physical attractiveness, issue agreement, and assimilation

Physical attractiveness, issue agreement, and assimilation effectsin candidate appraisal

James N. Schubert"Department of Political ScienceNorthern Illinois University415 Zulauf HallDekalb, IL 60115

Margaret Ann CurranOffice of Research, Evaluation, and Policy StudiesCollege of EducationNorthern Illinois UniversityDekalb, IL 60115

Carmen StrungaruDepartment of Animal Physiology, Biophysics, and EthologyFaculty of BiologyUniversity of BucharestBucharest, Romania

"This paper is published posthumously in honor of Schubert's founding role in the Association for Politicsand the Life Sciences, his many contributions to the journal as both an author and editorial board member,and his innovative contributions to biopolitical scholarship throughout his career. The research on which thisarticle is based was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health for a study of "PhysicalAppearance and Leadership Selection." Findings from the study were covered by the Wall Street Journal andother prominent newspapers in the run-up to the 2000 presidential election. Author affiliations were those atthe time this research was originally presented.

ABSTRACT. This study examines the cognitive and affective factors of candidate appraisal by manipulatingcandidate attractiveness and levels of issue agreement with voters. Drawing upon research in evolutionarypsychology and cognitive neuroscience, this analysis proposes that automatic processing of physicalappearance predisposes affective disposition toward more attractive candidates, thereby influencing cognitiveprocessing of issue information. An experimental design presented attractive and unattractive candidates whowere either liberal or conservative in a mock primary election. The data show strong partial effects forappearance on vote intention, an interaction between appearance and issue agreement, and a tendency forvoters to assimilate the dissimilar views of attractive candidates. We argue that physical appearance isimportant in primary elections when the differences in issue positions and ideology between candidates issmall.

Key words: Political evaluation, issue agreement, assimilation effects, candidate appraisal, physical attractiveness, electoral viability, visual cues

POLITICS AND THE LIFE SCIENCES • SPRING 201 I • VOL. 30, NO. I 33

Schubert, Curran, and Strungaru

Being physically attractive matters for electoralsuccess. An expanding literature finds thatpeople feel positively toward and regularly vote

for more physically attractive candidates. Still lackingis a theoretical explanation for how and when levels ofattractiveness influence voting decisions. This paperdevelops a theoretical framework that assesses theinfluence of physical attractiveness on vote intentionunder varying levels of issue agreement betweencandidates and voters.

The theoretical premise proposed here investigateshow affective and cognitive attitudes interact to shapevoting behaviors. Physical attractiveness determinesaffective attitudes, and levels of issue agreementinfluence cognitive evaluations. There are four conditions under which affective and cognitive dispositionsare expected to interact: positive affect with cognitiveagreement, positive affect with cognitive disagreement,negative affect with cognitive agreement, and negativeaffect with cognitive disagreement. Do consistentlypositive or negative dispositions have an additive ormultiplicative effect on candidate appraisal and issueagreement? Do they increase or decrease vote intention? Or, do they have some other effect? Conversely,do contradictory affective and cognitive dispositionscancel each other out, or does one trump the other?The model developed in this paper draws upon studiesof political perception that document voter tendenciestoward perceptual distortion in candidate appraisal,including both assimilation and contrast effects,1,2 suchthat voters may distort or disregard their perception ofpreferred candidates who have incongruent issuepositions.

Several studies in social psychology conducted in the1980s explored the role of physical appearance insocial judgment," and some extended this concern tothe problem of candidate appraisal in electoralbehavior.4,5,6,7 A common finding was that physicalattractiveness significantly affected judgments of electability or vote intention. Exploratory in nature, thesestudies lacked a theoretically based casual modelexplaining why and how appearance effects operatein candidate appraisal. More recently, two lines ofbehavioral research provide the theoretical grounds forunderstanding appearance effects in candidate appraisal. First, major gains in evolutionary psychology haveapplied the "good genes" theory from biology tounderstand human perceptions of beauty and physical

artractiveness.Y'i'" Additionally, substantial progresshas been made in cognitive neuroscience detailing howthe brain processes facial information to solve problems involving facial recognition and emotional display.11,12 This research supports a model of emotional

response where the brain automatically predisposespreferences both independently of, and sequentiallyprior to, the conscious processing of semantic information. According to this model, neurophysiologicalmechanisms predispose voter preferences and, underconditions of inconsistency, activate assimilation andcontrast effects in processes of political perception.

Appearance and electability

Previous research supports the proposmon thatperceptions of attractiveness, cued by facial morphology, shape perceptions of candidate electability.5,13,7Appearance, style, and other idiosyncratic personalinformation may have special relevance for multicandidate elections when partisan identification isconstant, political information scarce.l" or issuepositions less differentiated, as in primary elections inthe United States.15,16 Wyer and Ottati summarize theliterature on candidate appraisal with specific attentionto how voters form impressions of new candidates.YThey posit that voters rely heavily on partisanidentification and personal appearance when issueinformation is in short supply. In contrast, when votersbegin acquiring information about candidate issues andvalues, appearance effects dissipate.

If subjects receive information about a previously

unknown candidate in the absence of information

about the candidate's stands on specific issues, they

form a general concept of the candidate on the basis of

(a) party affiliation, (b) physical appearance and

mannerism, or both (p. 287).

