海角大神

With six weeks to go until New York voters head to the polls for the mayoral primary, the relentless Weiner watch has turned the election into a chaotic sideshow, overshadowing other candidates鈥� ideas, as well as the critical issues facing the city, some observers say.

The nation鈥檚 largest city, after all, an international hub of media and commerce, will elect its 109th mayor this fall 鈥� and its first new leader in 12 years. But is anyone looking beyond Sydney Leather鈥檚 emergence as a "sexpert"? Or former Congressman Anthony Weiner鈥檚 weary responses to daily questions about whether he鈥檚 a narcissist?

Most blame the candidate for continuing to stay in the race, thus keeping the frenzied sexting scandal alive. But others have raised questions about the role of reporters and a media ecosystem that seems to draw its lifeblood from salacious headlines and rib-poking smirks.

Indeed, political reporting has hit 鈥渞ock bottom鈥� with the Weiner scandal, some suggest. As Thomas Basile, a New York media strategist and conservative commentator : 鈥淭his disgraced former congressman has effectively hijacked the press coverage of the mayoral campaign, leaving the nearly dozen other candidates to fight for whatever scraps of reporting the media will throw them about issues, ideas, endorsements and other more substantive topics.鈥�

And it鈥檚 true. A cacophony of booms and mics and lights follow Weiner鈥檚 every move, while other candidates speak in front of a comparatively smaller glare. Even the scandal-plagued candidate himself has said what many believe: 鈥淵ou like the story, right? You guys like it,鈥� Mr. Weiner last week. 鈥淵ou guys like this story, I get that. I get embarrassing things in my background. I鈥檓 in the middle of an example of the politics of personal embarrassment. It isn鈥檛 easy.鈥�

In another interview, , 鈥淎re you a narcissist?鈥� Weiner chided the reporter鈥檚 question, suggesting instead, 鈥淭ell me a little more about how he鈥檚 going to make my life better with housing, with jobs and with education.鈥�

Yet if the amorphous specter of 鈥渢he media鈥� serves as a handy trope for critics, those who study political behavior, as well as basic psychology, seek more fundamental explanations about the current circus of sex and politics.

鈥淚'd say that there's a good side and a bad side to Weiner's hanging on,鈥� says Bob Smither, psychology professor and dean at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. 鈥淵es, the media focus on the scandal part distracts voters from important issues; but on the other hand, it allows a clearer focus on a candidate's character. Research shows that, in reality, people vote more on the basis of character than they do on issues, so maybe dragging it out is a good thing.鈥�

Yet for many people, such scandals reconfirm notions that the American political system is broken, and then they choose to just withdraw 鈥� as voting participation and turnout rates indicate. They also help drive down the approval ratings and for both politicians and journalists 鈥� the key players in the system.

But this doesn鈥檛 mean voters are clamoring for more substance, which is in plenty short supply in many media outlets. And the so-called 鈥渃haracter issues鈥� usually focus on the kinds of behaviors that just get people talking.

鈥淲e know voters always say, they want to talk about schools, they want to talk about jobs, they want to talk about housing,鈥� says Christina Greer, professor of political science at Fordham University in New York. 鈥淏ut those aren鈥檛 very sexy topics, those aren't necessarily topics that sell magazines and newspapers, and those aren鈥檛 necessarily topics that are easily breached by citizens just talking amongst one another. It鈥檚 much easier to have a conversation about the salacious, as opposed to the substantive.鈥�

Indeed, according to psychologists, human beings naturally focus on 鈥� in other words, gossip, and the salacious in particular. And depending on how the term is defined, that nearly 80 percent of our conversations concern talk about other people.

And this is deeply ingrained in human beings, experts say. Human brains are hardwired to find predictable patterns in the environment 鈥� a basic survival skill that goes back to evolutionary origins, researchers say. And since knowing our environment kept us safe, change is potentially dangerous: It immediately draws our attention.

Today, this instinct, combined with a strong interest in sexuality, draws our attention to unusual social behaviors.

鈥淎 politician who has been sending photos of his genitals on Twitter and is still, somehow, trying to keep a political career alive is unusual,鈥� says Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center in Newport Beach, Calif.

鈥淐ouple that with the fact that politicians are largely boring. They work assiduously to never say anything provocative under the assumption that this allows them to appeal to the most people possible, and there is also the commonly held belief that it doesn't matter what they say, anyway. It's easy to see why Weiner gets all the political rubber-necking," she adds.

This tendency to gossip about unusual behaviors also serves to reinforce social mores and the kinds of behavior necessary for a cohesive society.

鈥淚t plays into this idea that we're very interested in other people in general,鈥� says Mathew Feinberg, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University who studies the social role of morality in human culture. 鈥淎nd we鈥檙e really interested to get a sense of whether other people are doing what鈥檚 right or wrong, whether we should be able to trust them or not, and also we learn from what we hear about other people, we learn about how we should behave as well.鈥�

鈥淎nd I think that also plays a role for the political process,鈥� continues Mr. Feinberg. 鈥淎nd the media capitalizes on that tendency for humans to be so interested in other people's reputations. And that鈥檚 really why people are so obsessed with the story, and the reputation about Anthony Weiner, or whoever the focus is.鈥