Voting for the cute candidate
Discussion
Gen Kitchen, the Labour candidate in the by-election to replace Peter Bone is really rather pretty.
This got me wondering if people were more likely to vote for prettier candidates, and it turns out that yes, we are! According to this study, we are around 20% more likely to vote for a candidate who looks beautiful.
The advantage of looking beautiful applies to male as well as female candidates, and significantly outweighs the benefits of looking competent or trustworthy!
This seems quite worrying to me, as I'd imagine it also influences constituency selection panels and the like, so how often do we get given the choice of hot-looking mediocre candidates at the expense of ones who could actually do a good job for us? Needless to say, that doesn't mean I'm automatically assuming that attractive candidates like Gen Kitchen can't also do a very good job, but it does make you wonder...
This got me wondering if people were more likely to vote for prettier candidates, and it turns out that yes, we are! According to this study, we are around 20% more likely to vote for a candidate who looks beautiful.
The advantage of looking beautiful applies to male as well as female candidates, and significantly outweighs the benefits of looking competent or trustworthy!
This seems quite worrying to me, as I'd imagine it also influences constituency selection panels and the like, so how often do we get given the choice of hot-looking mediocre candidates at the expense of ones who could actually do a good job for us? Needless to say, that doesn't mean I'm automatically assuming that attractive candidates like Gen Kitchen can't also do a very good job, but it does make you wonder...
ks or both.I'm not convinced, I doubt most UK voters would be able to pick their MP out in a line-up any way? Perhaps it plays a bigger part in the internal selection process, it wouldn't surprise me if an opposition party was to sway towards a candidate who looked the polar opposite of the incumbent, to keep with the "fresh start" narrative, but I doubt it's that big a factor.
Certainly more prevalent in the US, plenty of examples of attractive but empty headed politicians, both male and female...
Certainly more prevalent in the US, plenty of examples of attractive but empty headed politicians, both male and female...
Yep, I'd vote for any of these:
https://womenintheworld.org/hottest-female-politic...
Certainly make reading the News a lot nicer where images are included!
I don't care for Politics, unlikely to ever vote again anyway, especially here in the UK where you only really have a choice of Labour or Conservative.
https://womenintheworld.org/hottest-female-politic...
Certainly make reading the News a lot nicer where images are included!
I don't care for Politics, unlikely to ever vote again anyway, especially here in the UK where you only really have a choice of Labour or Conservative.
lornemalvo said:
It probably started with Kennedy vs Nixon and their televised debate.
Ignoring any current day candidates, this has been proven to be the case for Nixon V Kennedy. Listeners on the radio were convinced Nixon sounded more competent. The larger TV audience thought Nixon looked tired and past it, whereas Kennedy looked fresh and able.Imagine if the debate had not been televised, and Nixon had been in charge during the missile crisis.....
swisstoni said:
I’m sure there’s at least an unconscious bias towards ‘attractive’ politicians, especially for the most prominent posts.
Gordon BrownAngela Rayner
Keir Starmer
Phil Hammond
Rishi Sunak
Ed Davey
https://labour.org.uk/about-us/the-shadow-cabinet/
These people would struggle to pull in a tug of war tournament.
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