Politics of Appearance: Do Looks Matter in an Election?

In politics, do looks matter?

“You Betcha!” as Sarah Palin might say.

A study released yesterday through Northwestern University entitled The Political Gender Gap suggests that facial attractiveness matters for the electoral success of female politicians. But, the same does not hold true for male politicians.

Voters unconsciously apply an attractiveness test to female candidates — voters are more likely to give their nod to an attractive female candidate than an unattractive one.

And while Sarah Palin may be getting flak for the $150,000 spent on her wardrobe for the campaign (she may be a hunter, but not when it comes to bargains), I say that it is money well-spent considering the importance of image. She and her stylist know exactly what they are doing — using Palin’s looks to up votes for the Republicans — right down to the colours she wears.

Recall the red suit she is often seen in (and the similar one Tina Fey sports)? Did you take note of the $89.95 Naughty Monkey peep-toe patent leather red pumps that she wore on the campaign trail? Which, by the way, sold out in record-breaking time after Palin wore them. Well, this lady in red is on top of which colours sell. A series of studies out of the University of Rochester show that women who wear red, as opposed to other colours, are perceived as more attractive by men.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about beauty and politics. Nor is The Political Gender Gap the first academic study on attractiveness and electoral success.

Other academic studies that have reported that beauty increases the chances of a candidate’s success in an election include:

• The Looks of a Winner: Beauty, Gender and Electoral Success, published in 2006, also found that beauty plays a role in electoral success reporting that “candidates who are more beautiful than their list competitors receive higher vote shares.” The Finnish study also found that voters believed that beautiful candidates were also more competent.
•  Changing Looks and Changing Discrimmination: The Beauty of Economists, published in 2006, demonstrated that when examining beauty as a factor in electoral success, it was a candidate’s attractiveness relative to other candidates’ attractiveness, not their actual level of attractiveness, that determined their success in an election. The authors also concluded that it is the characteristic of beauty itself that accounts for this and not its connection to intelligence or competence.
• Candidate Appearance Cues in Low-Information Elections, published in 2003, found that in elections where voters had little information about the names on the ballot, attractive candidates were more likely to win.