Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-19T06:37:23.825Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Physical attractiveness, issue agreement, and assimilation effects in candidate appraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

James N. Schubert ,
Margaret Ann Curran  and
Carmen Strungaru
James N. Schubert
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Northern Illinois University, 415 Zulauf Hall, Dekalb, IL 60115
Margaret Ann Curran
Affiliation:
Office of Research, Evaluation, and Policy Studies, College of Education, Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL 60115
Carmen Strungaru
Affiliation:
Department of Animal Physiology, Biophysics, and Ethology, Faculty of Biology, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This study examines the cognitive and affective factors of candidate appraisal by manipulating candidate attractiveness and levels of issue agreement with voters. Drawing upon research in evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience, this analysis proposes that automatic processing of physical appearance predisposes affective disposition toward more attractive candidates, thereby influencing cognitive processing of issue information. An experimental design presented attractive and unattractive candidates who were either liberal or conservative in a mock primary election. The data show strong partial effects for appearance on vote intention, an interaction between appearance and issue agreement, and a tendency for voters to assimilate the dissimilar views of attractive candidates. We argue that physical appearance is important in primary elections when the differences in issue positions and ideology between candidates is small.

Keywords

Political evaluationissue agreementassimilation effectscandidate appraisalphysical attractivenesselectoral viabilityvisual cues
Type
Research Articles
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , Spring 2011 , pp. 33 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

