The media often times focuses on the physical appearance of political

candidates. Physical appearance is accounted for by politicians, but there has not been

much actual research done on the subject. In the study The Image and the Vote: The

Effect of Candidate Presentation on Voter Preference conducted by Shawn W.

Rosenberg, Lisa Bohan, Patrick McCafferty and Kevin Harris, researchers aimed to

examine the impact of a political candidates personal appearance on voters

perceptions of the candidates political ability.

The study was performed at the University of California, Irvine and consisted of

eighty undergraduate students as the participants. Forty of the participants were male,

and forty were female. The study used photographs of white males dressed in a coat

and a tie shown from the chest up. Any photographs containing unusual looking men, or

any men with noticeable defects were removed from the study. The participants were

presented a packet of ten photos and asked to evaluate the photographs based on

likableness, integrity, competence, leadership ability, attractiveness, and congressional

demeanor. Forty of the participants evaluated the photos by rating them, and the other

forty evaluated the photos by sorting them. For the rating task, participants were

presented the photographs one at a time. Then, for each photo, they were asked six

questions to help evaluate the photos based on the six criteria above. For the sorting

task, the participants had all ten photographs laid out in front of them. The participants

were instructed to order the photos based on their representation of the trait the

question was evaluating. The participants rated all ten photos six times. Both the rating

task and the sorting task used the same questions. The difference in evaluation was

used to validate the study.

 The researchers analyzed their data based on two questions: whether or not a

photograph conveys a distinct and reliable image of person along lines of potential

relevance to candidate perception and the degree to which an individual can project a

general image of his or her general fitness for a public office, in this case that of

congressman. For the first question, results for the rating task ranged from 2 to 6, and

for the sorting task the results ranged from 1.5 to 8.5. The correlation between the two

participant groups ranged between .73 and .93 which indicates a high degree of

reliability. For the second question, the results showed that different photos were

reacted to differently by participants. Scores for the rating task ranged from 2.2 to 6, and

the scores for the sorting tasked ranged from 1.8 to 8.1. When a regression analysis

was done, leadership was found to have a significant relationship (Var b=.73) with

congressional demeanor.

The studys results indicated that personal appearance has an impact on others

perceptions of character. A photograph creates reliable image of the person in the

photograph just based on physical appearance. This is important because it was one of

the first empirical experiments on the perceptions of personal appearance. It showed

that an image alone can communicate clearly the political image of a candidate.

Personal appearance is not something we as a society take lightly. It is pretty

common knowledge that what you look like can have an affect on other peoples

perception of your personality, and overall character. This study helped to empirically

show this already occurring phenomena. It also showed that our opinions on others

might not be coming from a place of strictly fact, but rather just based on observation of

their dress, and other appearance characteristics.