Judging Competence by Looks Alone

June 9, 2005 -- Political candidates who look competent may have an edge at the voting booth.

Princeton University researchers showed people photos of recent candidates for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The candidates judged to look more competent than their rivals were often victorious.

Voters may make quick, unconscious judgments based on a candidate's looks, though they're also bound to gather more information and give the decision deliberate thought, say the researchers.

A competent appearance may mean having a mature face, not babyish features like a round face, large eyes, small nose, high forehead, and small chin, says a related editorial.

Gauging Competence at a Glance

More than 140 people took part in the study. They were shown black-and-white head shots of recent candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. If they recognized any candidates, those photos were skipped. Age and attractiveness were also ruled out as influences.

Participants rated each candidate -- based only on the photograph -- for a list of personality traits. Their task was to size up the candidate's personality on looks alone. The study appears in the May 27 issue of Science.

"Competence was rated as the most important trait," say the researchers. When photos of two rivals were compared, the candidate that the participants said looked most competent was often the winner. For instance, the politicians deemed to look more competent than their rivals were the winners in more than two out of three U.S. Senate races in 2004.

Instant Impression

The assessments were made in one second, on average. That amounts to an "unreflective, effortless" process, as compared with "slow, deliberate, effortful" work that many voters also do, says the study.

No actual ballots were cast. But the competence ratings often dovetailed with the elections' outcomes and mirrored the margin of victory.

"In real-life voting decisions, additional information may weaken the relation between inferences from faces and decisions but may not change the nature of the relation," write the researchers, who included Alexander Todorov, PhD, now of New York University's psychology department.

In other words, learning about a candidate's political party or position on the issues may weaken that first impression.

"Our findings have challenging implications for the rationality of voting preferences, adding to other findings that consequential decisions may be more 'shallow' than we would like to believe," say Todorov and colleagues.

Mature Face May Be an Advantage

Voters may instinctively prefer candidates who look like they've been around for a while, says the editorial.

"A more baby-faced individual is perceived as less competent than a more mature-faced, but equally attractive, peer of the same age and sex," write the editorialists, who included Leslie Zebrowitz, PhD, a Brandeis University psychology professor.

Zebrowitz and colleagues mention another photo experiment, in which photos of Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy Jr. were manipulated to make the former presidents look more baby-faced. "Their perceived dominance, strength, and cunning decreased significantly," says the editorial.

However, baby-faced people are perceived as being warmer and more honest, which may be an advantage in professions such as nursing, says the editorial.

Of course, someone can be competent and warm no matter how they look. As the saying goes, appearances can be deceiving.