References

1. Carlson, James M., “ Subjective ideological similarity between candidates and supporters,” Political Psychology, 1990, 11:485–492.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Granberg, Donald, “Political perception,” in Explorations in Political Psychology, Iyengar, Shanto and McGuire, William I., eds (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 70–112.Google Scholar
3. Jackson, Linda A., Physical Appearance and Gender: Sociobiological and Sociocultural Perspectives (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992).Google Scholar
4. Lewis, Kathryn E. and Bierly, Margaret, “Toward a profile of the female voter: Sex differences in perceived physical attractiveness and competence of political candidates,” Sex Roles, 1990, 22: 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Rosenberg, Shawn W., Bohan, Lisa, McCafferty, Patrick, and Harris, Kevin, “The image and the vote: The effect of candidate presentation on voter preference,” American Journal of Political Science, 1986, 30: 108–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. Sigelman, Lee, Sigelman, Carol, and Flower, Christopher, “A bird of a different feather? An experimental investigation of physical attractiveness and the electability of female candidates,” Social Psychology Quarterly, 1987, 50: 32–43.Google Scholar
7. Wyer, Richard S. Jr., Budesheim, Thomas L., Shavitt, Sharon, Riggle, Ellen D., Jeffery Melton, R., and Kuklinski, James H., “Image, issues, and ideology: The processing of information about political candidates,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1991, 61: 535–545.Google Scholar
8. Zahavi, Amotz, “Mate selection: A selection for a handicap,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1975, 53: 205–214.Google Scholar
9. Thornhill, Randy and Gangestad, Steven W., “Human facial beauty: Averageness, symmetry, and parasite resistance,” Human Nature, 1993, 4: 237–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10. Grammar, Karl and Thornhill, Randy, “Human facial attractiveness and sexual selection: The roles of averageness and symmetry,” Journal of Comparative Psychology, 1994, 108: 233–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11. Ekman, Paul and Rosenberg, Erika eds, What the Face Reveals: Basic and Applied Studies of Spontaneous Expression Using the Facial Action Coding System (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).Google Scholar
12. Young, Andrew W., Face and Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13. Schubert, James N., Strungaru, Carmen, Curran, Margaret Ann, and Schiefenhovel, Wulf, “Physische ereheinung und die einschatzung von politischen kandidatinnen und kandidaten,” in Biopolitics: Politikwissenschaft jenseits des kulturismus, Kamps, Klaus and Watts, Meredith, eds (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1998), pp. 159–178.Google Scholar
14. McDermott, Monika L., “Voting cues in low-information elections: Candidate gender as a social information variable in contemporary United States elections,” American Journal of Political Science, 1997, 41: 270–284.Google Scholar
15. Gopoian, David J., “Issue preferences and candidate choice in presidential primaries,” American Journal of Political Science, 1982, 26: 523–546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16. Norrander, Barbara, “Correlates of vote choice in the 1980 primaries,” Journal of Politics, 1986, 48: 156–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17. Wyer, Richard S. Jr. and Ottati, Victor C., “Political information processing,” in Explorations in Political Psychology, Iyengar, Shanto and McGuire, William J., eds (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 264–295.Google Scholar
18. Popkin, Samuel L., “Decision making in presidential primaries,” in Explorations in Political Psychology, Iyengar, Shanto and McGuire, William J., eds (Durhman, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 361–379.Google Scholar
19. Granberg, Donald, Kasmer, Jeff, and Nanneman, Tim, “An empirical examination of two theories of political perception,” Western Political Quarterly, 1988, 41: 29–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
20. Phillips, Mary L., Bullmore, Edward T., Howard, Robert, Woodruff, Peter W. R., Wright, Ian C., Williams, Steven C. R., Simmons, Andrew, Andrew, Christopher, Brammer, Michael, and David, Anthony S., “Investigation of facial recognition memory and happy and sad facial expression perception: An fMRI study,” Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging Section, 1998, 83: 127–138.Google Scholar
21. Freid, Itzhak, MacDonald, Katherine A., and Wilson, Charles L., “Single neuron activity in human hippocampus and amygdala during recognition of faces and objects,” Neuron, 1997, 18: 753–765.Google Scholar
22. Breiter, Hans C., Etcoff, Nancy L., Whalen, Paul J., Kennedy, William A., Rauch, Scott L., Buckner, Randy L., Strauss, Monica M., Hyman, Steven E., and Rosen, Bruce R., “Response and habituation of the human amygdala during visual processing of facial expression,” Neuron, 1996, 17(5): 875–887.Google Scholar
23. Mike Burton, A., “A model of human face recognition,” in Localist Connectionist Approaches to Human Cognition, Grainger, Jonathon and Jacobs, Arthur M., eds (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998), pp. 75–100.Google Scholar
24. Zeki, Semir, “Parallel processing, asynchronous perception, and a distributed system of consciousness in vision,” The Neuroscientist, 1998, 4: 365–372.Google Scholar
25. Bruno Debruille, J., Guillem, Francois, and Renault, Bernard, “ERPs and chronometry of face recognition: Following-up Seeck et al. and George et al.,” NeuroReport, 1998, 9: 3349–3353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26. Lodge, Milton, Steenbergen, Marco, and Brau, Shawn, “The responsive voter: Campaign information and the dynamics of candidate evaluation,” American Political Science Review, 1995, 89: 309–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
27. Bauer, Russell M. and Verfaellie, Mieke, “Electrodermal discrimination of familiar but not unfamiliar faces in prosopagnosia,” Brain and Cognition, 1988, 8: 240–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28. Bauer, Russell M., “Autonomic recognition of names and faces in prosopagnosia: A neurological application of the Guilty Knowledge Test,” Neuropsychologia, 1984, 22(4): 457–469.Google Scholar
