Magic Mayors: Predicting Electoral Success from Candidates' Physical Attractiveness under the Conditions of a Presidential Electoral System

Abstract

A range of empirical studies has shown that candidates' physical attractiveness can substantially influence the outcome of political elections. This applies to different countries, different electoral systems, and different levels of political systems, and equally affects simple direct or list candidates and front-runners. However, no previous investigation using actual election results has been made into whether candidates' attractiveness also has an effect under the conditions of a presidential electoral system. Theoretical reasons can be formulated that suggest attractiveness is ineffective under these circumstances. In order to clarify this point empirically, we analysed the 2009 North Rhine-Westphalia mayoral elections. Yet the results of the analyses clearly show that candidates' attractiveness has a substantial influence. Taking into account earlier findings, the influence of physical attractiveness in political elections appears to be resistant, to a large degree, to varying constraints.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for the constructive criticism and many helpful comments. We would also like to thank Svenja Döbler and Laura Mlynarek for proof reading.

Notes

See, among many other works, M.P. Wattenberg, The Rise of Candidate-Centered Politics: Presidential Elections of the 1980s (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991); J. Lass, Vorstellungsbilder über Kanzlerkandidaten: Zur Diskussion um die Personalisierung von Politik (Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitätsverlag, 1995); F.U. Pappi and S. Shikano, ‘Personalisierung der Politik in Mehrparteiensystemen am Beispiel deutscher Bundestagswahlen seit 1980’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 42/3 (2001), pp.355–87; F. Brettschneider, Spitzenkandidaten und Wahlerfolg (Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag 2002).

U. Rosar, ‘Fabulous Front-Runners: Eine Analyse zur Bedeutung der physischen Attraktivität von Spitzenkandidaten für den Wahlerfolg ihrer Parteien und zu den Möglichkeiten der Gegensteuerung durch das Wahlrecht’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 50/4 (2009), pp.754–73.

See A.W. Barrett and L.W. Barrington, ‘Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words? Newspaper Photograph and Voter Evaluations of Political Candidates', Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 10/4 (2005), pp.98–113; T.L. Budesheim and S.J. DePaula, ‘Beauty or the Beast? The Effects of Appearance, Personality, and Issue Information on Evaluations of Political Candidates’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 20/4 (1994), pp.339–48; M. Klein and U. Rosar, ‘Ist Deutschland reif für eine Kanzlerin? Eine experimentelle Untersuchung aus Anlass der Bundestagswahl 2005’, in F. Brettschneider, O. Niedermayer, B. Pfetsch and B. Wessels (eds), Die Bundestagswahl 2005: Analysen aus Sicht der Wahlforschung, der Kommunikationswissenschaft und der Parteienforschung (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007), pp.271–91; M. Klein and U. Rosar, ‘Sie, Sie, Sie oder Er? Angela Merkel im Spiegel der Daten einer experimentellen Befragung’, in O.W. Gabriel, J.W. Falter and B. Weßels (eds), Wahlen und Wähler: Analysen aus Anlass der Bundestagswahl 2005 (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2009), pp.346–57; K.E. Lewis and M. Bierly, ‘Toward a Profile of the Female Voter: Sex Differences in Perceived Physical Attractiveness and Competence of Political Candidates’, Sex Roles 22/1–2 (1990), pp.1–12; E.D. Riggle, V.C. Ottati, R.S. Wyer, J. Kuklinski and N. Schwarz, ‘Basis of Political Judgements: The Role of Stereotypic and Nonstereotypic Information’, Political Behavior 14/1 (1992), pp.67–87; K. Rohrbach and U. Rosar, Merkel Reloaded: Eine experimentelle Untersuchung zur Relevanz von Geschlecht und physischer Attraktivität aus Anlass der Bundestagswahl 2009 (Hannover and Köln: Working Paper, Leibniz Universität Hannover und Universität zu Köln, 2010); S.W. Rosenberg, L. Bohan, P. McCafferty and K. Harris, ‘The Image and the Vote: The Effect of Candidate Presentation on Voter Preference’, American Journal of Political Science 30/1 (1986), pp.108–27; S.W. Rosenberg, S. Kahn and T. Tran, ‘Creating a Political Image: Shaping Appearance and Manipulating the Vote’, Political Behavior 13/4 (1991), pp.345–67; J.N. Schubert and M.A. Curran, ‘Stereotyping Effects in Candidate Evaluation: The Interaction of Gender and Attractiveness Bias’, Paper Prepared for Presentation at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Political Science Association, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, 2001; C.K. Sigelman, D.B. Thomas, L. Sigelman and F.D. Robich, ‘Gender, Physical Attractiveness, and Electability: An Experimental Investigation of Voter Biases’, Journal of Applied Social Psychology 16/3 (1986), pp.229–48; L. Sigelman, C.K. Sigelman and C. Fowler, ‘A Bird of a Different Feather? An Experimental Investigation of Physical Attractiveness and the Electability of Female Candidates’, Social Psychology Quarterly 50/1 (1987), pp.32–43.

