In person icon Keeping up Appearances: Images and Visual Cues in Candidate Evaluations

Abstract

Assessing candidate qualifications and deciding who to vote for is often challenging and time consuming. Though it would be ideal for voters to base their evaluations on relevant factors, such as incumbent performance and policy positions, we know that voters often rely on cues, heuristics, and snap judgments that are unrelated to how a candidate would perform in office. Some of these snap judgments are based on candidates’ physical appearance, something that presumably should have no role in voter evaluations. This can be particularly true in low-information elections. Furthermore, the biases and snap judgments that voters make based on physical appearance tend to disadvantage women and candidates from minority groups. Using innovative experimental designs, the four papers in this panel investigate how voters evaluate candidates based upon their appearance – with special attention to gender differences in these perceptions. If voters prefer candidates that look a particular way – be it conventionally attractive, physically fit, or just male – this may create barriers to parties recruiting candidates who don’t fit these demographics and further block advances in diversity within halls of power.

Title	Details
“He’s a Clown, She’s a Bore”: A Think-aloud Analysis of Gendered Voter Thoughts in Response to Negative Candidate Cues	View Paper Details
Mad, sad, and glad: how men and women in politics communicate using images and emotions	View Paper Details
Not Fit for Office: Does Weight Bias Impact Evaluations of Political Candidates?	View Paper Details