Popkin's discussion of impression formation inprimary elections supports a model in which idiosyncratic personal information plays an important role incandidate appraisal.i" Indeed, he observes that, "personal information can drive more relevant politicalinformation out of consideration" (p. 166). Althoughnot testing the relative effects of personal and politicalinformation, Rosenberg and colleagues examined theeffects of physical appearance on vote choice with

34 POLITICS AND THE LIFE SCIENCES • SPRING 201 I • VOL. 30, NO. I

Assimilation effects in candidate appraisal

candidates' party affiliation and ideology controlledthrough experimental design.I Across different conditions and subject populations, appearance consistentlyhad significant and substantial effects on vote choice.

Wyer and colleagues examined the effects offavorable versus unfavorable appearance and speechstyle on candidate appraisal. 7 To permit measurementof issue and ideological agreement, candidates werealternatively presented with liberal or conservativeideologies. The study found significant appearance or"style" effects, but only under the condition of issuedisagreement. No significant differences emerged invote intention between favorable and unfavorableappearances when voters agreed with the candidates'issue positions or ideology.

Neither the Rosenberg nor Wyer studies present acausal explanation of the correlation between appearance and vote intention. We posit that an assimilationeffect in perceptions of the candidate's political valuesmay explain how attractive candidates appeal to voterswho do not agree with them. Assimilation effects inpolitical judgments occur when voters perceive acandidate or party's values as more similar to theirown than warranted by the facts. 1,2,19 A tendency toassimilate views of attractive candidates accounts forWyer and colleagues' findings that the correlationbetween appearance and vote choice is conditional onissue disagreement. Under conditions of issue agreement, there is no assimilation and therefore nocorrelation between physical appearance and votechoice.

This literature supports two propositions: first, thatappearance matters for vote choice when politicalvalues are held constant; and, second, that appearanceaffects vote choice most when voters disagree withcandidates' political values. The Rosenberg studysimulated runoff elections between two candidatesbut Wyer and colleagues did not present a competitivechoice. Neither study employed the two-factor manipulation necessary to simultaneously examine the effectsof appearance and issue agreement and thereby test theassimilation hypothesis.

Two theoretical questions of practical electoralsignificance emerge from this literature. Frist, given afield of ideologically similar candidates, such as in aprimary election, do more attractive candidates have acompetitive advantage? Second, where political valuesvary among candidates, do more attractive candidates

benefit from the tendency of less politically proximatevoters to assimilate their views?

The psychology of appearance effects

Drawing on research in cognitive neuroscience, wepropose that appearances matter in candidate appraisalbecause human brains automatically process facialimages quickly (on the order of tens of milliseconds)and are neurologically predisposed to prefer somephysical features more than others.

Facial processingNeuroscientists studying facial image processing

find that humans have specialized neurological capabilities for processing facial information that providesa means for exploring how the brain processesinformation more generally.l1,12 Using brain imagingtechniques and electrodermal measurements, alsoknown as event-related potentials (ERPs), a growingnumber of studies have directly observed the activation of discrete areas of the brain when engaged indifferent facial processing tasks. Central problems ofthis research include understanding discriminationbetween familiar and unfamiliar faces, identificationof familiar faces, and recognition of positive andnegative emotional displays.

Findings from this research reveal the specializationof the brain in facial processing tasks. Clusters ofneurons that fire in response to familiar facial stimuliare located in the right middle temporal gyrus and leftprefrontal cortex, but the bilateral posterior cingulategyri and right occipital cortex fire neurons when facesare unfarniliarr'" and, when processing emotionaldisplays, neurons are activated in the amygdala.21,22

Current models propose parallel processing of facialimage data for familiarity and for emotional display,23,24 and research finds that response latenciesrange from 70-130 ms for facial recognition tasks.25

During this one-tenth of a second, the brain analyzesthe morphological structure of a face, searches memoryfor a matching image, analyzes the details of musclecontrolled patterns that define emotional expression, 11and begins searching for facial identity. Priming eitherby repetition or prior exposure to a familiar namereduces latency (i.e., shortens time to recognition) tofamiliar faces. 12

POLITICS AND THE LIFE SCIENCES • SPRING 2011 • VOL. 30, NO. 1 35


One implication of this research is that even welladapted voters may not be deeply processing semanticinformation about candidates.r" given that facialprocessing occurs almost instantaneously upon exposure to a candidate's face every time it is encountered.The effect of priming on response latency implies thatsignificant media exposure facilitates facial processing.The more familiar the face and faster the response, themore likely it is that individuals process image databefore any cognitive processing of semantic information.

Studies of pathologies in facial processing provideinsights into the interrelationship of visual andsemantic information processing. Prosopagnosia is aclinical condition in which patients cannot recognizefaces they have seen before that should be familiar.v' Insuch cases, individuals do not remember familiar facesand cannot associate identities with faces. Thiscondition results from lesions in the occipito-temporalregions of the cerebral cortex. Several studies usingelectrophysiological measurements have found that thebrains of prosopagnosia patients respond to familiarfaces, even though the patient does not rememberhaving seen them before and cannot connect faces andnames. Findings of this phenomenon, known as covertrecognition,27,28 reveal that facial processing is largelyautomatic, or hard-wired, and occurs independently ofcognitive processing. As Young12 comments:

For all neurologically normal people, recognition is man

datory.r" We cannot look at a familiar face and decide

whether or not to recognize it; no matter how hard we

try. The operation of the recognition system proceeds

automatically, outside conscious control (p. 294).

Implied by this research is the finding that visual andcognitive processing happens by way of two separatepathways in the brain. As voters view a televised newsreport or a campaign ad, they simultaneously analyzethe visual and semantic data. Voters process visualimages with response latencies equal to just a fewframes of video exposure, which in North Americarolls by at a rate of 30 frames per second.

