Comments on: Pretty Pols Win

By: Phil Goetz

Phil Goetz — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:50:14 +0000

I don’t believe this study. The correlation with beauty is too small to be believable. 1.5-2% per standard deviation of beauty? That’s nothing.

By: Phil Goetz

Phil Goetz — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:49:00 +0000

Rather, this could be explained by there being a positive correlation between beauty and other, not-necessarily-hidden characteristics of a candidate.

I assume the study didn’t control for virtues of the candidates, such as intelligence, health, and optimism.

By: Discriminação contra os feios « phCastro

Discriminação contra os feios « phCastro — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:08:57 +0000

[...] Discriminação contra os feios By phcastro E aí: Os feios devem ser beneficiados com políticas afirmativas? [...]

By: anon

anon — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:48:46 +0000

Two words: Halo effect. Move along, nothing to see here.

By: Scott Sumner

Scott Sumner — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:48:22 +0000

Following up on James and TGGP. I recall that there is a positive correlation between almost all “positive” human characteristics (beauty, personality, intelligence, athleticism, etc.) Isn’t there a huge omitted variable problem?

By: John Maxwell IV

John Maxwell IV — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:50:12 +0000

No, clearly what’s going on is that beautiful people are more genetically fit, and therefore more intelligent, and voters are just trying to elect the smartest candidate!

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:55:58 +0000

In cave man times humans might have evolved an ability to judge to quality of a leader in part through observations of the leader’s appearance.

That’s not suprising, since ‘beautiful’ people tend to carry better genetics with the superior derived health and hormones; and people who posture themselves in an attractive way through body language are communicating with us on an unconscious level in the same way pack of animals communicate through visuals and posturing.

Now, this doesn’t mean that hot girl you were just checking out will be a good leader, but…

By: Bill

Bill — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:07:36 +0000

And that’s why Obama won?

By: denis bider

denis bider — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:00:11 +0000

This is an interesting study, and your theory is plausible, but I think the degree to which this study supports your theory is weak. 1-2 percentage points is not a strong effect at all. If physical attractiveness was a major factor, the effect should be an order of magnitude stronger.

Since the effect of beauty was higher where there were more apathetic voters, this suggests that there are some people who end up deciding based on physical attractiveness because they just can’t seem to find any other difference about which to care.

Most people, however, still vote based on other grounds. Which doesn’t mean that those grounds have to do with policy – but they aren’t related to physical beauty, either.

By: Ryan Langrill

Ryan Langrill — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:30:17 +0000

It makes sense that one would see these results in Australia. As the authors mention, voting is compulsory, therefore there is a higher level of apathetic voting. In this instance, I don’t see it as too surprising – in fact, I’m surprised the result isn’t more pronounced, assuming that Australia has indifference levels similar to America. I personally know a good number of people who, if forced to vote, would probably just vote for the most attractive candidate. I hope the percentage difference is lower in America…

Very interesting.