S.A. Banducci, J.A. Karp, M. Thrasher and C. Rallings, ‘Ballot Photographs as Cues in Low-Information Elections’, Political Psychology 29/6 (2008), pp.903–17; N. Berggren, H. Jordahl and P. Poutvaara, ‘The Looks of a Winner: Beauty, Gender and Electoral Success’, Journal of Public Economics 94/1–2 (2010), pp.8–15; F. Buckley, N. Collins and T. Reidy, ‘Ballot Paper Photographs and Low-Information Elections in Ireland’, Politics 27/3 (2007), pp.174–81; M. Klein and U. Rosar, ‘Physische Attraktivität und Wahlerfolg: Eine empirische Analyse am Beispiel der Wahlkreiskandidaten bei der Bundestagswahl 2002’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 46/2 (2005), pp.263–87; G. Lutz, The Electoral Success of Beauties and Beasts: FORS Working Papers 2009–2 (Lausanne: Swiss Foundation for Research in Social Sciences, 2009); Rosar, ‘Fabulous Front-Runners'; U. Rosar and M. Klein, ‘And the Winner Is … – Ein Drei-Länder-Vergleich zum Einfluss der physischen Attraktivität von Direktkandidaten auf den Wahlerfolg bei nationalen Parlamentswahlen’, in T. Beckers, K. Birkelbach, J. Hagenah and U. Rosar (eds), Komparative empirische Sozialforschung (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010), pp.307–35; U. Rosar and M. Klein, Physical Attractiveness and Electoral Success: An Empirical Micro-Macro-Analysis at the Example of the Constituency-Candidates at the German Federal Election 2005 (Köln and Hannover: Working Paper, Universität zu Köln und Leibniz Universität Hannover, 2010); U. Rosar and M. Klein, Pretty Politicians: Die physische Attraktivität von Spitzenkandidaten, ihr Einfluss bei Wahlen und die These der Personalisierung des Wahlverhaltens (Köln and Hannover: Working Paper, Universität zu Köln und Leibniz Universität Hannover, 2010); U. Rosar, M. Klein and T. Beckers, ‘The Frog Pond Beauty Contest: Physical Attractiveness and Electoral Success of the Constituency Candidates at the North Rhine-Westphalia State Election of 2005’, European Journal of Political Research 47/1 (2008), pp.64–79.

Another study looking at the context of the United States can also be found in the investigation by A. Todorov, A.N. Mandisodza, A. Goren and C.C. Hall, ‘Inferences of Competence from Faces Predict Election Outcomes’, Science 308/5728 (2005), pp.1623–26. The following clarifications may be adapted for C.C. Ballew, II and A. Todorov, ‘Predicting Political Elections from Rapid and Unreflective Face Judgments’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104 (2007), pp.17948–53. In this study Todorov et al. investigated the inferences of competence based on portrait photographs. They were able to show that at the American Senate elections of 2000, 2002 and 2004 there was a 71.6 per cent probability of correctly predicting the winner in each state based on these inferences of competence. In the elections for the House of Representatives in 2002 and 2004, this figure was still 66.8 per cent. However, the authors claimed that they ‘ruled out the possibility that the age, attractiveness, and/or familiarity with the faces of the candidates could account for the relationship between inferences of competence and election outcomes’: Todorov et al., ‘Inferences of Competence’, p.1625. In a commentary on this study Zebrowitz and Montepare pointed out that the decisive variable behind the inferences of competence could be the ‘mature-’ or ‘babyfacedness’ of the candidates. See L.A. Zebrowitz and J.M. Montepare, ‘Appearance DOES Matter’, Science 308/5728 (2005), pp.1565–6. They went on to say that from the point of view of sociopsychological attractiveness research these are classic features of male attractiveness/unattractiveness. Poutvaara et al., who carried out an investigation for Finland, came to the conclusion, however, that the ‘babyfacedness’ of a candidate is indeed linked to the assessment of his or her political competence, but at the same time tends to be either uncorrelated with electoral success or tends to be positively correlated. See P. Poutvaara, H. Jordahl and N. Berggren, ‘Faces of Politicians: Babyfacedness Predicts Inferred Competence But Not Electoral Success’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45/5 (2009), pp.1132–5. See also M.G. Efran and E.W.J. Patterson, ‘Voters Vote Beautiful: The Effect of Physical Appearance on a National Election’, Behavioral Science 6/4 (1974), pp.352–6; A. King and A. Leigh, Beautiful Politician: Working Paper (Adelaide: University of South Australia, 2007); A. Leigh and T. Susilo, ‘Is Voting Skin-Deep? Estimating the Effect of Candidate Ballot Photographs on Election Outcomes’, Journal of Economic Psychology 30/1 (2009), pp.61–70.

