Looking the Part: Television Leads Less Informed Citizens to Vote Based on Candidates’ Appearance

Gabriel S. Lenz and Chappell Lawson

American Journal of Political Science, 2011, vol. 55, issue 3, 574-589

Abstract: As long as there has been democratic government, skeptics have worried that citizens would base their choices and their votes on superficial considerations. A series of recent studies seems to validate these fears, suggesting that candidates who merely look more capable or attractive perform better in elections. In this article, we examine the underlying process behind the appearance effect. Specifically, we test whether the effect of appearance is more pronounced among those who know little about politics but are exposed to visual images of candidates. To do so, we combine appearance‐based assessments of U.S. Senate and gubernatorial candidates with individual‐level survey data measuring vote intent, political knowledge, and television exposure. Confirming long‐standing concerns about image and television, we find that appealing‐looking politicians benefit disproportionately from television exposure, primarily among less knowledgeable individuals.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00511.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:amposc:v:55:y:2011:i:3:p:574-589

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Journal of Political Science from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().