Two widely cited anecdotes illustrate the potentialrelevance of automatic facial processing for electoralpolitics. One is the Reagan Administration's positiveresponse to a very negative CBS News report by LesleyStahl about Ronald Reagan during the 1984 election.r'"

Reagan's campaign staff loved the report, arguing that"the great pictures of Ronald Reagan ... are overridingyour message because they conflict with your message"(p. 409). Also illustrating the political significance ofautomatic facial processing is the different response oftelevision viewers and radio listeners to the first NixonKennedy debate of 1960. Television viewers, so theconventional wisdom goes, saw the negative visualimages of Nixon and evaluated him more negativelythan the telegenic Kenncdyr' ' To reiterate, humansprocess visual images automatically and this highlyefficient operation gives the visual evaluation ofcandidates temporal priority over cognitive assessments that do not happen as rapidly.

Evolutionary psychologyEvolutionary psychology also reveals that voters may

bring phylogenetically adapted biases or predisposedpreferences to bear in processing facial images.9,32

Cross-cultural studies provide a growing body ofevidence that humans favor symmetrical faces,33,34faces with an average alignment of features,35,36,37 andfaces revealing enhanced secondary sexual characteristics, such as cheekbone prominence and large lowerjaw size in males-and consider them to be moreattractive than others38,39,10,40,41 Even infants at

six months of age prefer symmetrical and averagefaces.42,35,43 One study reports that such preferencesemerge in infants within days after birth. A consequence of these deep-rooted preferences is highagreement in ratings of facial attractiveness acrossdifferent groups.":'

Contention in this literature is not in the correlationof facial morphology with attractiveness judgments butthe relative strength of these effects, the interaction ofsymmetry and averageness in attractiveness judgments,44,45 and the causal explanation of thesebiases.l" Whether these preferences originate from aneurological averaging of facial images that approximate population averages'l' or reflect a phylogeneticadaptation.Y the fact that humans share certainfundamental preferences for adult faces indicates aneurophysiological basis for attractiveness judgmentsthat might explain appearance effects in candidateappraisal. Indeed, there is evidence from event-relatedpotential studies that positive versus negative affectiveresponse to faces activates different areas in the brainfor facial processing.I" This reinforces the interpreta-



tion that affective responses to facial images are quick,automatic, and precede cognitive awareness.

Appearance and trait attributionsOther relevant research explores appearance-based

attributions of personality traits. Associated withattractiveness is a "halo effect" where individualsattribute positive personality characteristics to attractive persons, including competence, likability, dominance, and honesty-all traits associated with politicalleaders.Y

Facial dominance is a dimension of appearance ratedwith high reliability both within and across cultures.50

,5 I These ratings respond to enhanced secondary sexual characteristics in male faces, especially largelower jaw size, and prominence of both cheekbonesand eyebrow ridges.l" Mazur and Mueller report thatratings of facial dominance for West Point cadets basedon yearbook photographs with standard poses, werepositively associated with status attainment while atthe Academy, as well as with attainment of Generalrank decades later in their careers.52 ,5 3,4 0 Basaltestosterone levels in puberty condition secondarysexual characteristics in males. One explanatoryhypothesis of the leadership selection effect is thatfacial features serve as cues to heightened basaltestosterone levels that, in turn, are associated withcompetitive and assertive behavioral patterns.I" contributing to leader stereotypes.

Zebrowitz, Voinescu, and Collins conducted research on "demeanor bias" designed to explore factorsthat contribute to common perceptions of faces ashonest or dishonest. 55 They found that babyfaceness orneotany, attractiveness, facial symmetry, and largereyes contributed to perceptions of honesty and "wideeyed innocence." Geldard, Maurer, and Carney report"modest" significant preferences for larger eyes inadult faces in research with five-month old infants.YThis emerging literature on facial morphology and traitattribution indicates that not only are some facialfeatures preferred over others, but also that thispreference extends to the attributions of desirable andundesirable personality characteristics that play adirect role in assessing candidates for political office. 56

Television, print media of all kinds, brochures,posters, banners, and the Internet bombard voters withvisual images of candidates. Neuroscience findingshighlight how the brain processes these images very

quickly, pnrnmg and possibly shaping subsequentcognitive information processing activity. Evolutionarypsychology suggests that voters bring to their visualprocessing tasks certain preferences, biases, or predispositions, potentially favoring some candidates overothers. Research on trait attributions suggests thatthese biases encompass desirable or undesirable personality characteristics. Taken together, these findingsreveal not only why physical appearances matter forcandidate appraisal, but also which morphologicalconfigurations voters prefer.

HypothesesAn experimental design tested first whether attrac

tive candidates have a competitive advantage and,second, how levels of ideological agreement betweencandidates and voters moderate the effect of candidateattractiveness. It is assumed that voters apply stereotypes in selecting candidates for executive leadershippositions, such as president or governor. Stereotypesapplied to executive leaders differ from those appliedto candidates for Congress or lower offices. Thedependent variable, vote intention, is conditional onexecutive leadership office.

Physical appearance and style may affect vote choicebecause voters share stereotypic expectations of howleaders should look and behave. The literature onevolutionary psychology and cognitive neurosciencesupports the proposition that people are predisposed toprefer certain appearances to others, including attractiveness and dominance as cued by facial morphology.Additionally, voters make trait attributions, includingcompetence and ability, based on physical appearance.Stereotypes of leaders reflect these predisposed preferences and voters express them in judgments ofcandidate electability, also referred to as viability, forleadership offices in popular elections. Given thatvoters are unlikely to choose candidates judged low inelcctabiliry.Y it can be predicted that:

H 1: Under low information conditions or with other

relevant factors, such as background, character, and

information on political values held constant, voters

will be more likely to vote for candidates with positive

appearances based on electability ratings.