Berggren et al., ‘The Looks of a Winner'; Efran and Patterson, ‘Voters Vote Beautiful'; King and Leigh, Beautiful Politician; Klein and Rosar, ‘Physische Attraktivität und Wahlerfolg'; Lutz, The Electoral Success of Beauties and Beasts; Klein, ‘And the Winner Is …'; Rosar and Klein, Physical Attractiveness and Electoral Success.

Banducci et al., ‘Ballot Photographs as Cues in Low-Information Elections’; Berggren et al., ‘The Looks of a Winner'; Buckley et al., ‘Ballot Paper Photographs and Low-Information Elections in Ireland’; Leigh and Susilo, ‘Is Voting Skin-Deep?'.

U. Rosar and M. Klein, ‘Mein(schöner)Prof.de. Die physische Attraktivität des akademischen Lehrpersonals und ihr Einfluss auf die Ergebnisse studentischer Lehrevaluationen’, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 61/4 (2009), pp.621–45; Rosar and Klein, Pretty Politicians; Rosar et al., ‘The Frog Pond Beauty Contest'.

M. Klein and U. Rosar, Front-Runner's Attractiveness and Electoral Success at the European Elections 2004: An Empirical Analysis. Working Paper (Hannover und Köln: Leibniz Universität Hannover und Universität zu Köln, 2010).

See the empirical findings of Banducci et al., ‘Ballot Photographs as Cues in Low-Information Elections’; Berggren et al., ‘The Looks of a Winner'; Efran and Patterson, ‘Voters Vote Beautiful'; King and Leigh, Beautiful Politician; Klein and Rosar, ‘Physische Attraktivität und Wahlerfolg'; Klein and Rosar, Front-Runner's Attractiveness and Electoral Success at the European Elections 2004; Rosar, ‘Fabulous Front-Runners'; Rosar and Klein, ‘And the Winner Is …'; Rosar and Klein, Physical Attractiveness and Electoral Success; Rosar et al., ‘The Frog Pond Beauty Contest'.

See Spence's signalling theory. He describes the decision-making process under uncertainty from the perspective of employers. See M. Spence, ‘Job Market Signaling’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 3/87 (1973), pp.355–74. Spence differentiates between indices and signals and he underlines the importance of the possibility to use signals actively: ‘There is not much that the applicant can do about indices. Signals, on the other hand, are alterable and therefore potentially subject to manipulation by the job applicant': Spence, ‘Job Market Signaling’, p.357. See also K.J. Arrow, ‘Higher Education as a Filter’, Journal of Public Economics 2/3 (1973), pp.193–216; A. Weiss, ‘Human Capital vs. Signalling Explanations of Wage’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 9/4 (1995), pp.133–54; M. Spence, ‘Signaling in Retrospect and the Informational Structure of Markets’, American Economic Review 92/3 (2002), pp.434–59. In our context, physical attractiveness is an index but may also be turned into a signal because beauty is subject to possible manipulations which may become important in mayoral races. See the application of Hönekopp et al. relating body fitness and physical attractiveness ratings: J. Hönekopp, U. Rudolph, L. Beier, A. Liebert and C. Müller, ‘Physical Attractiveness of Face and Body as Indicators of Physical Fitness in Men’, Evolution and Human Behavior 28/2 (2007), pp.106–11.

North Rhine-Westphalia is the biggest of sixteen German federal states with a population of roughly 18,000,000 inhabitants. It consists of fifty-four subunits, twenty-three metropolises (so-called Kreisfreie Städte) and thirty-one counties (so-called Landkreise). On 30 August 2009 there were mayoral elections in forty-nine of the fifty-four subunits (twenty-seven counties and twenty-two metropolises with a total of roughly 14,400,000 citizens aged over 16 who are eligible to vote). Because of death or demission of the incumbent, five subunits held snap elections before 2009. Therefore they were excluded from our analysis.

The German title for the mayor of a metropolis is Oberbürgermeister (literal translation: chief mayor). The title for the mayor of a county is Landrat (literal translation: county administrator). To simplify matters, we use the title of mayor for both.

Council (Rat) in the cities, County Council (Kreistag) in the counties.