29. Fodor, Jerry A., The Modularity of the Mind (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1983).Google Scholar
30. Smith, Hedrick, The Power Game: How Washington Works (New York: Ballantine, 1989).Google Scholar
31. Kraus, Sidney, ed, The Great Debates: Kennedy vs. Nixon, 1960, rev ed (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1977).Google Scholar
32. Thornhill, Randy and Gangestad, Steve W., “Human fluctuating asymmetry and sexual behavior,” Psychological Science, 1994, 5: 297–302.Google Scholar
33. Kowner, Rotem, “Facial asymmetry and attractiveness judgment in developmental perspective,” Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1996, 22: 662–675.Google Scholar
34. Mealey, L. R., Bridgstock, R., and Townsend, G. C., “Symmetry and perceived facial attractiveness: A monozygotic co-twin comparison,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999, 76: 151–158.Google Scholar
35. Langlois, Judith, Ritter, Jean M., and Musselman, Lisa, “What is average and what is not average about attractive faces,” Psychological Science, 1994, 5: 214–220.Google Scholar
36. Penton-Voak, I. S., Perrett, D. I., and Pierce, J. W., “Computer graphic studies of the role of facial similarity in judgments of attractiveness,” Current Psychology, 1999, 18: 104–117.Google Scholar
37. Pollard, Jim, Shepard, John, and Shepard, Jean, “Average faces are average faces,” Current Psychology 1999, 18: 98–103.Google Scholar
38. Cunningham, Michael R., “Measuring the physical in physical attractiveness: Quasi-experiments on the sociobiology of female facial beauty,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1986, 50: 925–935.Google Scholar
39. Cunningham, Michael R., Barbee, Anita P., and Pike, Carolyn L., “What do women want? Facialmetric assessment of multiple motives in the perceptions of male facial physical attractiveness,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1990, 59: 61–72.Google Scholar
40. Mazur, Allan, Mazur, Gael, and Keating, Caroline, “Military rank attainment of a West Point class: Effects of cadets' physical features,” American Journal of Sociology, 1984, 90: 125–151.Google Scholar
41. Perrett, D.I., Lee, K.J., Penton-Voiak, I. S., Rowland, D., Yoshikawaa, S., Burt, D. M., Henzil, S. P., Castles, D. L., and Akamatsu, S., “Effects of sexual dimorphism of physical attractiveness,” Nature, 1998, 394: 884–887.Google Scholar
42. Geldart, Sybil, Mauer, Daphne, Carney, Katherine, “Effects of eye size on adults' aesthetic ratings of faces and 5-month-olds' looking times,” Perception, 1999, 28: 361–374.Google Scholar
43. Rubenstein, Adam J., Kalakanis, Lisa, and Langlois, Judith H., “Infant preferences for attractive faces: A cognitive explanation,” Developmental Psychology, 1999, 35: 848–855.Google Scholar
44. Rhodes, Gillian, Sumich, Alex, and Byatt, Graham, “Are average facial configurations attractive only because of their symmetry?” Psychological Science, 1999, 10: 52–58.Google Scholar
45. Samuels, Curtis, Butterworth, George, Roberts, Tony, Graupner, Lida, and Hole, Graham, “Facial aesthetics: Babies prefer attractiveness to symmetry,” Perception, 1994, 23: 823–831.Google Scholar
46. Michael Kalick, S., Zebrowitz, Leslie A., Langlois, Judith H., and Johnson, Robert M., “Does human facial attractiveness honestly advertise health,” Psychological Science, 1998, 9: 8–13.Google Scholar
47. Thornhill, Randy and Gangestad, Steve W., “The evolution of human sexuality,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 1996, 11: 98–102.Google Scholar
48. Pizzagalli, Diego, Koenig, Thomas, Regard, Marianne, and Lehmann, Dietrich, “Faces and emotions: Brain electric field sources during covert emotional processing,” Neurosychologia, 1998, 36: 323–332.Google Scholar
49. Berscheid, Ellen and Walster, Elaine, “Physical attractiveness,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 7, Berkowitz, Leonard, ed (New York: Academic Press, 1974), pp. 157–215.Google Scholar
50. Keating, Carol, Mazur, Allan, Segall, Marshall H., Cysneiros, Paulo G., Divale, William T., Kilibride, Janet E., Komin, Suntaree, Leahy, Peter, Thurman, Blake, Wirsing, Rolf, “Culture and the perception of social dominance from facial expression,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1981, 40: 615–626.Google Scholar
51. Keating, Carol, Mazur, Allan, and Segall, Marshall H., “A cross-cultural exploration of physiognomic traits of dominance and happiness,” Ethology and Sociobiology, 1981, 2: 41–48.Google Scholar
52. Mazur, Allan and Mueller, Ulrich, “Channel modeling: From West Point cadet to general,” Public Administration Review, 1996, 56: 191–198.Google Scholar
53. Mueller, Ulrich and Mazur, Allan, “Facial dominance,” in Research in Biopolitics, vol. 4, Somit, Al and Peterson, Steven A., eds (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1996), pp. 99–111.Google Scholar
54. Mazur, Allan and Booth, Alan, “Testosterone and dominance,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1998, 21: 353–397.Google Scholar
55. Zebrowitz, Leslie A., Voinescu, Luminita, and Collins, Mary Ann, “‘Wide-eyed’ and ‘crooked-faced’: Determinants of perceived and real honesty across the life span,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1996, 22: 1258–1269.Google Scholar
56. Huddy, Leonie and Terkildsen, Nayda, “Gender stereotypes and the perception of male and female candidates,” American Journal of Political Science, 1993, 37: 119–147.Google Scholar
57. Fey, Mark, “Stability and coordination in Duverger's Law: A formal model of pre-election polls and strategic voting,” American Political Science Review, 1997, 91: 135–147.Google Scholar
58. Marcus, George E. and MacKuen, Michael B., “Anxiety, enthusiasm, and the vote: The emotional underpinnings of learning and involvement during presidential campaigns,” American Political Science Review, 1993, 87: 672–685.Google Scholar
59. Sullivan, Denis G. and Master, Roger, “Happy warriors: leaders, facial displays, viewers' emotions, and political support,” American Journal of Political Science, 1988, 32: 345–368.Google Scholar