Of course, candidates vary along a continuum ofattractiveness and voters often choose between two ormore candidates. The size of the effect of physical

POLITICS AND THE LIFE SCIENCES • SPRING 2011 • VOL. 30, NO. 1 37


appearance on vote intention depends on the size of thecontrast in candidate attractiveness. Thus, we predictthat:

H 2 : The greater the contrast in appearance-based

electability ratings of candidates, the greater the effect

of physical appearance on vote intention.

Relevant literature supports the assumption that theprocessing of visual information about candidates byvoters is automatic and precedes cognitive processingof data about them. Therefore, and counter to Wyerand colleaguesv appearance-based electability evaluations should contribute to vote intention regardless ofissue agreement or disagreement. The third hypothesistherefore predicts that:

H 3 : Appearance-based electability evaluations will

have a significant effect on vote intention, independent

of the level of issue agreement between voters and

candidates.

If voters share and apply a stereotype of electabilityto candidate evaluations, then we can assume that theywill dismiss candidates who do not meet the stereotype.As cognitive misers.r" voters are unlikely to waste theirvotes on unelectable candidates and invest cognitiveresources in evaluating semantically encoded information about candidates with low electability, includinginformation about issue positions. Therefore,

H 4 : The greater the appearance-based electability

evaluations of candidates, the weaker the effects of

issue agreement upon vote intention.

Notably, this hypothesis emphasizes the importanceof stereotype matching in candidate appraisal. Candidates who fail the appearance test receive little furtherconsideration.

More than a generation of research by Granberg andcollaborators reveals that voters distort positions ofparties and candidates based upon their affectivedispositions toward them. Implicit stereotypes, rootedin human neurobiology and affective dispositions,might activate cognitive processes of assimilation andcontrast. Granbcrg' summarizes these effects in thefollowing propositions:

People tend to assimilate when attributing a position to

a preferred party or candidate. The degree to which

assimilation of a preferred candidate occurs is a direct

function of the level of positive affect felt by the person

toward the preferred candidate. The tendency to

assimilate in perceiving the position of a preferred

party or candidate is pervasive, occurring at both the

level of the average citizen and extending to people in

elite positions (pp. 85-86).

If people do display positive affect toward faces withselective morphological features, then Granberg's viewthat people will assimilate the views of candidatestoward whom they are positively disposed should becorrect. Hence, the final hypothesis posits that:

H s: The greater the appearance-based electability

rating of a candidate, the greater the assimilation of a

candidate's political values by voters who do not share

them.

Research design

An experiment exposed subjects to a mock primaryelection campaign containing stimuli for four candidates presented in a 2 X 2 factorial design thatmanipulated appearance and ideology. Candidatesincluded a liberal and conservative with high appearance-based electabili ty ra tings and a liberal andconservative with low electability ratings. Degree ofattractiveness was held constant across ideologicallines: there were two versions of the experimentconducted such that the attractive liberal in the firstexperiment was the attractive conservative in thesecond.

Images of political candidates used in the experimentwere selected from the 16 official candidates forpresident in the 1996 Romanian national elections.Included in each wave of evaluation were theincumbent, two major party candidates, and one minorparty representative. More than 150 American subjectsin four different replications of the experiment,including undergraduate and adult professional samples, rated the electability and attractiveness of the 16candidates with high levels of between-subjects agreement (Cronbach's alpha == .95). These ratings stronglycorrelated with those yielded by a replication of theexperiment in Jakarta, Indonesia (and, tentatively, asixth in the Trobriand Islands). The ratings revealedsignificant differentiation between the 16 candidates inratings of pictures and video clips of speaking behavior



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Figure 1. Means and confidence intervals for candidate pair electability ratings.

in televised national debates. One candidate receivedvery positive ratings in both appearance and style, onewas above average in appearance and very positive instyle, and two were slightly below average in bothappearance and style. As Figure 1 reveals, this designdoes not produce artificially contrived variance on theappearance factor that would skew results.

The experimental stimuli consisted of video clips andcampaign pamphlets that provided voters with a visualimage of the candidates and issue-based information toactivate cognitive processing. Subjects first viewed a20-second video clip of the candidate taken from anationally televised debate that standardized imagesize, camera angle, dress, and background setting. Theythen rated the candidate on a 9-point electability scale.Subjects next read a campaign pamphlet for eachcandidate, which contained a picture, a name-BobMiller, Mike White, Joe Nelson, or Jim Smith-andslogan on the first page, and four issue statements witha picture on the two inside pages. Pictures came from

actual campaign literature of the candidates in theRomanian election. Pamphlets included statementsdrawn from the web pages of u.S. senators andrepresentatives with strong liberal or conservativepolicy positions. Issue statements for each candidateaddressed three issues: abortion, gun control, and theClinton impeachment. A fourth issue position includedin the pamphlet was either school prayer or schoolvouchers. For example:

Liberal: It is imperative that we guard the safety of our

children at school and at home, which obligates us to

restrict the number of guns on our streets. Too many

children are killed every day as a result of irresponsible

gun owners and the easy availability of guns. I support

legislation to increase the waiting period for anyone

wanting to buy a gun and to limit access for everyone

convicted of crimes to ownership of guns.