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K.K. Dion, E. Berscheid and E. Walster, ‘What Is Beautiful Is Good’, Journal of Personality and Society Psychology 24/3 (1972), pp.285–90.

See S. Chaiken, ‘Communicator Physical Attractiveness and Persuasion’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37/8 (1979), pp.1387–97; M. Dermer and D.L. Thiel, ‘When Beauty May Fail’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 31/6 (1975), pp.1168–76; Dion et al., ‘What Is Beautiful Is Good’; Eagly et al., ‘What Is Beautiful Is Good, But …'; Feingold, ‘Good-Looking People Are Not What We Think’; Henss, Gesicht und Persönlichkeitseindruck; A.G. Miller, ‘Role of Physical Attractiveness in Impression Formation’, Psychonomic Science 19/4 (1970), pp.241–3; R.K. Unger, M. Hilderbrand and T. Madar, ‘Physical Attractiveness and Assumptions about Social Deviance: Some Sex by Sex Comparisons’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 8/2 (1982), pp.293–301.

J.K. Maner, M.T. Gailliot, D.A. Rouby and S.L. Miller, ‘Can't Take My Eyes Off You: Attentional Adhesion to Mates and Rivals’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 93/3 (2007), pp.389–401; J.K. Maner, D.T. Kenrick, V.D. Becker, A.W. Delton, B. Hofer, C.J. Wilbur et al., ‘Sexually Selective Cognition: Beauty Captures the Mind of the Beholder’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85/6 (2003), pp.1107–20; M. Mulford, J. Orbell, C. Shatto and J. Stockard, ‘Physical Attractiveness, Opportunity and Success in Everyday Exchange’, American Journal of Sociology 103/6 (1998), pp.1565–93.

P.L. Benson, S.A. Karabenic and R.M. Lerner, ‘Pretty Pleases: The Effects of Physical Attractiveness on Race, Sex and Receiving Help’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 12/5 (1976), pp.409–15; F. Bian, The Effects of Attractiveness on Helping Behavior (Claremont, CA: Harvey Mudd College, 1997); F.J.M. Dabbs and N.A. Stokes, III, ‘Beauty Is Power: The Use of Space on the Sidewalk’, Sociometry 38/4 (1975), pp.551–7; K.K. Dion and E. Berscheid, ‘Physical Attractiveness and Peer Perception among Children’, Sociometry 37/1 (1974), pp.1–12; J.J. Hartnett, K.O. Balley and C.S. Hartley, ‘Body Height, Position and Sex as Determinants of Personal Space’, Journal of Psychology 87/1 (1974), pp.129–36; Hatfield and Sprecher, Mirror, Mirror; Langlois et al., ‘Maxims or Myths of Beauty?'; A. Marwick, Beauty in History: Society, Politics and Personal Appearance c. 1500 to the Present (London: Thames and Hudson, 1988); V. McCabe, ‘Facial Proportions, Perceived Age, and Caregiving’, in T.R. Alley (ed.), Social and Applied Aspects of Perceiving Faces (Hillsdale, NJ: Earlbaum, 1988), pp. 89–95; Mulford et al., ‘Physical Attractiveness, Opportunity and Success in Everyday Exchange’; J.M. Ritter, R.J. Casey and J.H. Langlois, ‘Adults' Responses to Infants Varying in Appearance of Age and Attractiveness’, Child Development 62/1 (1991), pp.68–82; C. White Stephan and J.H. Langlois, ‘Baby Beautiful: Adult Attributions of Infant Competence as a Function of Infant Attractiveness’, Child Development 55/2 (1984), pp.576–85; M. Wilson and J.F. Dovidio, ‘Effects of Perceived Attractiveness and Feminist Orientation on Helping Behavior’, Journal of Social Psychology 125/4 (1985), pp.415–20; R.K. Wilson and C.C. Eckel, ‘Judging a Book by Its Cover: Beauty and Expectations in the Trust Game’, Political Research Quarterly 59/2 (2006), pp.189–202.

J.N. Bassili, ‘The Attractiveness Stereotype: Goodness or Glamour?’, Basic and Applied Social Psychology 2/4 (1981), pp.235–52; Dion et al., ‘What Is Beautiful Is Good’; K. Grammer, Signale der Liebe: Die biologischen Gesetze der Partnerschaft (Frankfurt a.M.: dtv, 2002), p.169.

Rosar et al., ‘The Frog Pond Beauty Contest'.

The run-off election was abolished because in 1999 and 2004 the turnout in the second round of the mayoral elections was much lower than in the first round. This was considered to be problematic from a legitimation perspective. Vice versa, in 2009, some mayors were elected into office with less than 40 per cent of the votes. Therefore, the run-off was reintroduced in the communal election law in 2011. See the extensive website of the Ministry of internal and communal affairs (Ministeriums für Inneres und Kommunales des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen): www.wahlen.nrw.de.

