Beauty does count
December 30th, 2007 at 4:22 pm by David FarrarA reader sent me an interesting academic article from the European Journal of Political Research. It is a study of whether physical attractiveness affects the electoral success of candidates, using the North Rhine-Westphalia state election of 2005 as the test.
There were 512 candidates and around 1,000 people rated their official photos for attractiveness (not being told they were candidates) on a scale from 1 to 7 (heh should have been 1 to 10).
They found that variations in candidate attractiveness thus can cause a change of up to 4% in the vote.
They also found having more attractive candidates increases turnout. For every grade higher on the 1 – 7 attractiveness scale, the turnout increases by 1.15%, meaning attractive candidates can lead to an increased turnout of up to 6.9%.
Applying the study to the election result, they found that in the 128 constituencies, from 6 to 17 constituencies could have changed hands if the losing party had a more attractive candidate. So for 13% of electorates, candidate attractiveness can make a difference.
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December 30th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Were the official photos submitted the fraudulent airbrush variety taken a decade ago.
Vote:December 30th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Some differences between Right and Left as well.
http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/12/a-picture-is-wo.html
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JC
Vote:December 30th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Nice one JC, I see Dear Leader keeps good company. Looking at the misfits that make up the left in this country, well they could hardly be called attractive. Prehaps they were somewhat rejected in their youth so now seek to to control those who dispised them, maybe it’s a way of giving the fingers to the world.
Vote:December 31st, 2007 at 10:06 am
Actually since beauty is associated with wealth and wealth is associated with voting right I would say that that would probably be true genetically speaking (they can also afford more beauty treatments).
Down side for those planning on getting some pretty young babe, however, is that voting right is also associated with age, and not ‘putting out’ as much.
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