Voters vote beautiful: The effect of physical appearance on a national election.

Abstract

Judges ratings of physical appearance were obtained for 79 candidates who had competed for 21 parliamentary seats during the 1972 Canadian federal election, A comparison was made between the number of votes obtained by attractive and unattractive candidates. As predicted, the results indicate that attractive candidates averaged more votes than unattractive ones (322 ex 11%, p < 0. 001). An unexpected finding was that the politically unpopular parties were represented by physically unattractive candidates. Only a single member of the political fringe groups obtained an appearance score which was above the median for the entire group (p = 0.0001). Several possible causes of the relation between party affiliation and appearance were discussed. The origins of the idea that physically attractive people enjoy more benefits than the less beautiful are perhaps more deeply embedded in folk psychology than in empirical research. The results of several recent studies, however, support this general proposition ( Dion, 1972; Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972; Efran, 1974. These limited findings suggest that attractive people are better liked, arc believed to possess more desirable personalities, and are judged less severely if they commit socially unacceptable acts than are their unattractive counterparts. Nevertheless, there is something unappealing about the idea that appearance may actually be an important determinant of social behaviour and this notion is often regarded as self-evident, unbelievable, and ridiculous, all at the same time. Aronson (1969, p. 160) has noted that social psychologists have preferred to that beauty is only skin deep and have avoided investigation of its social impact for fear they might leam otherwise. Politics represents an area of public life in which the effects of appearance may lead to very important social consequences and in which the idea of special privilege for the pretty is particularly repellent. Aside from speculation and anecdotes, there is no evidence that looks are actually a political asset. This supposition is, however, a common one and has had fleeting acceptance among newsmen and political observers; it seems as if they too suspect that appearance is important but are reluctant to believe that anything that seems so trivial could really be of major and general * Requests for reprints should be sent to: Michael G. Efran, University of Toronto, Scarborough College, 126S Military Trail, West Hill, Ontario, Canada. The authors would like to express their appreciation to R. Rigelhof and the Scarborough College graphics unit for their assistance in preparing the photographic materials used. CANAD. J. BEHAV. SCI./REV. CANAD. Scr. COMP., G(4), 1974 VOTERS VOTE BEAUTIFUL 3 5 3 significance. Commenting on the all-important Kennedy-Nixon television debates during the 1960 presidential election, Time (5 September 1969, p. 24) asked rhetorically Was Nixon sabotaged by TV makeup artists? Time also noted poll results which suggested that the majority of those who had watched the debates on television believed that Kennedy had emerged as the winner whereas those who had listened to the debates on the radio reached the opposite conclusion. Sorensen (1965, p. 199) made a similar point, noting that Nixon's verbal debate sounded weak and what was worse, Nixon looked weak . . . his gray suit and heavily powdered jowls looked flabby and pallid beside Kennedy's dark suit and healthy tan . . . Nixon looked drawn and tired. While Sorensen was prepared to comment on the enormous importance of the television debates and on the probable effect of appearance on those debates, he did not actually go on to identify Kennedy's looks as one of the decisive factors in Kennedy's favour that helped to provide him with the final narrow margin of victory. Nevertheless, a candidate's appearance is one of his most salient attributes and it has often been noted that voters frequently act capriciously enough to permit this variable to have an influence on their decisions. The incredibly low level of awareness of issues which typifies many voters (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960) would also favour the operation of this variable. From a psychological perspective it matters little whether attractive candidates benefit from a what is beautiful is good stereotype (Dion et al., 1972), or win votes because an evaluative process such as that described by Byrne and his colleagues (Byrne, 1971; Byrne, London, & Reeves, 1968) continues to have influence even at the polls. In cither case the prediction is still that attractive candidates will, on the average, fare better than unattractive ones. The purpose of the study reported here was to discover if the appearance of candidates in a major election actually does influence the outcome of the election. Despite the uncomfortable implications of the hypothesis, it was predicted that attractive candidates would obtain a greater proportion of the vote than unattractive candidates.