Beauty or Policy? How Candidates’ Appearance and Their Policies Affect Elections

• In Event: Poster Session: Innovations in Public Administration Research & Experimental Research
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Experimental Research

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that candidates’ facial appearance — perceived beauty, in particular — affects their election outcomes. Yet, little is known about the relationship between voters’ perceptions of candidates’ appearance and their policies. Do voters cast their ballots based on candidates’ facial appearance or their policies? To answer this question, we asked more than 1,400 American people to share the task of evaluating the appearance of 494 candidates running for the Diet from multiple perspectives. Then, we conducted a survey experiment with a national sample of approximately 3,000 Japanese voters and examined the effects of candidate beauty and their policies on voting behavior. We found that the beauty of the candidates attracts the attention of voters and alters voters’ perceptions of the candidates’ electability if policies are the same between candidates. In contrast, the beauty of the candidates fails to attract the attention of voters when their policies are distinguishable by voters, suggesting that voters care about candidates’ policies as well as their facial beauty in elections.

Authors

• Masahiko Asano, Takushoku University

• Yuki Yanai, Kochi University of Technology

• Yoshikuni Ono, Waseda University