Did Buddha turn the other cheek too? A comparison of posing biases between Jesus and Buddha

Abstract

People tend to exhibit a leftward bias in posing. Various studies suggest that posing to the left portrays a stronger emotion, whereas posing to the right portrays a more neutral emotion. Religions such as Christianity emphasize the role of strong emotions in religious experience, whereas religions such as Buddhism emphasize the calming of emotions as being important. In the present study, we investigated if the emphasis on emotionality of a religion influences the depiction of their religious figures. Specifically, we coded 484 paintings of Jesus and Buddha from online art databases for whether the deity exhibited a left bias, right bias, or central face presentation. The posing biases were analysed to discover whether paintings of Jesus would more frequently depict a leftward bias than paintings of Buddha. Jesus is more commonly depicted with a leftward bias than Buddha, and Buddha is more commonly depicted with a central face presentation than Jesus. These findings support the idea that the amount of emotionality that is to be conveyed in artwork influences the whether the subject is posed with a leftward bias.

Keep a Left Profile, Baby! The Left-Cradling Bias Is Associated with a Preference for Left-Facing Profiles of Human Babies

“…Indeed, in line with past research [63,64], the majority of participants judged the profile at the top of the stimulus sheet as more attractive than the profile at the bottom. Although previous studies related the preference for left-or right-facing profiles to different variables such as cultural and demographic factors [69,72,78,79], reading/writing habits [80], handedness and other motor biases [69,80,81] (see also [82]), poser's sex [73,77], emotional expression [54,72,83] and trustworthiness [84], perceived person-related traits [74] and political orientation [85], and selfie-taking styles (i.e., with the camera pointing toward the selfie-taker vs. toward their reflection in a mirror [66,71]), no study has ever examined its possible relationship with cradling-side preferences. However, to be honest, such a link (at least in terms of the cradled individual's point of view) had already been proposed-although on a purely speculative basis-by McManus and Humphrey [73] and Conesa et al [68,86], who hypothesized that the preference for left-facing profiles might arise from the LCB during a critical period for the development of vision (i.e., the first four months of life), given that when infants are held on the left arm of mothers, they are exposed to the left profile of the mother's face.…”

Left wings to the left: Posing and perceived political orientation

“…Overall, individuals who report higher emotional expressivity are more likely to pose with their left cheek facing the camera (Nicholls, Clode, Lindell, & Wood, 2002). This shift in bias is further reflected in online profile pictures of academics, where disciplines such as English and psychology, which are more associated with emotion, show a more leftward orientation than science academics (Churches et al, 2012), and in images from different religions, wherein portraits associated with the more emotionally expressive religion Christianity exhibit a leftward posing bias more often than the less emotional Buddhism (Duerksen et al, 2016). Further, images depicting the emotional event of the Crucifixion of Jesus show a greater leftward posing bias than do other portraits (Acosta et al, 2013), and images created with less of an emotional intent, such as advertisements, show a rightward, rather than leftward, bias .…”

“…For example, advertising images show mixed posing biases, where it has been found that women still exhibit a leftward posing bias, but men do not (Thomas, Burkitt, Patrick, & Elias, 2008a), or that posing of both men and women shifts to a rightward bias (Burkitt, Saucier, Thomas, & Ehresman, 2006). The leftward posing bias also disappears in Buddhist artwork (Duerksen, Friedrich, & Elias, 2016) and decreases in images of science academics (Churches et al, 2012). These variances in posing bias tend to be linked to emotionality, where the left cheek is hypothesized to convey more emotion than the right, and thus it has been theorized that posing is one form of communication related to emotional expression (Chatterjee, 2002;Humphrey & McManus, 1973;Nicholls, Clode, Wood, & Wood, 1999).…”

Turning the other cheek: Facial orientation influences both model attractiveness and product evaluation

“…Interestingly, from historical paintings, all the way through to selfies on Instagram and advertisements, portraits have been documented to show more of the left side of the face (i.e., the left cheek) rather than the right (Conesa, Brunold‐Conesa, & Miron, 1995; Duerksen, Friedrich, & Elias, 2016; Manovich, Ferrari, & Buno, 2017; McManus & Humphrey, 1973; Thomas, Burkitt, Patrick, & Elias, 2008). For instance, McManus and Humphrey (1973) reported that painted portraits from the 16th to the 20th centuries tended to exhibit significantly more of the left cheek than the right.…”