Conservative: I will actively work to protect individual

liberty and freedom by opposing gun control legisla-



tion. I am concerned that waiting periods and bans, as

well as taxes on ammunition and strict transfer laws,

will not deter criminals from obtaining guns. Such

measures only serve to infringe on the rights of honest

citizens, not protect them from criminals.

After reading the pamphlet, subjects evaluated eachcandidate on several posttest items described below.After rating the first candidate, subjects watchedanother video clip, read another pamphlet, andevaluated the second candidate. Subjects were recruitedfrom undergraduate classes for both versions of theexperiment-ll2 subjects for the first version and 64for the second version. Two groups came from a statecollege in New York, one from a state university inIllinois, and one from a state university in Arkansas.Previous experiments found virtually no differencesbetween undergraduate and adult ratings of candidates; therefore, use of student samples was deemedjustified.

A pretest administered at least a week before theexperiment assessed subject attitudes, media use,demographics, and political orientations. In addition,the pre-experiment questionnaire included items addressing attitudes toward the policy issues presentedas stimuli in the campaign brochures. The posttestinstrument included the electability measure describedabove ("Regardless of whether you would vote for thiscandidate, what is your overall impression of theelectability of this candidate?"), scales for rating theperceived liberal and conservative values of thecandidates, and a vote intention scale. Similar toprevious studies, subjects rated candidates on 9-pointtrait attribution scales for competence, honesty, compassion, likability, and leadership ability. 7

Reliability and validity

ElectabilityTo test the reliability of the manipulation of

candidate appearance, subjects rated candidate electability after watching a brief, silent video clip ofspeaking behavior in a televised debate and beforeexposure to political information in the campaignbrochure. Mean ratings were calculated across the twoversions of the experiment because the information onissues that distinguishes them was not available to thesubjects when they recorded their responses. Figure 1

presents the means and 95 percent confidence intervalsfor candidate electability ratings. The candidate ratedmost favorably in prior research was judged significantly more electable that the other three in thisexperiment. The second candidate selected for positiveappearance was rated as significantly more electablethan the two selected for less attractive appearance.There was virtually no difference in the ratings for thelatter two candidates. In sum, these data show that thestimuli produced the intended manipulation of candidate appearance, including a high and low contrastcondition within the candidate pairs.

Attractiveness and trait attributionsA test of concurrent validity involves the association

of attractiveness with the attribution of leadershiptraits. Indeed, trait attributions may partially mediatethe effects of physical appearance on evaluations ofelectability. In addition to the "halo" effect for attractiveness, previous research5

,7 has attributed competence,

leadership ability, honesty, compassion, and likability tomore attractive candidates. Figure 2 reports attributiondata on each of these characteristics for both candidatepairs. Subjects evaluated candidates on the trait scalesafter exposure to both the video clips and campaignbrochures. Means for each candidate were calculatedacross the liberal and conservative portrayals, effectivelyholding political values constant. Within each pair of thefive trait scales, the more electable candidate received ahigher mean rating. In addition, the mean differenceswere statistically significant with the exception ofcompassion for the low contrast pair. The size of thedifference is somewhat greater in the high contrast pairfor ratings of competence, leadership ability, compassion, and likability but not honesty. However, the tvalues are much greater for the high contrast pair oneach of the traits. These data confirm that the attractiveness halo effect extends to the realm of candidateappraisal.

Results

Electability and vote intentionThe hypothesized effect of electability judgments on

vote intention assumes that voters are more willing toconsider voting for candidates they consider electableand less willing to waste their votes on unelectable



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t= 6.102

t= 0.614t= 8.989 t= 2.90

Figure 2. Trait attributions of candidate pairs.

candidates. Figure 3 plots the relationship betweenelectability and vote intention for each of the fourcandidates. Case points are randomly dispersed in theplots to display clusters along the least squares line.

A striking result in these data is the similarity in thepatterns of the effects. Although central tendency inelectability varies across the four candidates, the slopesare nearly identical-the greater the electability rating,the greater the vote intention. Cases cluster in thehigher electability and higher vote intention quadrantof the plots for the two more politically attractivecandidates and in the lower electability and lower voteintention quadrant for the less attractive candidates.

To explore the effects of the contrast in appearancebetween candidates, significance test s for the meandifference in vote intention were calculated withinpairs, where the issue positions presented (liberal orconservative) were identical. For the high contrast pair(#1), the mean difference in vote intention was 1.621

(t = 8.263, P < 0.000) and for the low contrast pair(#2), the mean difference was .661 (t = 3.408, P <0.001) . Thus, with the effects of issue agreement heldconstant, vote intention was significantly greater forthe more attractive candidate within a pair. In addition, the greater the contrast between two candidates,the greater the difference in vote intention.

Electability, issue agreement, and vote intentionSubjects received brochures about each of the

candidates, with very liberal or very conservativesubjects receiving brochures from candidates on theopposite side of the political spectrum. The differencebetween a subject's self-placement on a scale ofpolitical ideology, ranging from very liberal to veryconservative, provided an indicator of issue agreementor disagreement with the candidates. To explore theinteraction between appearance and ideological agreement, subjects reporting liberal or very liberal values

POLITI CS AND THE LIFE S CIENCES • SPRING 20 1 1 • VOL. 30, NO. 1 41


Pair 2: Appearance+

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2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9Electability Rating

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Figure 3. Electability rating and vote intention.

were classified as in agreement with liberal candidates,in disagreement with conservative candidates, and viceversa for conservative subjects. Moderates were placedin a partial agreement category.

