Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/81455 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
IFN Working Paper No. 803
Publisher: 
Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm
Abstract: 
Recent research has documented that competent-looking political candidates do better in U.S. elections and that babyfaced individuals are generally perceived to be less competent than maturefaced individuals. Taken together, this suggests that babyfaced political candidates are perceived as less competent and therefore fare worse in elections. We test this hypothesis, making use of photograph-based judgments by 2,772 respondents of the facial appearance of 1,785 Finnish political candidates. Our results confirm that babyfacedness is negatively related to inferred competence in politics. Despite this, babyfacedness is either unrelated or positively related to electoral success, depending on the sample of candidates.
Subjects: 
Babyfacedness
Competence
Beauty
Trustworthiness
Elections
JEL: 
D72
J45
J70
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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