Sherry Chandler

I have no idea what to make of this

The Washington Post and the Stanford University Political Communication Lab have collaborated on a study to test whether familiar facial features increases the likeability of a political candidate.

To do this, they took a pair of relatively unknown members of the U.S. House of Representatives – Ed Case of Hawaii and Mary Bono of California (I got my first shock right there. Who knew Mary Bono was still in Congress?) – and morphed their features to make them look more like more famous pols – Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Rudolph Giuliani, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, and Evan Bayh. These morphed candidates were given the name Paul or Paula Vaughn and fake bios that varied somewhat. For eample, sometimes the candidate was Democrat, sometime Republican. The result:

“No matter the gender or party affiliation of the candidate, changing the composition of the face from 20 percent Clinton to 40 percent Clinton is a significant plus,” Iyengar found. “Moreover, the effect occurs across different types of voters — men and women, Democrats, independents and even Republicans.”

But the more candidate Vaughn looked like McCain, the more likability dropped. And it wasn’t a “Beauty and the Beast” effect, though McCain’s age may have played a role. The morphs of Hutchison, a former University of Texas cheerleader, didn’t move the needle significantly. Nor did the morphs of the good-looking Bayh or Giuliani, who most agree must be content with inner beauty.

“But even when we limit the analysis to the Republicans,” Iyengar said, “the degree of similarity to Giuliani or McCain does nothing for Vaughn’s support, suggesting there’s something special about Hillary Clinton.”

The full report can be read here.

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