Looking Like a Winner
Candidate Appearance and Electoral Success in New Democracies
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6410331 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Chappell Lawson (0000-0002-8174-8728, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Gabriel S Lenz (0000-0001-7844-6027, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Andy Baker (0000-0002-1552-6166), Michael Myers (0000-0001-8525-6395, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 62 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 561-593 |
| Publication date | 2010-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | World Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0043-8871 • E-ISSN: 1086-3338 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0043887110000195 |
| OpenAlex | W2086117671 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 110 |
| References cited | 85 |
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
Demographic economics · Development economics · Economics · Ethnic group · Political economy · Political science · Race (biology · Sociology · White (mutation · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior · Gender Studies · Law · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social and Intergroup Psychology
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| Unique citing works | 110 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 7,33 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2026 (16) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 109 |