In order to counter a possible objection to our findings in this regard: it could be said that a counterargument to the use of photographs as the basis for determining attractiveness is that the attractiveness of the persons depicted can be artificially increased beyond their natural appearance through cosmetic measures and digital or manual retouching, thus falsifying the attractiveness measurement. See A. Hergovich, S. Hasenegger and K. Koller, ‘Eine empirische Studie zum Einfluss von Make-up auf die Beurteilung der Attraktivität’, in A. Hergovich (ed.), Psychologie der Schönheit: Physische Attraktivität aus wissenschaftlicher Perspektive (Wien: WUV-Universitätsverlag, 2002), pp.129–35; S.W. Rosenberg and P. McCafferty, ‘The Image and the Vote: Manipulating Voters' Preferences’, Public Opinion Quarterly 51/1 (1987), pp.31–47; S.W. Rosenberg, S. Kahn and T. Tran, ‘Creating a Political Image: Shaping Appearance and Manipulating the Vote’, Political Behavior 13/4 (1991), pp.345–67. Furthermore, the staging of the photograph and the fashion, clothing style, ornamentation, gesture and facial expression of the depicted person or the technical quality of the photograph can influence the attractiveness rating. See A.J. Elliot and D. Niesta, ‘Romantic Red: Red Enhances Men's Attraction to Women’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95/5 (2008), pp.1150–64; D.R. Osborn, ‘Beauty Is as Beauty Does? Make Up and Posture Effects on Physical Attractiveness Judgments’, Journal of Applied Social Psychology 26/1 (1996), pp.31–51; H.T. Reis, I. McDougal Wilson, C. Monestere, S. Berstein, K. Clark, E. Seidl et al., ‘What Is Smiling Is Beautiful and Good’, European Journal of Social Psychology 20/3 (1990), pp.259–67. This is all correct but is of low importance in respect of this investigation: each of these implications works against the basic hypothesis that physical attractiveness has a provable influence on the election result. In this respect there is merely a tightening of the test conditions. Another argument for not using portrait photographs as the basis for attractiveness assessment is that portrait shots do not adequately give an overall impression of the person. This reservation is, however, unfounded. That is to say, it can be shown that the assessment of a person's attractiveness hardly alters when a full-length photograph is used instead of a portrait shot. Moreover, the assessment of facial attractiveness matches to a high degree the assessment of the entire person. See E. Brunswik, Perception and the Representative Design of Psychological Experiments (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1956); K. Grammer, B. Fink, A. Juette, G. Ronzal and R. Thornhill, ‘Female Faces and Bodies: N-Dimensional Feature Space and Attractiveness’, in Rhodes and Zebrowitz (eds), Facial Attractiveness, pp.91–126; M. Snyder, E. Berscheid and P. Glick, ‘Focusing on the Exterior and the Interior: Two Investigations of Personal Relationships’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 48/6 (1985), pp.1427–39. And even when video sequences or observations in natural surroundings form the basis for assessment, the attractiveness rating does not alter compared to that of a portrait photograph. See T.A. Brown, T.F. Cash and S.W. Noles, ‘Perception of Physical Attractiveness among College Students: Selected Determinants and Methodological Matters’, Journal of Social Psychology 126/3 (1999), pp.305–16.

To be precise, the logarithmised number of rival candidates is not an individual variable, but a contextual variable that has the same expression for all candidates in a particular mayoral election. Accordingly, it would actually be appropriate to build a hierarchically structured data set and conduct upcoming analyses as hierarchical-linear regression analyses. In half of all mayoral elections involved in the investigation, however, no more than five candidates were standing. In addition, detailed analyses were to be presented with only two candidates from each election. According to Joop Hox, these numbers of level-1 units per level-2 unit are far too low to allow the derivation of reliable and stable multi-level models: see J.J. Hox, Multilevel Analysis: Techniques and Applications (New Jersey/London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002). It was therefore decided to create a simple, non-hierarchically structured data set and to conduct all analyses by means of simple OLS regressions.

Patzer, The Physical Attractiveness Phenomena, p.17.

See K. Grammer, B. Fink, A.P. Møller and R. Thornhill, ‘Darwinian Aesthetics: Sexual Selection and the Biology of Beauty’, Biological Review 78/3 (2003), pp.385–407; Henss, ‘Zur Beurteilerübereinstimmung bei der Einschätzung der physischen Attraktivität junger und alter Menschen’; Henss, “Spieglein, Spieglein an der Wand …”; Iliffe, ‘A Study of Preferences in Feminine Beauty’.