The data in Table 1 reveal that politically attractivecandidates enjoy a decided advantage under each of theconditions of ideological agreement. Vote intention ineach category is approximately the same for the twoless attractive candidates and correlated with valueagreement for all four. In the high contrast pair (Pair1), the attractive candidate and the size of the difference increased with greater disagreement. In the lowcontrast pair, the differences are smaller but significant

in a one-tailed test. These data clearly contradict thefinding of Wyer and colleagues that appearance effectsare conditional on political disagreement, although theeffect is greater under disagreement in the high contrastpair.

A second approach to measuring agreement involvedanalyzing subject positions on the set of items in thepretest that included the issues addressed in thecandidate brochures. Responses to five issue questionswere entered into a principal components analysis andtwo factors were extracted that accounted for 27.1percent and 24.4 percent of the total variance aftervarimax rotation. On the first factor, capturing social

42 POLITICS AND THE LIFE SCIENCES • SPRING 201 I • YOLo 30, NO. I


Table 1. Appearance, value agreement, and vote intention.

Subject/candidate ideology

AgreementMixedDisagreement

Pair 1 appearance ++

6.5805.7004.950

Pair 1 appearance -

5.350 (p < 0.001)4.030 (p < 0.001)3.050 (p < 0.001)

Pair 2 appearance +

5.7204.8403.760

Pair 2 appearance -

5.030 (p < 0.067)4.110 (p < 0.031)3.250 (p < 0.107)

Data are mean values. Probabilities are two-tailed for Student's t.

liberalism, loadings for attitudes toward abortion,prayer in schools, and impeachment were .792, .742,and .396. The second factor, capturing feminist values,discriminated positive attitudes toward women's'rights (.806) and negative attitudes toward gun control(-.749). Factor scores for subjects on each principalcomponent were subsequently used in regressionanalysis.

Given that the second version of the experimentreversed the ideological portrayal of the candidates toprovide a consistent measure of attraction, the secondversion reversed the signs of the factor scores. Forexample, a very liberal subject who was in agreementwith Pair 1 candidates in the first version, would be indisagreement in the second. Reversing the signs forsubjects in the second version transformed the indicator from one of liberalism or conservatism to one ofagreement or disagreement with Pair 1 candidates. Forsimilar reasons, responses on the ideological selfplacement scale were transposed for subjects in thesecond version of the experiment for analyzing theeffects of issue agreement on vote intention. Finally,because the sample size for the two versions of theexperiment were unequal, cases were weighted by theproportionate contribution of their subsamples to thewhole.

The data in Table 2 address the third and fourthhypotheses. Hypothesis 3, that appearance-basedelectability ratings have significant partial effects onvote intention, receives substantial support in theseresults. Appearance-based electability ratings had

strong and significant effects on vote intention for allfour candidates, although slightly less so for the mostattractive candidate. Issue agreement, on the otherhand, was important primarily for the attractivecandidates, although ideological proximity had significant, albeit weak effects for one less attractivecandidate.

Results for the liberal issue agreement factor beardirectly on Hypothesis 4. Here, the effect size andsignificance increase with higher electability ratings.Considering the less electable candidates, subjects didnot utilize available information on issue agreement inreaching decisions on vote intention. Results are weakand inconsistent for feminist issue agreement. Thefindings for social liberalism, however, suggest thatvoters may not seriously consider the issue position andpolitical values of candidates who do not match theirappearance-based stereotypes of political leaders.

Physical appearance and assimilation effectsBecause candidates had relatively extreme issue

positions, perceptions of candidate ideology hypothetically might range from accurate estimations toexaggerated similarity. Figure 4 plots subject ratingsof candidate ideology for Pair 1 in relation toideological self-placement, with untransposed responses, to illustrate the measurement of assimilation effects.Overall, subjects perceive candidates with liberal issuepositions as more liberal and vice versa for conservative candidates. Objectively, accurate perceptions bysubjects would rate a liberal candidate as "9" on the

Table 2. Physical appearance, issue agreement, and vote intention probability.

Independent variables

IdeologyLiberal issue agreementFeminist issue agreementElectability ratingConstantAdjusted R2


0.107 (0.173)0.777):-):- (0.205)0.302 t (0.185)0.710):-):-):- (0.114)1.065 (0.896)0.526

Pair 2 appearance +0.439):- (0.173)0.509 (0.203)0.086 (0.189)0.861)~ ):- ):- (0.132)1.295 (0.911)0.500

Pair 1 appearance -

0.401):- (0.173)0.353 t (0.194)0.244 (0.189)0.971):-):-):- (0.109)

-1.696 (0.769)0.589

Pair 2 appearance -

0.076 (0.178)0.261 (0.210)0.365 t (0.202)0.850):-):-):- (0.111)0.128 (0.789)0.548

oLS analysis; coefficients are unstandardized, standard errors in parentheses.

t p < .10, "p < 0.05, ~~~-p < 0.01, ):-):-):-p < 0.001

POLITICS AND THE LIFE SCIENCES • SPRING 2011 • VOL. 30, NO. I 43

Liberal Portrayal Liberal Portrayal

Appearance++

10 ...---...-----,.------,.------,- ---,- ---,

9

8OJiiiu'g 6<1lU 5(;Ol 4S&3

2


Appearance--

10 .----,----,.-----,--,--,---,

9

8

'"iiiu-g 6

'"U 5(;Ol 4.S&3

2

Conservative Portrayal Conservative Portraya l

oo 1 23 4 5 6

SUbject's Values: Liberal <••••> Conservative

10 .--- ,.--- ,.--- ,--- ,--- ,----,

9

8

'"iii 7u'g 6<1lU 5(;Ql 4

&3

2

o0 1 2 3 4 56

Subject's Values: Liberal <••••> Conser vat ive

• Conservative• Libe ral

• Conservative., Liberal

oo 1 234 5 6

SUbject's Values: Liberal <••••> Conservative

10.--- "-- ,--- ,----,,----,,----,

9

8Q!

