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Blinded by Beauty? Physical Attractiveness and Candidate Selection in the U.S. House of Representatives

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  • Daniel Stockemer
  • Rodrigo Praino

Abstract

type="main"> In this article we show that physical attractiveness matters as a heuristic device for uninformed voters but not for politically savvy voters. Drawing on a two-step experiment, we first ask over 100 students to rank the physical attractiveness of candidates to the U.S. House of Representatives. Second, we create a treatment and a control group comprising each of 1,200 research different subjects. We ask the first group to indicate their vote choice by merely looking at the picture of candidates for the 2008 U.S. House of Representatives elections, while the second group has a picture and a detailed description of the political/professional competence of the contenders at their disposal. We find that our first group of study subjects representing all those voters who are politically uninformed tend to cast their ballot for the better-looking candidate, whereas the second group, representing politically knowledgeable individuals, choose the more competent candidate. Our experimental study provides evidence that uninformed or politically unknowledgeable voters use political appearance as a heuristic device in casing their ballot at elections.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Stockemer & Rodrigo Praino, 2015. "Blinded by Beauty? Physical Attractiveness and Candidate Selection in the U.S. House of Representatives," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 96(2), pages 430-443, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:96:y:2015:i:2:p:430-443
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ssqu.12155
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Hamermesh, Daniel S & Biddle, Jeff E, 1994. "Beauty and the Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1174-1194, December.
    2. Amy King & Andrew Leigh, 2009. "Beautiful Politicians," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(4), pages 579-593, November.
    3. Larry V. Hedges, 1981. "Distribution Theory for Glass's Estimator of Effect size and Related Estimators," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 6(2), pages 107-128, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. ONO Yoshikuni & ASANO Masahiko, 2020. "Why Beauty Matters: Candidates' Facial Appearance and Electoral Success," Discussion papers 20072, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    2. Panu Poutvaara, 2017. "Beauty in Politics," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 18(01), pages 37-43, April.
    3. Iordanis Kotzaivazoglou & Leonidas Hatzithomas & Eirini Tsichla, 2018. "Gender stereotypes in advertisements for male politicians: longitudinal evidence from Greece," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 15(3), pages 333-352, September.
    4. repec:ces:ifofor:v:18:y:2017:i:1:p:37-43 is not listed on IDEAS

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