Measure your emotions

Results of the experiment.   This study revealed that out of our 107 visitors, the greatest emotional responses were to the image of the two girls kissing. This was different to the results of the MP’s who responded most strongly to Maggie Thatcher.

Visitors to At-Bristol found Maggie Thatcher then Tony Blair the next two emotive images.

Subjects reported feelings of shock, pleasure or embarrassment at the image of the two girls kissing. They reported hate, anger and admiration at the image of Maggie. The galvanic skin response test cannot decipher which emotion our visitors felt, only that they had an emotional reaction of some sort.

Differences between men and women

Both men and women reacted most strongly to the image of the two girls kissing.

However, this study showed that women had a stronger reaction to the image of the two girls kissing, than men did.   Men had a stronger response to the image of both Maggie and Blair than women did. Interestingly, men had more of an emotional response to the spider.

This study also showed that people with strong feelings towards political personalities are more aroused by them – and Maggie still has a large effect on people emotions - 15% of our visitors reported liking her, 49% disliked her and 36% were neutral.

During these experiments, participants were not aware of which image they had reacted most strongly to. When they viewed their results after the experiment, the researchers explained that the largest galvanic skin response can be caused by any strong emotion - fear, anger, lust, surprise or embarrassment.

This experiment was conducted by Sam Lawes and Tim Hutchinson under the supervision of Dr Pricilla Heard.