Big earlobes DO matter: a Crikey scientific study
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The impact of physical attractiveness on voting behaviour is not a subject the oh-so-serious commentators like to take seriously. The tut tutting that’s followed people writing about ears in this election campaign — the size of Julia’s lobes and just the enormous size of Tony’s — is proof of that. Yet all the evidence available on the subject suggests good looking people tend to beat ugly ones. So Julia Gillard’s wonderful picture spread in the Women’s Weekly is likely to have more impact on this election result than those pictures of a stripped Tony Abbott parading on the beach. The contrast between her beautifully styled red hair and his considerable body hair makes it a no contest. Now before I am condemned by outraged readers for being flippant, sexist or something even worse, I present to you the latest research on this important subject in the form of an advance copy of a paper soon to be published in that most reputable of academic journals, World Politics. MIT News reports the appearances of politicians do indeed strongly influence voters — and that people around the world have similar ideas about what a good politician looks like. While few political observers would be surprised to learn that good looks earn votes, the MIT researchers have quantified a phenomenon more often assumed to be true than rigorously measured. “Ever since Aristotle, people have written about the concern that charismatic leaders who speak well and look good can sway votes even if they do not share the people’s views,” acknowledges Gabriel Lenz, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at MIT, and a co-author of the study. The paper is an “interesting and innovative study” writes Panu Poutvaara, an economist at the University of Helsinki who also studies the influences of candidate appearances, responding to questions by email. In Poutvaara’s view, by helping to confirm the general connection between good looks and ballot-box success, the study paves the way for future research that should address precisely why voters favour good-looking candidates: “Is it because voters either enjoy watching good-looking politicians on TV, or think that they are better in social interactions?” Lenz and his colleagues are addressing this question from a slightly different angle in additional, ongoing research. In a forthcoming study, they find that “low-information voters” are especially likely to choose candidates based on looks. “These are people who don’t know much about politics, but watch a lot of TV,” says Lenz. The researchers are currently writing a paper based on this latter project. In the interests of furthering the research into this important subject Crikey is seeking the help of its readers. We have chosen candidates in eight seats to be contested in Australia on August 21 and on our special Politicians: Hot or Not? survey page we ask you to select the winner based on nothing else but the photos of the candidates from the two major parties. |
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16 Comments
‘ear! ‘ear!
Good news for Gillard. Not to denigrate the medium, but so-called low information voters also read magazines like Australian Womens’ Weekly.
What a load of rubbish. If is true, as it may be so much for an informed democracy. It is true that Julia is prettier than Abbott but what should influence the voter is the lack of intelligence of Abbott not his looks which are horrible.
Hey - what about Winston Churchill or Billy McMahon?
Might I remind the dear readers of this exchange -
“One night in the House of Commons, Churchill, after imbibing a few drinks, stumbled into Bessie Braddock, a corpulent Labourite member from Liverpool. An angry Bessie straightened her clothes and addressed the British statesman.
“Winston,” she roared. “You are drunk, and what’s more, you are disgustingly drunk.”
Churchill, surveying Bessie, replied, “And might I say, Mrs. Braddock, you are ugly, and what’s more, disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow,” Churchill added, “I shall be sober.”
The Ranga and the Wing-nut went to sea
In a beautiful refugee boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a Cabinet note.
The Ranga looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
‘O lovely Wingy! O Wingy my love,
What a beautiful Wingy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Wingy you are!’
The influence of physical attractiveness has been studied for more than 30 years by Dr. Gordon Patzer, dean of the College of Business Administration at Roosevelt University (Chicago, USA), who has conducted numerous experiments and written several books on the subject. His research shows that, “People are valued more who are higher in physical attractiveness. As distasteful at that might be, that’s the reality.” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3917414/) See also: http://www.looksrule.com/
Back at uni, I studied a subject (Management skills) which included a topic called Impression Management. It was all about appearance, body language and perception and how these factors can affect your “brand” and hence your credibility, power and influencing skills.
At the time, I did think of it as a bit of a joke (how superficial!), but after some experience, it does ring true. Most communication is non-verbal. We pick up on non-verbal signals all the time and these things do influence our view of a person (Latham and his handshake to name one example). As people are visual creatures, good looking people (or people who know how to accentuate their good looking parts) will always do better that the less attractive. You see it everywhere in life, from the board room to the night clubs. As Seinfeld once said, you never see any good looking homeless people.
But the good news for the less attractive people is that talent and hard work can still get you pretty far.
Yes. We are still, after all, social apes. For most of our ape-to-human history, I imagine that the leader of the troop was also the one who’d get to contribute more genes to the next generation.
But then there is also the observation that power in itself tends to make people (men at least) attractive. All very interesting ….
One thing’s for sure, we’re less sophisticated and ‘advanced’ than we like to think we are. IMHO.
Gillard will win only if she promises never to speak again.
The simian vote will be no help to Tony. Zoos are all in safe seats.
@Margo:
Nothing new there. It begins at school. The most popular kids and those elected to this or that school position, are usually the most attractive.
Hitler was pretty ugly - yet he inspired millions to follow him for many years through increasingly distasteful events. Events that you wouldn’t think that the majority would follow you to.
Of course he did have his murderous death squads to follow up if anyone was a little undecided due to his appearance.
I tried an experiment after Movember last year - after the month’s growth was ready to come off on 1st December I snipped the edges off for what I liked to call the “Charlie Chaplain” mo - but it came in for almost complete denigration as a Hitler - and advice as to how quickly it should be shaved off was in abundance.
Judging from the reaction I got you would have to have a whole heap more charisma to carry off the Charlie Chaplain mo (and maybe a few centuries as well).
@EnineeringReality
Actually, in his younger years Hitler was not so unattractive. Once he developed a public profile, women were particularly drawn to him.
I’m reading Ian Kershaw’s book Hitler 1889-1936 : Hubris at the moment. It is abundantly clear is that the political situation in Germany after WW1 was in almost total disarray. Among the working class racked by unheard of inflation, parliamentarism was on the nose and they were certainly ready for a Führer in any shape or form.
An Australian study, showing that attractive politicians do better:
http://people.anu.edu.au/andrew.leigh/pdf/BeautifulPoliticians.pdf
Awesome, GEF05. That study finds that ‘the marginal effect of beauty is larger for male candidates than for female candidates’. Don’t know the date of the paper, but I wonder if one of the authors — Andrew Leigh — imagined at the time that he would be a candidate himself (he is the ALP’s candidate for the ACT seat of Fraser)?!
@ Margo
Awesome. I did not know that about Leigh.