iii 7"0

'g 6roU 5(;Ol 4S&3

2

o01 2 3 456

Subject's Values : Liberal e....> Conservative

• Conservative

• Libera l

• Conservative• Liberal

Figure 4. Assimilation of candidate issue positions: Pair 1 candidates.

liberalism scale and "1" on the conservative scale.Deviation from these conditions on either scale revealsperceptual error or distortion in candidate appraisal.

Figure 4 reveals that such distortion is not randomlydistributed for subject ideology but varies with thereported intensity of subjects' attitudes. Thus, politically moderate subjects display the greatest error whilevery liberal and very conservative subjects tend todisplay the least. On the one hand, it is plausible thatself-identified moderates are less sophisticated inrelating candidate issue positions to ideological labels .On the other, when self-identified liberal or very liberalsubjects minimize the conservatism of a conservativecandidate, we can say there is an assimilation effect.

There is evidence of perceptual assimilation in theappraisal of Pair 1 candidates shown in Figure 4. Moststriking is the contrast between the more and less

attractive candidates under the conservative portrayalcondition. Here, ideologically extreme subjects displayed high levels of discriminatory accuracy in ratingthe less attractive candidate, with very liberal and veryconservative subjects similarly rating the candidatevery high on conservatism and very low on liberalism.Very conservative subjects showed a similarly accurateevaluation of the more attractive candidate. Liberaland very liberal subjects clearly minimized the candidate's conservatism and maximized his liberalism,although these effects are much weaker under thecondition of liberal portrayal with conservative subjects.

We then measured perceptual error in subjects 'appraisal of candidate ideology by calculating theabsolute value of the difference between ratings of thecandidates on the liberal ism and conservatism scales.

44 POLITI CS AND TH E LIFE S CIE NCES • SPRING 20 1 I • VOL. 3 0 , NO. I


Table 3. Assimilation effects on probability of voting for candidates.

Independent variables

NewspapersTV newsLiberal issue agreementFeminist issue agreementElectability ratingAssimilation! contrastConstantAdjusted R2


-0.299t (0.159)0.277t (0.149)0.836):-)!- (0.134)0.302 ):- ):- ):- (0.126)0.707)P:-)!- (0.081)

-0.109):- (0.050)1.676):- (0.716)0.557

Pair 2 appearance +

0.132 (0.173)-0.058 (0.160)

0.720):-):-):- (0.140)0.052 (0.139)0.824):-):-):- (0.100)

-0.155):-):- (0.570)0.385 (0.721)0.483

Pair 2 appearance -

-0.131 (0.167)0.123 (0.157)0.555):- ):- ):- (0.132)0.324):- ):- ):- (0.136)0.980):- ):- ):- (0.080)0.059 (0.050)

-0.702 (0.661)0.576

Pair 2 appearance -

0.065 (0.165)-0.241 (0.157)

0.334):- (0.139)0.385):-):- (0.140)0.812):-):-):- (0.078)

-0.034 (0.053)0.590 (0.646)0.561

OLS analysis; coefficients are unstandardized, standard errors in parentheses.

t p < .10, "p < 0.05, ):-):-p < 0.01, ~-):-)l-p < 0.001

Whether presented as liberals or conservatives, ratingswith no distortion would have a value of 9 on a 9-pointscale. Maximum distortion, in which candidates wereequally rated near the midpoint of the scales, wouldhave a value of zero. The greater the ideologicaldifference between candidates and voters, the less likelythe assimilation of candidate ideology; the smaller thedifference, the greater the possibility of assimilation.

We next examined assimilation effects on voteintention for the four candidates in conjunction withelectability ratings and issue agreement. We alsoincluded two indicators of media attention-frequencyof reading newspapers and watching television newsprograms-assuming that subjects with more politicalinformation would be more adept at relating candidateissue positions with ideological labels. Results presented in Table 3 show significant assimilation effects onlyfor the two politically attractive candidates. Thus, thegreater the error in appraisal of attractive candidates'ideology, the greater the vote intention-holdingelectability, issue agreement, and media attentionconstant. An examination of the mean perceptual erroracross the four candidates found no significantdifferences. It is not the sheer amount of error inperception that explains the differences in Table 3, butthe increasing frequency of error under conditions ofissue disagreement for the attractive candidates. Thisresult is consistent with the hypothesized assimilationof political values of the more attractive candidates.

Table 3 illustrates that with the effects of mediaattention and perceptual error controlled, the contribution of issue agreement to vote intention is strongand significant across all four candidates, in contrast tothe findings in Table 2. However, effect size increaseswith attractiveness, and the enhanced contribution of

the cognitive component to vote intention leaves theinfluence of the precognitive, appearance-based electability component virtually unchanged. In sum, physical appearance affects vote intention directly, as wellas through indirect effects on the integration andprocessing of cognitive information appraisal.