Henss, “Spieglein, Spieglein an der Wand …”, p.308.

See J.E. Biddle and D.S. Hamermesh, ‘Beauty, Productivity, and Discrimination: Lawyers' Looks and Lucre’, Journal of Labor Economics 16/1 (1998), pp.172–201; C. Davis, G. Claridge and J. Fox, ‘Not Just a Pretty Face: Physical Attractiveness and Perfectionism in the Risk for Eating Disorders’, International Journal of Eating Disorders 27/1 (2000), pp.67–73; D.S. Hamermesh and J.E. Biddle, ‘Beauty and the Labour Market’, American Economic Review 84/5 (1994), pp.1179–81; D.S. Hamermesh and A.M. Parker, Beauty in the Classroom: Professors' Pulchritude and Putative Pedagogical Productivity. NBER Working Paper 9853 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006); H.N. Mocan and E. Tekin, Ugly Criminals. NBER Working Paper 12019 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005), pp.8–13; P. Roszell, D. Kennedy and E. Grabb, ‘Physical Attractiveness and Income Attainment among Canadians’, Journal of Psychology 123/6 (1989), pp.550f.; C. Stelzer, S.M. Desmond and J.H. Price, ‘Physical Attractiveness and Sexual Activity of College Students’, Psychological Report 60/2 (1987), pp.567–73; D. Umberson and M. Hughes, ‘The Impact of Physical Attractiveness on Achievement and Psychological Well-Being’, Social Psychology Quarterly 50/3 (1987), pp.231f.; W.R. Zakahi, R.L. Duran and M. Adkins, ‘Social Anxiety, Only Skin Deep? The Relationship between Ratings of Physical Attractiveness and Social Anxiety’, Communication Research Reports 11/1 (1994), pp.23–31.

Here, we would like to express our great thanks to Respondi AG. Without the generous support of Respondi AG, the investigation as it is presented here would not have been possible.

This exclusion turned out to be excessive as there were no systematic differences between the scoring of this group of people and the other assessors. However, in doing so, the intention was to counter a potential objection that this assessor sample has a systematic bias compared to the eligible voting public.

When an assessor is eligible to vote in the municipality in which the depicted mayoral candidate is running, it cannot be ruled out that the assessor already has a preconceived opinion (be it positive or negative) of that candidate. This personal appraisal could then, of course, colour the assessment of attractiveness which might lead to a distorted attractiveness score. Besides this, we may not exclude the possibility that raters being eligible to vote in another city or county of North Rhine-Westphalia have similarly distorted scores. These raters may be confronted with a picture of a candidate from a neighbouring community whom they know or they perceive as this candidate. In fact, this risk is a minor one and not relevant: we computed the attractiveness scores of all candidates excluding all raters who were eligible to vote in North Rhine-Westphalia; next, we computed the correlations with the attractiveness scores as used in our analyses and found an almost perfect correlation (Pearson's r = .99 with p < .0001, n = 264).

The minimum is thirty-one and the maximum is fifty-nine. The standard deviation is 6.50.

Henss, “Spieglein, Spieglein an der Wand …”, p.308.

The minimum is 0.68, the maximum 0.90, the median 0.82 and the standard deviation is 0.06.

See Etcoff, Survival of the Prettiest; Grammer, Signale der Liebe; M. Gründl, ‘Was ist Schönheit?’, in A. Hauner and E. Reichart (eds), Bodytalk: Der riskante Kult um Körper und Schönheit (Frankfurt a.M.: dtv 2004), pp.9–33; M. Gründl, ‘Attraktivitätsforschung: Auf der Suche nach der Formel für Schönheit’, in C. Gutwald and R. Zons (eds), Die Macht der Schönheit (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2007), pp.49–70; G. Rhodes and L.A. Zebrowitz (eds), Facial Attractiveness: Evolutionary, Cognitive, and Social Perspectives (Westport, CT and London: Ablex Publishing, 2002).

See, for an overview, J. Behnke, ‘Lassen sich Signifikanztests auf Vollerhebungen anwenden? Einige Essayistische Anmerkungen’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 46/1 (2005), pp.O-1–O-15; R.A. Berk, B. Western and R.E. Weiss, ‘Statistical Inference for Apparent Populations’, Sociological Methodology 25 (1995), pp.421–58.

