Looking Like a Winner: Candidate Appearance and Electoral Success in New Democracies
A flurry of recent studies indicates that candidates who simply look more capable or attractive are more likely to win elections. In this article, the authors investigate whether voters' snap judgments of appearance travel across cultures and whether they influence elections in new democracies....
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Cambridge University Press
2012
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/70919 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8174-8728 |
| _version_ | 1826194332794748928 |
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| author | Lawson, J. Chappell H. Lenz, Gabriel Salman Baker, Andy Myers, Michael |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Lawson, J. Chappell H. Lenz, Gabriel Salman Baker, Andy Myers, Michael |
| author_sort | Lawson, J. Chappell H. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | A flurry of recent studies indicates that candidates who simply look more capable or attractive are more likely to win elections. In this article, the authors investigate whether voters' snap judgments of appearance travel across cultures and whether they influence elections in new democracies. They show unlabeled, black-and-white pictures of Mexican and Brazilian candidates' faces to subjects living in America and India, asking them which candidates would be better elected officials. Despite cultural, ethnic, and racial differences, Americans and Indians agree about which candidates are superficially appealing (correlations ranging from .70 to .87). Moreover, these superficial judgments appear to have a profound influence on Mexican and Brazilian voters, as the American and Indian judgments predict actual election returns with surprising accuracy. These effects, the results also suggest, may depend on the rules of the electoral game, with institutions exacerbating or mitigating the effects of appearance. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:54:23Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/70919 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:54:23Z |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/709192022-09-30T17:35:55Z Looking Like a Winner: Candidate Appearance and Electoral Success in New Democracies Lawson, J. Chappell H. Lenz, Gabriel Salman Baker, Andy Myers, Michael Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Lawson, J. Chappell H. Lawson, J. Chappell H. Lenz, Gabriel Salman Myers, Michael A flurry of recent studies indicates that candidates who simply look more capable or attractive are more likely to win elections. In this article, the authors investigate whether voters' snap judgments of appearance travel across cultures and whether they influence elections in new democracies. They show unlabeled, black-and-white pictures of Mexican and Brazilian candidates' faces to subjects living in America and India, asking them which candidates would be better elected officials. Despite cultural, ethnic, and racial differences, Americans and Indians agree about which candidates are superficially appealing (correlations ranging from .70 to .87). Moreover, these superficial judgments appear to have a profound influence on Mexican and Brazilian voters, as the American and Indian judgments predict actual election returns with surprising accuracy. These effects, the results also suggest, may depend on the rules of the electoral game, with institutions exacerbating or mitigating the effects of appearance. 2012-05-24T14:56:54Z 2012-05-24T14:56:54Z 2010-10 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0043-8871 1086-3338 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/70919 Lawson, Chappell et al. “Looking Like a Winner: Candidate Appearance and Electoral Success in New Democracies.” World Politics 62.04 (2010): 561–593. Web. © Cambridge University Press 2010. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8174-8728 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0043887110000195 World Politics Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf Cambridge University Press MIT web domain |
| spellingShingle | Lawson, J. Chappell H. Lenz, Gabriel Salman Baker, Andy Myers, Michael Looking Like a Winner: Candidate Appearance and Electoral Success in New Democracies |
| title | Looking Like a Winner: Candidate Appearance and Electoral Success in New Democracies |
| title_full | Looking Like a Winner: Candidate Appearance and Electoral Success in New Democracies |
| title_fullStr | Looking Like a Winner: Candidate Appearance and Electoral Success in New Democracies |
| title_full_unstemmed | Looking Like a Winner: Candidate Appearance and Electoral Success in New Democracies |
| title_short | Looking Like a Winner: Candidate Appearance and Electoral Success in New Democracies |
| title_sort | looking like a winner candidate appearance and electoral success in new democracies |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/70919 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8174-8728 |
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