A Face Only a Voter Could Love

Baby-faced politicians make better impression on the opposition.

We want opposition leaders to have trustworthy, sweet faces, while we prefer politicians who speak up for us to have more matures visages, says an Israeli study focusing on facial features and political figures. Using computer-manipulated images of a fictitious politician, researchers at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University measured respondents’ reactions to peace offerings from baby-faced Palestinian politicians versus more mature-faced leaders.

Study author Ifat Maoz, PhD., and her team gave Jewish-Israeli respondents a fictional news item containing a peace proposal along with a photo of a fictional Palestinian leader. By manipulating the size of the eyes and lips of the face in the image by 15 percent, researchers presented either a baby-faced or mature-looking politician to study respondents. 

Overall, respondents were more likely to accept a peace proposal from the leader with the larger eyes and fuller lips—the more baby-faced politician. 

"People generally associate a baby face with attributes of honesty, openness and acceptance," Maoz explained in a public statement, "and once you trust your adversary, you have a greater willingness to reach a compromise." 

Studies like this and their results, “really speak to the importance of biology to our politics,” says Robert Alexander, PhD, associate professor of political science at Ohio Northern University and author of the newly-published Presidential Electors and the Electoral College: An Examination of Lobbying, Wavering Electors, and Campaigns for Faithless Votes. 

Previous studies have also found that voters tend to prefer politicians who are handsome, tall, slim, and so on, he adds.  In the U.S., Alexander notes, President Obama has been criticized for his youth and inexperience.

“Some even contended that he had added gray to his hair to appear older and more distinguished,” he says. “At the same time, McCain was portrayed as being too old and out of touch. Although Reagan was our oldest president, he parlayed his age into ‘grandfatherly trust.’" 

“In 2008 many media outlets made John McCain look even more seasoned than his 72 years of age and used pictures that showed his bruised and swollen left cheek to make him look older and less attractive,” Sean D. Foreman, PhD., associate professor of political science at Barry University, adds. “On the contrary, most pictures of Obama showed him smiling and highlighted his youthful and even baby-faced appearance.” 

However, Maoz, added publicly, a baby face may not always curry favor with everyone. "Although features of this type can lend politicians an aura of sincerity, openness and receptiveness, at the same time they can communicate a lack of assertiveness,” she explained. “So people tend to prefer baby-faced politicians as long they represent the opposing side, while on their own side they prefer representatives who look like they know how to stand their ground."  

When researchers examined respondents’ pre-existing attitudes, hawkish respondents—those with more negative feelings about Palestinians and the peace process—experienced more significant results than did their dovish counterparts. While hawkish attitudes tend to be more resistant to change, these respondents showed a more significant response to changes in facial features than did the doves.

”Invariably, when groups are in conflict with one another, they rarely, if ever try and humanize their opponents,” Alexander says. “Instead, they seek to dehumanize them—sometimes conflating them with animals. The face of the enemy is often, in fact, subhuman.”

Seeing a baby face may have affected hawks more acutely because the opposing politician was now universally humanized. “When we see our opponents more like ourselves, we are more open to reconciliation or steps toward peace,” he adds. “Of course, the irony is that isn't what we see in the real world. In the real world, quite the opposite most often occurs.” The U.S. has seen its share of how appearance matters in shaping voter perceptions, Foreman says. 

Citing a “classic example,” Foreman says candidates’ looks played a key role in the 1960 presidential debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. 

“Nixon refused to put on make-up as it was not a ‘manly’ thing to do. Meanwhile Kennedy was younger and fresh-faced, well-rested and even sun-tanned and used make-up,” Foreman explains.  

Even on black and white television, he adds, people noted the marked differences in the candidates’ appearances.  

“Studies have been done since then and people who only listen to the debate think that Nixon won while those who watch it believe Kennedy was the victor,” Foreman says. “Clearly their facial images and visual projections shaped people’s opinions and levels of trust in each politician.” 

The Israeli study—and the Kennedy/Nixon example—highlight the power of the medium over the message. 

“How something is conveyed may be more important that what is conveyed,” Alexander states. In our fast-paced world of ‘telegenic technology,’ this has many implications. People could simply be turning you off due to your appearance or conversely more apt to listen to you because of your appearance. While some of this can be manipulated, much of it cannot.” 

Finally, he concludes, this dynamic “speaks to the power of the media. What they choose to focus their attention on matters a great deal to how people see the world.” As cited in the examples of Obama and McCain, this shows that the media has more power to shape public opinion of politicians than many realize.  

“This is different from the role of the media as an objective purveyor of facts,” Alexander states.