As politics might be considered an arena with masculine connotations, we assume that female candidates have a systematic competitive disadvantage. This theoretically links to an interaction effect between the gender of direct candidates and their physical attractiveness. According to the so-called Beauty Is Beastly Effect it can be assumed that as attractiveness increases, not only does the attribution of socially desirable personality traits rise, but so too does stereotyping according to gender-role clichés. See first and foremost M.E. Heilman and L.R. Saruwatari, ‘When Beauty Is Beastly: The Effects of Appearance and Sex on Evaluation of Job Applicants for Managerial and Nonmanagerial Jobs’, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 23/3 (1979), pp.360–72; but also the following work by H. Friedman and L.A. Zebrowitz, ‘The Contribution of Typical Sex Differences in Facial Maturity to Sex Role Stereotypes’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 18/4 (1992), pp.430–8; Barry Gillen, ‘Physical Attractiveness: A Determinant of Two Types of Goodness’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 7/2 (1981), pp.277–81; M.E. Heilman and M.H. Stopeck, ‘Being Attractive, Advantage or Disadvantage?’, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 35 (1985), pp.202–15; Rosar and Klein, ‘Mein(schöner)Prof.de. Die physische Attraktivität des akademischen Lehrpersonals und ihr Einfluss auf die Ergebnisse studentischer Lehrevaluationen’; Schubert and Curran, ‘Stereotyping Effects in Candidate Evaluation’; S. Sczesny, ‘A Closer Look Beneath the Surface: Various Facets of the Think-Manager-Think-Male Stereotype’, Sex Roles 49/7–8 (2003), pp.353–63; S. Sczesny and U. Kühnen, ‘Meta-Cognitions about Biological Sex and Gender-Stereotypic Physical Appearance: Consequences for the Assessment of Leadership Competence’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30/1 (2004), pp.13–21; and the critical remarks in K.E. Podratz and R.L. Dipboye, ‘In Search of the “Beauty Is Beastly” Effect’, Paper Presented at the 17th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Toronto, Canada, 12–14 April 2002. In the political sphere this should mean that with increasing attractiveness women are also ascribed with characteristics that are seen as counterproductive by voters in this specific context. As a consequence, this should result in outer appearance having a negative effect on female candidates' share of the vote. We have empirically tested this possibility but could not find any strong effects that would support the existence of a Beauty Is Beastly Effect. So as not to increase the complexity of the discourse unnecessarily, we have decided to refrain from discussing the Beauty Is Beastly Effect and explaining the associated empirical analyses.

We assume that the age of mayoral candidates does not linearly affect election chances as the voters expect a mayor to have a certain minimum degree of life experience on the one hand, but they also take into account the physical and cognitive ability of a candidate when making their decision on the other. While experience should tend to increase as age progresses, the physical and cognitive ability can be seen to decrease as age increases. In order to be able to model these counter-running effects of age appropriately, we included age in the analysis model as both a linear and a squared value.

We assume that within the German electorate there is resentment against people from a migrant background. Accordingly, mayoral candidates who are themselves immigrants or whose parents came from abroad should have a systematic competitive disadvantage.

We assume that within the German electorate there is resentment against homosexuals. Mayoral candidates who live openly as homosexuals should therefore have a systematic competitive disadvantage.

The academic title of doctor can signify intellectual competence. We therefore make the assumption that mayoral candidates with a doctorate have a systematic competitive advantage.

Noble heritage is still considered prestigious in Germany. Hence we assume that mayoral candidates who bear a title of nobility have a clear competitive advantage.

According to the commonly held belief of many voters, a political leader should have a suitable wife – be it because she usually undertakes representative duties, or because it signifies that the political leader leads an orderly private life. The same should also be true of a female political leader and her husband. Hence we assume that mayoral candidates who are married at the time of the election enjoy a competitive advantage. However, the fact that a candidate has a spouse at the time of the election is not necessarily a guarantee of an orderly private life. There are politicians who were married every time they stood for election – albeit to a different wife each time. For this reason we also take into account in the empirical analyses whether a mayoral candidate has been previously divorced at the time of the election. If this is the case, the candidate would be supposed to have a systematic competitive disadvantage.

If the number of rival candidates in an election increases, the vote share of each individual standing mayoral candidate should tend to decrease. Because we assume that the potential to absorb votes is distributed very differently between candidates – and depending on their individual strategic potential vote – we incorporated the number of rival candidates logarithmically in the empirical analyses.

It is a truism of political science research that incumbents have a strategic advantage over their challengers. We have therefore avoided providing a detailed explanation here of the suppositions behind it.