Discussion

Several studies show that emotional responses tocandidates for popular leadership office play animportant role in voters' choices. Marcus and MacKuen 5 8 revealed the involvement of feelings of anxietyand enthusiasm, Granberg/ reported on both u.S. andcross-national research demonstrating that affectiveresponse, even "gut level" feelings, may triggerfavorable perceptual distortions of candidates' views,while Sullivan and Masters59 showed that votersrespond emotionally and differentially to candidates'facial displays. This study addressed two additionalquestions. First, do physical appearances contribute tovoters' emotional responses to candidates, helping toexplicate gut level feelings? And, second, how doaffective and cognitive dimensions of candidate appraisal interact to influence voter decisions?

The research design separated and manipulated theaffective and cognitive dimensions of candidate appraisal. First, based on prior research, subjects wereexposed to candidates known to elicit positive ornegative affective responses. Second, we requiredsubjects to choose between candidates under conditions of cognitive agreement or disagreement. Subjectsresponded with both their heads and their hearts-orguts, as the case may be. They showed a strongpreference for the candidates with whom they agreed, a



strong preference for the candidates they liked, weremost responsive to candidates they both liked andagreed with, and were most negative towards thosethey disliked and with whom they disagreed.

The more interesting problem occurs when votersconfront contradictory dispositions in their affectiveand cognitive responses to candidates. Subjects weresomewhat more likely to vote for a less attractivecandidate with whom they agreed ideologically, thanan attractive candidate with whom they disagreed (Ms== 5.35 and 4.95 for Pair 1, and Ms == 5.03 and 3.76for Pair 2 in Table 1). On the other hand, the meanvote intention for the less attractive candidate was onlyat the mid-point (5.0) on the vote intention scale underagreement conditions. This result was reinforced whenconsidering the overall partial contribution of agreement on discrete issues to vote intention. Issue agreement made a significant and substantial contribution tovote intention only for the attractive candidates.

The findings reveal this effect to be partially theresult of perceptual assimilation in which subjectsexaggerated the similarity of the candidates' positionswith their own. However, subjects were more responsive to cognitive information when considering attractive candidates, even with assimilation effects statistically controlled. In other words, positive affectiveresponse was a prerequisite for cognitive processing ofissue information for many of our subjects. Thesesubjects, acting as cognitive misers, dismissed thosecandidates from consideration who they deemedunelectable based on physical appearance. The findingsdemonstrate that cognitive and affective dimensions ofcandidate appraisal are mutually reinforcing when theycontain consistent information, that positive affectdoes not trump cognitive agreement when they areinconsistent, but that positive affective may enhancethe cognitive component of candidate appraisal.

There is little doubt that physical appearances playarole in the selection of mating partners, chief executiveofficers, generals, even football quarterbacks. Theproposition that appearances play a role in theselection of political leaders may be more provocativebecause it appears to contradict traditional models ofthe rational voter while challenging democratic normsof equal opportunity. One implication of these findingsis that attractive candidates have a decided competitiveadvantage in nominating contests and runoff elections.General elections are becoming the province of

attractive candidates who meet stereotypic expectations of leader appearance. Appearance-based selectionbiases operate early in the electoral process: in thesurfacing period before primary elections, duringcampaigns to achieve party nominations, and atnominating conventions. Candidates whose appearance and behavioral style meet the standard ofelectability may be more effective in raising campaignfunds, garnering media attention, receiving endorsements, and enjoying critical early success in the polls.General elections with two party candidates minimizethe effects of attractiveness in the formation ofpreferences. Here, there should be no major challengeto accepted models of voting behavior because thenomination process controls for appearance effects.

The practical implications of these findings arethreefold. First, in any election, candidates who donot meet stereotypic expectations with respect toappearance and style are likely to receive less substantive consideration of their policy views than those whodo meet them. Second, in multi-candidate electionssuch as primaries, where two or more candidates withsimilar political views compete, candidates who aremore attractive should enjoy a decided advantageresulting from voters' implicit biases. Third, in runoffor general election contests in which there is asignificant attractiveness contrast between candidates,the more attractive candidate will receive the benefit ofassimilation effects in candidate appraisal.

Conclusion

This study investigated the role of physical appearance in candidate appraisal, based on theory andresearch in the fields of evolutionary psychology andfacial processing in cognitive neuroscience. Specifically,we tested the hypotheses that attractiveness is associated with electability and electability with voteintention; that appearance-based electability judgmentsaffect vote intention independent of issue agreement;that the effects of issue agreement are stronger for moreelectable candidates; and, that voters assimilate theirissue disagreements with more electable candidatesduring information processing, leading to greater voteintention than would occur on the basis of appearanceor issue agreement alone. An experimental designtested these hypotheses by juxtaposing two pairs of



attractive and unattractive candidates as very liberal orvery conservative, based on information provided incampaign brochures.

Candidates who are more attractive are not necessarily guaranteed electoral wins. Issue agreement is alsoimportant, and no doubt determinative in runoffelections. Issue effects could work either for or againstan attractive candidate, depending on how much votersagree with them, although assimilation effects givecandidates who are more attractive an edge. Wepropose that precognitive processing of visual information about candidates, in conjunction with implicit,predisposed preferences for selective aspects of facialmorphology, prime the processing of semanticallyencoded information about candidates; our resultssupport this model.

Note

The research upon which this paper is based was supported

by Grant Number R03 MH58152-01Al to the first author

from the National Institute of Mental Health, Department of

Health and Human Services, Washington, DC. Its contents

are solely the responsibility of the authors and do notrepresent the official views of the National Institute of

Mental Health. A version of this paper was originally

presented at the 2001 annual meeting of the Midwest

Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, April 19-22,2001.

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