Can Good Looks Win a Campaign
iMag asks two experts if being attractive gets votes.
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Do you need to be attractive to be a powerful political player? Certainly it seems to help.
Some of our most popular presidents were considered to be sex symbols – John F. Kennedy’s looks are legendary, Bill Clinton couldn’t fight off admirers fast enough and Ronald Reagan was a Hollywood heartthrob before he hit the oval office.
And while of course there have been many successful politicians who had little in the looks department, a study out of the University of Helsinki proves attractiveness is an asset. The study, in which 10,011 people were asked to rate the attractiveness of 1,992 Finnish politicians as well as their perceived ability to lead, concluded there was a positive correlation: the more attractive, the better the leader. But is this the case for everyone across the board? We asked psychiatrist, author and television personality, Dr. Dale Archer.
“Virtually all psychological studies show that attractive folks get more favorable treatment across the board, from job offers to opportunities to kindness. This is thought to be because we all tend to favor anyone who is highly successful in anything; athletics, power, money, talent, etc. Looks are seen as just one more variable where as humans we favor the outliers, the exceptions and the beautiful. So the fact that attractive men get more votes is not surprising; what is surprising is that attractive women don’t.”
It seems the double standard amongst attractive men and women candidates is palpable.
Dick Morris, a former Clinton advisor and political consultant, not only attests this double standard, but went so far as to say attractiveness can actually hurt a female candidate's chances.
“There are definitely different standards for men and women. Being attractive hurts women – they are second guessed and their credentials come into question. Voters question how a woman rose to power and she is not taken at face value," he said. "Often times, attractive women are stereotyped as airheads, eccentric or weird. Take Sharon Angle, Sarah Palin and Christine O’ Donnell, for example. In one sense Governor Palin overtook a government dynasty and yet her ability to lead was consistently challenged. I don’t believe this would happen with a man. Attractive men are never labeled as airheads. Mitt Romney was criticized for religion, high spending and his stance on health care but it was Sarah Palin who was called dumb. President Obama was attacked for being charismatic and having little substance, but no man in history has ever suffered from being too good looking. In fact for men, attractiveness aids in credibility, good looks look good on TV. Attractiveness helps sell a message for a man.”
Dr. Archer agrees: “I will postulate that there is the stereotype of the “dumb blonde,” ie., attractive women are not smart, only have their looks going for them and therefore would not make good leaders, etc. Evolutionarily, up until the last hundred years or so, women have been prized primarily for their beauty alone and as a possession of powerful men. So we could even assume there is a DNA/genetic bias at work in that an attractive woman never needs to develop any other skills, strictly her looks alone will get her everything she wants.”
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