For simplicity, a candidate's strategic potential vote was coded by us using dummy variables that indicate which party or parties support a candidate. Here, we made a distinction between the Conservative Party (CDU) as a reference category, the Liberal Party (FDP), the Conservative Party and Liberal Party (CDU and FDP), the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Green Party (Bündnis '90/Die Grünen), the Social Democratic Party and Green Party (SPD and Bündnis '90/Die Grünen), the Socialist Party (Die Linke) and Others (extreme left wing parties, extreme right wing parties, other splinter parties, local voters' associations and independent candidates). These dummy variables summarise from the total population of our investigation the potential voters to whom candidates could successfully appeal in principle. For the objective of this study it is insignificant that these potential voters comprise both loyal party supporters and people who support the candidate's party or parties purely for reasons of their alignment on various political issues.

Banducci et al., ‘Ballot Photographs as Cues in Low-Information Elections’.

L. Huddy and N. Terkildsen, ‘Gender Stereotypes and the Perception of Male and Female Candidates’, American Journal of Political Science 37/1 (1993), pp.119–47; L. Huddy and N. Terkildsen, ‘The Consequences of Gender Stereotypes for Women Candidates at Different Levels and Types of Office’, Political Research Quarterly 46/3 (1993), pp.503–25; C.E. Jones and M.L. Clemons, ‘A Model of Racial Crossover Voting: An Assessment of the Wilder Victory’, in G.A. Persons (ed.), Dilemmas of Black Politics: Issues of Leadership and Strategy (New York: Harper Collins, 1993), pp.128–46; M.S. Leeper, ‘The Impact of Prejudice on Female Candidates: An Experimental Look at Voter Inference’, American Politics Quarterly 19/2 (1991), pp.248–61; M.L. McDermott, ‘Voting Cues in Low-Information Elections: Candidate Gender as a Social Information Variable in Contemporary United States Elections’, American Journal of Political Science 41/1 (1997), pp.270–83; M.L. McDermott, ‘Race and Gender Cues in Low-Information Elections’, Political Research Quarterly 51/4 (1998), pp.895–918; K. Reeves, Voting Hopes or Fears? White Voters, Black Candidates and Racial Politics in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); E.D. Riggle, P.M. Miller, T.G. Sheilds and M.M.S. Johnson, ‘Gender Stereotypes and Decision Context in the Evaluation of Political Candidates’, Women & Politics 17/3 (1997), pp.69–88; Riggle et al., ‘Basis of Political Judgements'; S. Rosenwasser and N.G. Dean, ‘Gender Role and Political Office: Effects of Perceived Masculinity/Femininity of Candidate and Political Office’, Psychology of Women Quarterly 13/1 (1989), pp.77–85; S. Rosenwasser and J. Seale, ‘Attitudes toward a Hypothetical Male or Female Presidential Candidate – a Research Note’, Political Psychology 9/4 (1988), pp.591–8; C.K. Sigelman, L. Sigelman, B.J. Walkosz and M. Nitz, ‘Black Candidates, White Voters: Understanding Racial Bias in Political Perceptions’, American Journal of Political Science 39/1 (1995), pp.243–65; E.R.A.N. Smith and R.L. Fox, ‘The Electoral Fortunes of Women Candidates for Congress’, Political Research Quarterly 54/1 (2001), pp.205–21; C. Spohn and D. Gillespie, ‘Adolescents' Willingness to Vote for a Woman for President: The Effect of Gender and Race’, Women & Politics 7 (1987), pp.31–49; N. Terkildsen, ‘When White Voters Evaluate Black Candidates: The Processing Implications of Candidate Skin Color, Prejudice, and Self Monitoring’, American Journal of Political Science 37/4 (1993), pp.1032–53.

We would primarily question this view because Niclas Berggren, Henrik Jordahl and Panu Poutvaara have already proven, using Finland as an example, that the effect of candidate attractiveness is only slightly weaker for local elections as opposed to national elections: see Berggren et al., ‘The Looks of a Winner'. In addition, we also have basic doubts about the low-salience, low-information assumption in relation to the 2009 North Rhine-Westphalia mayoral elections. First, the level of information – as outlined above – was very good in the run-up to the election because of extensive media reporting, party election campaigns and state information campaigns. Voters could obtain information easily and readily compare the mayoral candidates standing in their municipality. Second, the election did not aim merely to fill low-ranking positions on the local board but to appoint a leading post in the local executive. Although this does not make mayoral elections in any way presidential elections, their significance in our opinion can appear much greater than is the case in the minds of voters when it comes to other local elections.

We are, of course, aware that in such an arrangement a vote for an unpromising candidate can be rational when it is an expressive voting act. See G. Brennan and A. Hamlin, Democratic Devices and Desires (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); G. Brennan and L. Lomasky, Democracy and Decision: The Pure Theory of Electoral Preference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Nonetheless, the motives for such an act are probably, as a general rule, ideological or programmatic in nature and this would restrict the scope for the effect of physical attractiveness per se.