A new study published in the Journal of Public Economics says that, on average, conservative politicians in the United States, Europe, and Australia are more attractive than their progressive counterparts.
Past research has indicated handsome politicians tend to get more votes (recall the first televised presidential debate and subsequent election in 1960), and good-looking folks in general “are viewed by others as more likable, trustworthy and competent.”
The study also furthers the notion that the more alluring a politician is, the more voters will assume he/she is conservative … and vice versa.
The Atlantic reports:
In the United States, these results might mean that GOP candidates have an advantage over Democrats in elections simply because they tend to be better looking. “Politicians on the right are more beautiful than politicians on the left in Europe, the United States, and Australia,” the authors of the study write, adding that “their beauty advantage, all else equal, makes candidates on the right more likely to win office and implement their preferred policies.”
The study, titled The right look: Conservative politicians look better and voters reward it, goes on to argue that conservative politicians are not only considered more attractive on average, but also derive more benefit from that perception than liberal politicians who are similarly attractive. Specifically, the study found that attractive conservative politicians won more votes than attractive liberal politicians in elections when voters didn’t know much about the candidates. …
His looks may have helped in 2010, but how in
the hell did he lose two years later to Liz Warren?Further supporting the idea that voters associate good looks with conservatism, researchers asked respondents to guess which political party politicians represented based on a photograph. They found that conservative politicians who were correctly guessed to be conservative were on average more attractive than conservative politicians that respondents did not correctly identify as conservative.
“The more good-looking a candidate, the more he or she is thought to stand to the right,” one of the study authors Professor Panu Poutvaara of the University of Munich and Ifo Institute, said in an-email, adding: “This connection holds among both liberal and conservative voters.”
Study Breaker: She’s served for
13 consecutive terms.
The question is why would right-leaning pols be more glamorous? Why, economic and psychological privilege, natch:
“[…] beautiful people earn more money, and the more people earn, the more they are inclined to oppose redistribution and, arguably, to support, get active in, and represent parties to the right.
“A more general psychological explanation could be that good-looking people are more likely to perceive the world as a just place, since they are treated better than others, and are happier […]”
As you might surmise, there’s a few question marks about the study, not the least of which is, if rich people are so conservative, then what explains Hollywood?
MORE: George Washington U. ‘privilege display’ expands term’s definition even further
MORE: Universities offer ‘privilege walk’ exercises so students feel bad about themselves
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