows were not a thing. So our minds evolved to make inferences about people’s characteristics based on behaviors that they displayed—and doing so was usually a good bet as to what that person was like in an overall sense. This same process, inferring people’s traits based on their behaviors, doesn’t work that well when we are talking about celebrities from the entertainment industry.
For instance, Jesse the Body Ventura played a wild, beast of a man in his wrestling persona—truly a character. A character that only somewhat reflected who he was when not in-character. The same is true, in varying degrees, with all celebrities who portray a specific character when on-stage or in front of the camera. Without commenting on his job as governor, it is noteworthy that Ventura (actually, James George Janos), never obtained a college degree (although he did have substantial military experience). When you think about it, it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around how someone who does not have expert-level understanding of economics, state government, levels of government and how they interface with one another, electoral processes, <a href="https://healthylife7.com/nurse-camp-inspires-central-iowa-students-to-explore-healthcare-careers/” title=”Nurse Camp inspires central Iowa students to explore healthcare careers”>healthcare policy, educational policy, relevant historical knowledge, etc., is qualified to serve as the primary executive of an entire state. This is not a slight on the former Minnesota governor—it is simply an observation.
When he was running for office, he clearly came across as strong, charismatic, funny, and likeable. All these traits can, in fact, trace back to the fact that his primary work experience was as a professional wrestler. That said, humans are so inclined to believe that people’s internal traits match their observable behavior that he was able to get himself elected into an extremely high position. Our minds are not evolved to discriminate between one’s celebrity persona from one’s actual core personality traits and knowledge base. The fact that celebrity is even a thing in the modern era is a clear example of evolutionary mismatch in the modern human experience.
Related, people in individualistic cultures such as the United States often tend to lean toward what is known as the dispositionist bias. This bias basically is a tendency to think that people’s actions are caused by factors inside themselves. Such internal characteristics include enduring personality traits, emotional states, and attitudes—among others. When we see someone express angry behavior, we infer that this person may well be nasty and have anger issues. When we see someone do something helpful for someone else, we infer that this person has a kind disposition that likely cuts across various situations.
So when minds that are colored by the dispositionist bias see the movie The Terminator, we tend to think that the actor(in this case Arnold Schwarzenegger) has all the characteristics of the characterthat he is playing. We may think that he is strong, powerful, capable, etc. This is the magic of Hollywood. And without commenting on Arnold’s work as governor, it stands to reason that backgrounds in weightlifting and acting are not exactly standard requisites for understanding the many complexities of the governmental structure, natural history, and cultural history of the Golden State.
Bottom Line
Wherever you are on the political spectrum, you likely agree that the world is a mess right now. And a large part of this problem stems from politics at the international and national levels (among others)
The US, home to Hollywood and so many other hubs of the international entertainment industry, has a long history of having elected officials whose backgrounds are found in that industry as opposed to government, economics, history, policy, or politics—fields that actually relate to serving as an elected government official
I would argue that this trend, which seems to be rooted in both evolutionary mismatch and the dispositionist bias, is at least somewhat problematic. I don’t want my surgeon’s primary qualification to be that they played one on TV. And I don’t want my elected official’s primary qualification to be that they were a champion body builder
Given how much is on the line in the current political landscape—at all levels—it may behoove us to cultivate a culture of caution regarding celebrity candidates for elected positions. This is not to say that a celebrity is sure to fail as an elected official. But at the very least, perhaps voters should consider the relevance of their experience when going to the polls
After all, the future that we will leave to future generations is on the line
Geher, G. & Wedberg, N. (2022). Positive Evolutionary Psychology: Darwin’s Guide to Living a Richer Life. New York: Oxford University Press
Ross, L., & Nisbett, R.E. (1991). The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology. New York: McGraw Hill
